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, team check-ins and recurring team health checks, with deep backlog sync to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear, recurring meeting series, Zoom and Google Meet transcript capture, a scoped GraphQL API, and a built-in knowledge base (Pages) that auto-publishes every meeting summary and runs AI queries across past retros.
Full review →
SprintRetro
5.8Jira-native retros with real sprint data
SprintRetro is an Atlassian Forge app from Agile Pulse that runs sprint retrospectives inside Jira Cloud. It pulls live sprint metrics (velocity and predictability, scope change, carryover, cycle time, second-by-second burndown) into the retro board itself. A major June 2026 release widened it into a continuous-improvement workspace: an infinite whiteboard with visual templates, anonymous team-health pulse checks with cross-sprint trends, an on-demand AI facilitator, and an action dashboard that quality-scores every action. Both Marketplace listings are Cloud Fortified. The free app still covers unlimited users, but a paid Pro app now carries custom templates, unlimited grouping and AI sprint summaries.
Full review →Summary
Parabol scores 7.4 overall and is best for distributed agile teams that want one open-source tool for retros, poker and team health checks. It offers a free tier.
SprintRetro scores 5.8 overall and is best for scrum teams already living in Jira Cloud who want retros, a whiteboard and real sprint metrics on one board — and are happy for everything to stay inside Jira's walls. It offers a free tier.
Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade. SprintRetro leads on value and fun factor.
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 | SprintRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Category | All-in-One Agile | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Any | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries per team | Unlimited users on a Jira site, but capped: 3 basic templates, no custom template creation, limited polls and card grouping, no AI sprint summary. Vendor has published planned caps of ~3–5 sessions/month and under 8 participants per session. |
| Starting price | $8/active user/mo | $8.40/user/yr billed annually ($0.84/user/mo billed monthly) — SprintRetro Pro; free on Jira sites of 10 or fewer users |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo | $17.50/mo (Pro, $210/yr at the 25-user Jira tier; $20.16/mo billed monthly) — the free app also still covers 24 users |
| Enterprise | Yes | No |
| Founded | 2015 | — |
| HQ | Remote (San Diego, CA) | Waterlooville, United Kingdom |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Self-hosted | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | CSV · Email | Image · PDF · Jira |
| Features | 54 | 38 |
| Integrations | 8 | 1 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Parabol | SprintRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | — |
| Whiteboard | — | ✓ |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | — | ✓ |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓ | — |
| Team Kudos | — | ✓ |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓note | ✓ |
| AI action items | — | ✓ |
| AI Summaries | ✓note | ✓note |
| Team Insights | ✓note | ✓note |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | — |
| Action dashboard | ✓ | ✓note |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | ✓ | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓note | — |
| GitHub | ✓ | — |
| GitLab | ✓ | — |
| Jira | ✓ | ✓ |
| Linear | ✓ | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | — |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | — |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | — |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | ✓note | — |
| Public API | ✓ | — |
| Webhooks | ✓note | — |
| MCP server | — | — |
Parabol — pros
- + Open source (AGPL-3.0) with Docker/Kubernetes self-host, on-prem and air-gapped deployment, plus a DoD Iron Bank hardened container (IL4 via Platform One, IL5 via Arcus)
- + 40+ meeting templates plus poker, 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 threads, and a public GraphQL API with scoped personal access tokens, both on <em>every</em> plan
- + Recurring retro series with a real recurrence rule and Google Calendar sync, plus an opt-in facilitator rotation queue
Parabol — cons
- − Free Starter capped at 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history and 3 AI summaries per team; AI grouping and Team Health need the paid Team tier
- − No native whiteboard, presentation mode or screen-share mode
- − Team Health, as of Oct 2026: 5 Likert questions per check across 5 fixed categories, trend limited to the last five checks in one series (no standalone history view), org-wide reporting still "coming soon", no export of health scores
- − Webhooks stop at Mattermost/MS Teams notification URLs — no general event subscriptions and no MCP server
- − English-only UI; no Trello, Asana, ClickUp or Notion integration
SprintRetro — pros
- + <strong>Real Jira sprint data inside the retro</strong> — velocity and predictability over five sprints, scope change, carryover tagged with how many sprints an issue has slipped, cycle time per status, and a burndown that records every individual point change
- + The action loop is the best part: actions link back to the idea that triggered them, carry forward with duplicate protection, get an AI SMART quality score with a one-tap rewrite, and can be pushed into Jira as issues
- + June 2026 added a genuine infinite whiteboard — stickies, shapes, frames, tables, connectors, live cursors, follow-a-teammate, Tenor GIFs, private mode, a synced board timer, PNG/print-PDF export, and <em>board import from Miro or Mural</em>
- + Anonymous Team Health pulses across seven dimensions, with cross-sprint trends overlaid against committed-vs-delivered and carryover — the health-vs-delivery view is rare at this price
- + <strong>Cloud Fortified</strong> and Bugcrowd bug-bounty on both listings, and the free app still covers unlimited users on a Jira site
SprintRetro — cons
- − Jira Cloud only — every participant needs a Jira licence, and there is no Slack, Teams, Confluence or standalone web app, nor any public API, webhooks or MCP server
- − <em>The free tier is narrowing.</em> Today: 3 basic templates, no custom template creation, limited polls and grouping, no AI sprint summary. Published as planned: ~3–5 sessions/month and under 8 participants per session
- − No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 of its own — the trust centre's own entries attribute both to AWS, Atlassian Cloud and Render, not to an Agile Pulse audit. No SCIM, audit logs or data residency, and the app is not "Runs on Atlassian" certified
- − No async mode, no recurring or scheduled retros, and no cross-team or org-level health rollup — the Pro usage report covers adoption, not outcomes
- − Export is whiteboard-only (PNG or print-to-PDF); column-mode retros still have no board export beyond pushing an action into Jira
Keep comparing
Other Parabol comparisons
Other SprintRetro comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.