FigJam
7.3Figma's whiteboard with AI sticky clustering, an official MCP server that reaches FigJam boards, and a $3 Collab seat — free tier caps at 3 boards
FigJam is the whiteboard product inside Figma — sticky notes, timer, music, expressive cursor stamps, voting sessions, an AI co-pilot that sorts and summarises stickies, and 300+ ready-made templates including community retro boards. Design and product teams already living in Figma get retros without buying a second tool, backed by Figma's SAML/SCIM, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and Enterprise data residency in the EU, Australia, India and Brazil. Figma's official MCP server reads and writes FigJam boards on every plan, including free. Voting sessions, open guest sessions, audio chat and webhooks all require a paid team; publishing custom templates requires Organization.
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
FigJam scores 7.3 overall and is best for design and product teams already on Figma who want retros on the same platform as their design files, with playful engagement, AI sticky clustering and an agent-accessible canvas. 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.
FigJam leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade. IdeaBoardz leads on value.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, FigJam edges ahead with an overall score of 7.3. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | FigJam | IdeaBoardz |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Whiteboard | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Mid-market | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Starter: 3 FigJam files per team (unlimited personal drafts), 150 AI credits/day up to 500/month, 300+ templates, timer, music, AI Sort/Summarize/Generate, REST API and 20 MCP tool calls/month, 30-day version history — no voting sessions, audio chat, open (no-account) sessions or webhooks | Fully free, no paid tier |
| Starting price | $3/user/mo | Free |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $72/mo (24 Collab seats × $3, billed annually; $120/mo billed monthly at $5) — more if facilitators need $16 Full seats | Free (no paid tier) |
| Enterprise | Yes | No |
| Founded | 2012 | 2010 |
| HQ | San Francisco, US | Pune, India |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Australia · IN · BR | — |
| Languages | 7 (English, Japanese, Korean, …) | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · Image · CSV | PDF · Excel |
| Features | 40 | 10 |
| Integrations | 10 | 0 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | FigJam | IdeaBoardz |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | — | ✓ |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Action tracking | — | — |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | ✓ | — |
| Independent voting | ✓note | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓ | — |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓note | — |
| Team Kudos | ✓note | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓ | — |
| AI action items | ✓note | — |
| AI Summaries | ✓ | — |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | ✓ | — |
| Action dashboard | — | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | ✓note | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓note | — |
| GitHub | ✓note | — |
| GitLab | — | — |
| Jira | ✓note | — |
| Linear | ✓note | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓note | — |
| Monday.com | ✓note | — |
| Notion | ✓note | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓note | — |
| Trello | ✓note | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | — |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | — |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | — |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓note |
| Webhooks | ✓ | — |
| MCP server | ✓ | — |
FigJam — pros
- + Cheap $3/user/mo Collab seat unlocks unlimited boards without a full Figma editor seat
- + Free Starter tier includes real AI credits (150/day, 500/month), 300+ templates, the timer, music and AI Sort/Summarize
- + Playful, engaging UX — stamps, emotes, high-fives, music, cursor chat — lifts retro fun factor
- + Best open platform of any whiteboard here: REST API on every plan, webhooks on paid, and an <strong>official MCP server that reads and writes FigJam boards</strong> on all plans
- + Strong enterprise posture inherited from Figma: SAML, SCIM, activity logs, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and Enterprise data residency in the EU, Australia, India and Brazil
FigJam — cons
- − No native action-item tracking, recurring retros or health checks
- − Anonymity is weak — votes reveal who voted once the session ends, and stickies always carry a name
- − Official connectors embed Figma files in Jira/Confluence/Linear/Notion rather than pushing action items out; GitHub-issue creation is a community widget; no Azure DevOps
- − Free Starter caps a team at 3 FigJam files and excludes voting, audio chat, no-account guest links and webhooks; publishing custom templates needs Organization
- − Built primarily for designers — the canvas paradigm is fiddly for structured retros, and large boards get sluggish
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
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.