Parabol
7.4Open-source agile meetings for retros, poker, standups and check-ins
Parabol is an open-source agile meeting platform spanning retrospectives, sprint poker, async standups, team check-ins and lightweight team health, with deep backlog sync to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear, recurring meeting series, and a built-in knowledge base (Pages) that auto-publishes every meeting summary and runs AI queries across past retros.
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ScatterSpoke
6.3AI copilot for team feedback
ScatterSpoke is an AI feedback platform that turns retrospectives, standups and surveys into themes, sentiment and prioritised action items — and, since ScatterSpoke 3.0, exposes the whole survey lifecycle to AI agents over an official MCP server.
Full review →Summary
Parabol scores 7.4 overall and is best for distributed agile teams that want one open-source tool for retros, poker, standups and lightweight team health. It offers a free tier.
ScatterSpoke scores 6.3 overall and is best for engineering orgs in Jira/Slack that want AI synthesis across many retros — or agent builders who need a survey backend over MCP. It offers a free tier.
Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, value, fun factor, integrations and enterprise-grade. ScatterSpoke leads on AI & insights and open platform.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, Parabol edges ahead with an overall score of 7.4. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | Parabol | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Category | All-in-One Agile | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Any | Mid-market |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries/month | 1 seat, unlimited static surveys and responses, 10 Agent Surveys and 50 Ask credits (one-time), basic signal detection, MCP access, social logins |
| Starting price | $8/active user/mo | $29/user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo | $814/mo on Business (includes 5 seats; 19 extra seats at $35/seat/mo) |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2015 | 2019 |
| HQ | Remote (San Diego, CA) | USA |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Self-hosted | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | CSV · Email | PDF · CSV · Email · Jira · Confluence |
| Features | 46 | 38 |
| Integrations | 7 | 4 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Parabol | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | ✓note | ✓ |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓note | ✓ |
| AI action items | — | ✓ |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Team Insights | ✓note | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action dashboard | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agile Estimations | ✓ | — |
| Health Checks | ✓note | ✓note |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | ✓ | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | ✓ | — |
| GitLab | ✓ | — |
| Jira | ✓ | ✓ |
| Linear | ✓ | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trello | — | ✓note |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | ✓note |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | ✓note | — |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓note |
| Webhooks | ✓note | ✓note |
| MCP server | — | ✓ |
Parabol — pros
- + Open source (AGPL-3.0) with Docker/Kubernetes self-host, on-prem and air-gapped deployment
- + 40+ retro templates plus poker, standups, check-ins and team health in one tool
- + Strong backlog write-back to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear
- + CSV export of reflections, groups, votes and discussion threads on <em>every</em> tier
- + Recurring retro series with a real recurrence rule and Google Calendar sync
- + DoD Iron Bank hardened container, cleared to IL4 via Platform One
Parabol — cons
- − Free tier capped at 10 meetings/month, 30-day history and 3 AI summaries
- − No native whiteboard, presentation mode or screen-share mode
- − Health-check is a single emoji poll — no custom radars or trend dashboards
- − AI grouping and team health checks need the paid Team tier; Pages Insights needs org-level enablement
- − Webhooks stop at Mattermost/MS Teams notification URLs — no general event subscriptions and no MCP server
- − No Confluence, Trello or multi-language support
ScatterSpoke — pros
- + Official MCP server on every tier, including Free — agents can create, distribute and query surveys
- + AI theme extraction, issue detection, sentiment over time and adaptive AI-moderated interviews
- + SOC 2 Type II since launch, with annual penetration testing
- + 20+ retro formats, guided phases, and cross-team/program rollups
ScatterSpoke — cons
- − $814/mo for 3 teams of 8 on Business — 5 seats included, then $35/seat
- − Free tier is a single seat, so it can no longer run a team retro
- − No dedicated health-check model, team radars or psychological-safety survey
- − Integrations stop at Jira, Slack and Teams — no GitHub, Azure DevOps or Linear
- − The 3.0 pricing tiers never mention retrospectives; help-centre release notes stop at Sept 2024
Keep comparing
Other Parabol comparisons
Other ScatterSpoke comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.