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 →
Metro Retro
3.0Rebranded twice — Metro Retro became Ludi, now Spreo; the playful retro whiteboard lives on
Metro Retro was a fun, freeform online whiteboard built for sprint retrospectives, known for its playful templates, timer and engagement features. The product has since been renamed twice by its maker, Deqo Software Limited: to Ludi on 4 August 2025, then to Spreo on 1 July 2026 after a trademark cease-and-desist. The metroretro.io domain now 301-redirects straight to spreo.io. If you are searching for Metro Retro, the product you want is Spreo; the original Metro Retro brand and domain are no longer maintained.
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.
Metro Retro scores 3.0 overall and is best for searchers who remember Metro Retro and need to know where it went — the product now ships as <strong>Spreo</strong>. Go there, or to a dedicated retro platform, instead. It offers custom pricing.
IdeaBoardz leads on ease of use, value and open platform. Metro Retro leads on retro toolkit, fun factor, integrations and enterprise-grade.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, IdeaBoardz edges ahead with an overall score of 3.1. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | IdeaBoardz | Metro Retro |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Whiteboard |
| Team size | Small | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | |
| Starting price | Free | Free |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Free (no paid tier) | N/A — brand retired; see the Spreo listing |
| Enterprise | No | No |
| Founded | 2010 | — |
| HQ | Pune, India | United Kingdom |
| Data residency | — | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · Excel | PDF · CSV · HTML · Markdown · JSON · Jira |
| Features | 10 | 7 |
| Integrations | 0 | 0 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | Metro Retro |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | — | — |
| 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 | — | — |
| SCIM provisioning | — | — |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓note | — |
| Webhooks | — | — |
| MCP server | — | — |
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
Metro Retro — pros
- + The product you remember still exists — it now ships as Spreo (Metro Retro → Ludi, 4 Aug 2025 → Spreo, 1 Jul 2026)
- + The vendor says accounts, boards, data and workflows carried through both renames, and old links redirect
- + Carried its playful templates, session timer and icebreakers into the rebrand
- + Freeform whiteboard canvas that's friendly for engagement-first retros
Metro Retro — cons
- − The Metro Retro brand and metroretro.io domain are retired — the domain 301-redirects straight to spreo.io
- − Two name changes in under a year (Metro Retro → Ludi → Spreo) leave stranded searchers chasing a moving target; bookmarks, runbooks and SSO configs all need updating
- − No standalone free tier under the new brand — a 30-day trial, then paid
- − Neither old domain is a clean redirect everywhere: metroretro.io/pricing and ludi.co/pricing both return HTTP 200 with a stale Spreo <em>Non-prod environment</em> stub instead of forwarding (checked 1 Sep 2026)
Keep comparing
Other IdeaBoardz comparisons
Other Metro Retro comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.