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 →
ScatterSpoke
5.7AI copilot for team feedback
ScatterSpoke was rebuilt from scratch as v3 in August 2026: retro boards, static and agent-run surveys, a Signals engine that detects morale, burnout and psychological-safety patterns in feedback text, and an Ask layer that answers questions with cited evidence. An official OAuth MCP server is included on every tier, including Free.
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.
ScatterSpoke scores 5.7 overall and is best for engineering orgs that want AI to synthesise feedback across many teams and surveys — and agent builders who need a survey backend over MCP. It offers a free tier.
IdeaBoardz leads on value. ScatterSpoke leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, ScatterSpoke edges ahead with an overall score of 5.7. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | IdeaBoardz | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Small | Mid-market |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | 1 seat; unlimited static surveys and responses; 10 Agent Surveys and 50 Ask queries one-time; 5 of 15 signal rules; MCP connection but no reading results over it |
| Starting price | Free | $29/user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Free (no paid tier) | $814/mo on Business (includes 5 seats; 19 extra seats at $35/seat/mo) — Pro is capped at 5 seats |
| Enterprise | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2010 | 2019 |
| HQ | Pune, India | USA |
| Data residency | — | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · Excel | CSV · PDF |
| Features | 10 | 46 |
| Integrations | 0 | 3 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | — | ✓note |
| Action tracking | — | ✓note |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | — | ✓note |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | — | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓note |
| AI action items | — | ✓note |
| AI Summaries | — | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | ✓ |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | ✓ |
| Action dashboard | — | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | — | — |
| GitLab | — | — |
| Jira | — | ✓note |
| Linear | — | — |
| Microsoft Teams | — | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | — | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓note |
| GDPR | — | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | — | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | — | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓note | ✓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
ScatterSpoke — pros
- + Official MCP server on every tier including Free — OAuth, no API keys to mint; reading results is where the paid line sits
- + Signals engine with fifteen built-in rules and a detect-then-critique pass before anything is recorded
- + Ask names the survey or retro behind every answer, and cross-retro theme trends ship on paid plans
- + Unusually precise public docs — a per-tier entitlement table that names exactly what each plan gates
- + Guest join by verified email or open link, and guests never consume a seat
ScatterSpoke — cons
- − $814/mo for 3 teams of 8 on Business (5 seats included, then $35/seat); Free is a single seat
- − <strong>Action items are no longer part of the v3 retro flow</strong> — the Review phase records outcomes as card comments
- − Manual grouping was removed; clustering is AI-only and board columns are fixed at creation
- − The v3 integration entitlement covers only Slack, Teams and email — no Jira, GitHub or Azure DevOps setup is documented
- − One CSV export from a closed retro; audit logs, data retention and org-wide AI are Enterprise-only
Keep comparing
Other IdeaBoardz comparisons
Other ScatterSpoke comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.