Echometer
5.3Psychology-backed retros and team health checks for engineering teams
Echometer is a German retrospective, health-check and 1:1 meeting platform built around recurring pulse surveys, structured retros and longitudinal team development tracking. It pitches itself to busy team leads — engineering managers, scrum masters and agile coaches — who want research-grounded question libraries rather than a blank whiteboard.
Full review →
IdeaBoardz
3.1Free shared brainstorming boards
IdeaBoardz is a long-standing free brainstorming and retrospective board: pick one of five presets (Retrospective, Star Fish, Six Thinking Hats, Pros and Cons, Todos) or name your own 1-10 sections, share the URL, add ideas anonymously, upvote, and export to PDF or Excel. The app still works and is still in daily use, but development stopped years ago — the public source repository's last feature commits date to April 2020 and the Terms have not been revised since.
Full review →Summary
Echometer scores 5.3 overall and is best for engineering managers and agile coaches who want recurring health-check pulses tied to retros, with EU data residency and a research-flavoured question library. It offers a free tier.
IdeaBoardz scores 3.1 overall and is best for throwaway retros and quick distributed brainstorms when nobody wants to sign up. It offers a free tier.
Echometer leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations and enterprise-grade. IdeaBoardz leads on value and open platform.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, Echometer edges ahead with an overall score of 5.3. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | Echometer | IdeaBoardz |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Mid-market | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Starter: 1 team, 25 workspace members, unlimited retro guests, 1 retro/month after trial, 2-retro archive per team | Fully free, no paid tier |
| Starting price | €29/team/mo | Free |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | €87/mo billed annually (3 teams × €29 Pro) | Free (no paid tier) |
| Enterprise | Yes | No |
| Founded | 2019 | 2010 |
| HQ | Münster, Germany | Pune, India |
| Data residency | Germany | — |
| Languages | 2 (English, German) | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · Markdown · Email | PDF · Excel |
| Features | 44 | 10 |
| Integrations | 1 | 0 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Echometer | IdeaBoardz |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓ | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓ | — |
| Action tracking | ✓ | — |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | ✓ | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓ | — |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | — | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | — |
| AI action items | ✓note | — |
| AI Summaries | — | — |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | — |
| Action dashboard | ✓ | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | — | — |
| GitLab | — | — |
| Jira | ✓ | — |
| Linear | — | — |
| Microsoft Teams | — | — |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | — | — |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | — |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | — |
| SCIM provisioning | — | — |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | — | ✓note |
| Webhooks | — | — |
| MCP server | — | — |
Echometer — pros
- + 200+ research-grounded health-check items, custom models and auto-scheduled pulse surveys
- + Longitudinal team radars, heatmaps and a cross-team workspace dashboard tied to retros
- + German-only hosting (Open Telekom Cloud, Magdeburg/Biere) with a GDPR data processing agreement
- + Open actions resurface automatically in the next retro, with owner email reminders and one-click push to Jira
- + Per-team, not per-seat, pricing — €87/mo covers three teams of eight, billed annually
Echometer — cons
- − Integrations stop at Jira — no Slack, Teams, Confluence or Linear
- − No public API or webhooks; export is PDF, Markdown and an emailed recap
- − No SOC 2 — the ISO 27001 certificate covers the datacenter, not Echometer itself
- − Retro-side AI is one function: suggested measures. No clustering, no AI session summary
- − No scheduled or recurring retros — you copy a past format and start each session manually
IdeaBoardz — pros
- + Genuinely free — no paywall, no paid tier, no trial clock
- + No signup required to participate — just share the URL
- + Five one-click presets (Retrospective, Star Fish, Six Thinking Hats, Pros and Cons, Todos), or type your own 1-10 section titles
- + Drag one sticky onto another to merge them; the votes are added together
- + PDF and Excel export on every board, plus a working phone view
IdeaBoardz — cons
- − The presets only pre-fill column titles — there is no timer, no phases and no facilitator flow behind them
- − No action-item tracking, no owners, no due dates, no carry-over between boards
- − Unlimited anonymous upvotes with no per-person vote budget
- − Zero integrations, no SSO, no SOC 2 and no published privacy policy — the URL is the only access control
- − No product work since April 2020; support is a Gmail address and a Twitter handle
Keep comparing
Other Echometer comparisons
Other IdeaBoardz comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.