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.
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Lucidspark
6.4Lucid Software's whiteboard with the Lucid AI assistant and tight Lucidchart integration — voting, timers and facilitator tools start at the Team tier
Lucidspark is the whiteboard product from Lucid Software (makers of Lucidchart) — an infinite canvas with sticky notes, private-mode brainstorming, anonymous voting sessions, timers, the Lucid AI assistant (prompt-to-board, magic sort, board summaries) and bidirectional sync with Lucidchart for diagrams. Free and Individual get static dot voting only; the timer, private voting and facilitator tools start at the Team tier, and Breakout Boards plus the Lucid Cards sync to Jira/Azure DevOps/monday.com are Enterprise-only. Strong enterprise posture inherited from Lucid: SSO/SAML, SCIM, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001/27701/42001, FedRAMP Moderate, IRAP PROTECTED, GDPR, and US/EU/AU data residency.
Full review →Summary
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.
Lucidspark scores 6.4 overall and is best for engineering and PM teams already on Lucidchart who want sticky-note retros and brainstorming on the same platform — and whose security review favours a SOC 2 / ISO 27001 vendor. It offers a free tier.
IdeaBoardz leads on value. Lucidspark leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, Lucidspark edges ahead with an overall score of 6.4. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | IdeaBoardz | Lucidspark |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Whiteboard |
| Team size | Small | Mid-market |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | 3 editable boards, unlimited shapes per board, basic Visual Activities, presentation mode, Lucid AI and static dot voting — no timer, private voting or facilitator tools |
| Starting price | Free | $9/user/mo (Individual, billed annually) |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Free (no paid tier) | $240/mo (Team plan, 24 users at $10/user billed annually) |
| Enterprise | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2010 | 2010 |
| HQ | Pune, India | South Jordan, US |
| Data residency | — | United States · European Union · Australia |
| Languages | English only | 12 (English, German, Spanish, …) |
| Export formats | PDF · Excel | Image · PDF · CSV · JSON |
| Features | 10 | 39 |
| Integrations | 0 | 8 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | Lucidspark |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓note |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Action tracking | — | ✓note |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | — | ✓ |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓note |
| Polling | — | ✓ |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | — | ✓note |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓ |
| AI action items | — | — |
| AI Summaries | — | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | ✓note |
| Action dashboard | — | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | ✓note |
| Azure DevOps | — | ✓note |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | ✓note |
| GitHub | — | — |
| GitLab | — | — |
| Jira | — | ✓note |
| Linear | — | — |
| Microsoft Teams | — | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | ✓note |
| Notion | — | ✓note |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | — | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ |
| GDPR | — | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | — | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | — | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | ✓ |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓note | ✓note |
| Webhooks | — | — |
| MCP server | — | ✓note |
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
Lucidspark — pros
- + Tight integration with Lucidchart — switch between diagram and whiteboard on the same canvas
- + <em>Private mode</em> works on every plan, free included: it hides sticky note contents and authors, and the facilitator can keep authors hidden permanently
- + Strong enterprise posture: SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001/27701/42001, FedRAMP Moderate, IRAP PROTECTED, PCI DSS, GDPR, SSO/SAML, SCIM, US/EU/AU data residency
- + Official Lucid MCP server is GA on every plan and shipping monthly — search boards, summarise them, generate synced Jira cards from Claude or ChatGPT
- + Lucid AI is included on every tier today, free plan included
Lucidspark — cons
- − Timer, private voting and facilitator tools start at the $10/user Team tier — Free and Individual get static dot voting and nothing else facilitator-shaped
- − Breakout Boards and the Lucid Cards sync to Jira, Azure DevOps and monday.com are Enterprise-only; audit logs need the paid Enterprise Shield add-on on top of Enterprise
- − No health checks, recurring retros, action carryover or cross-team rollup
- − AI is general brainstorming/summarising, not retro-aware — no sentiment, action-item extraction or trend insight across retros
- − Retro template depth trails Miro and Mural; the REST API needs a Team or Enterprise account and there are no outbound webhooks
Keep comparing
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See alternatives
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.