Retrospective Tools

Spreo vs NimbleRetro

A side-by-side look at scores, pricing, features and integrations to help you pick the right retrospective tool.

Spreo logo

Spreo

5.9

Playful collaborative whiteboard for agile teams

Spreo (formerly Metro Retro, then Ludi — renamed Spreo on 1 July 2026 after a US trademark cease-and-desist) is a visual agile collaboration whiteboard with 100+ templates spanning retros, planning poker, icebreakers and futurespectives. Its illustrated canvas and board gadgets — a shared Jukebox music player, timers, spinners, buzzers, confetti, throwable hats — make ceremonies feel engaging. An official MCP server (beta) and a signed-in HTTP API landed during 2026, but Jira, SSO and PDF export all require the $6/user Business plan, and in-product AI stops at beta sticky-note clustering.

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NimbleRetro logo

NimbleRetro

3.8

Time-boxed retros with 5-Why root cause analysis

NimbleRetro is the retrospective module inside NimbleWork's broader Nimble agile platform. It runs a time-boxed retro through Icebreaker, Ideate, Group, Vote, Discuss and Feedback stages, ending in a 5-Why root cause drill-down on whatever the team voted up. Action items created in the Discuss stage convert directly into Nimble work items (user stories, cards) in the project the retro was created from. There is no separate purchase — Retrospectives ship to every Public SaaS Nimble account by default.

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Summary

Spreo scores 5.9 overall and is best for agile teams who want retros, planning and workshops to feel visual and fun on a Jira backlog, and who would get real value from driving boards with an AI assistant over MCP — budget for the Business plan, which is where Jira, SSO and PDF export actually live. It offers paid plans from $4/user/mo billed annually ($5 monthly).

NimbleRetro scores 3.8 overall and is best for small agile teams already inside the Nimble suite that want a structured, time-boxed retro ending in a real root cause analysis, with the follow-up landing in the same backlog they already work from. It offers paid plans from $15/mo (up to 20 users).

Spreo leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, value, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations and open platform. NimbleRetro leads on enterprise-grade.

Across our eight scoring dimensions, Spreo edges ahead with an overall score of 5.9. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.

Scores compared

Spreo
Ease of Use8.5
Retro Toolkit6.5
Value7.0
Fun Factor9.0
AI & Insights3.0
Integrations3.0
Open Platform6.0
Enterprise-grade4.5
NimbleRetro
Ease of Use5.5
Retro Toolkit4.0
Value5.0
Fun Factor3.0
AI & Insights0.0
Integrations2.0
Open Platform5.0
Enterprise-grade5.5
DetailSpreoNimbleRetro
CategoryRetrospectivesRetrospectives
Team sizeSmallSmall
Free tierNoNo
Free limit30-day free trial; boards become read-only when the trial expiresFree trial only; no permanent free tier published for the retro module. A $0 Nimble suite plan (10 users / 10 projects) appears in a secondary table on the suite pricing page, but Retrospectives appear neither there nor in the suite's full feature-comparison table
Starting price$4/user/mo billed annually ($5 monthly)$15/mo (up to 20 users)
Est. 3 teams × 8 people$144/mo billed annually (Business — 24 x $6; Starter's $96/mo covers only one shared team space)$240/mo (24 users x $10/user/mo Nimble Team tier); NimbleRetro's own $15/mo plan caps at 20 users and no larger standalone tier is published
EnterpriseYesYes
Founded20192002
HQUKCupertino, CA, United States
Data residencyEuropean UnionUnited States · European Union
LanguagesEnglish onlyEnglish only
Export formatsPDF · CSV · HTML · Markdown · JSON · Jira
Features4419
Integrations14

Feature & integration comparison

Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.

CapabilitySpreoNimbleRetro
Features
Custom templates
Anonymous inputnote
Health Checks
Action tracking
Async mode
Whiteboard
Independent voting
Pollingnote
Icebreaker games
Agile Estimations
Team Kudosnote
AI grouping/clusteringnote
AI action items
AI Summariesnote
Team Insights
In-meeting AI assistant
Action dashboardnotenote
Integrations
Asana
Azure DevOps
Basecamp
ClickUp
Confluence
GitHubnote
GitLabnote
Jiranote
Linear
Microsoft Teamsnote
Monday.com
Notion
Shortcut
Slacknote
Trello
Security & Privacy
SOC 2notenote
GDPR
SSO / SAMLnotenote
SCIM provisioning
ISO 27001note
On-premisesnote
Public APInotenote
Webhooksnote
MCP servernotenote

Spreo — pros

  • + Genuinely delightful, illustrated UI that energises in-person and remote retros
  • + Broad template library (100+) covering retros, icebreakers, planning poker, futurespectives, planning and estimation
  • + Deep gadget shelf that actually serves the session: shared Jukebox music player, timers, spinners, buzzers, confetti, throwable hats
  • + Official MCP server (beta) lets Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot read, build and edit boards under your own permissions, with an account-level kill switch and a connected-members list for admins
  • + Fully configurable voting rounds — votes per person, duplicate votes, and voting on topics as well as individual stickies
  • + Solid two-way Jira integration: backlog refinement, story points and issue creation in-board
  • + Hide Identities host control makes writing <em>and</em> voting permanently anonymous, toggleable per activity
  • + EU-hosted (Amsterdam) and GDPR-aligned (SOC 2 / ISO 27001 sit at the Digital Ocean infrastructure layer, not Spreo)

Spreo — cons

  • No async retro mode, no recurring or scheduled retros
  • No team health check or longitudinal pulse product; mood/radar work via whiteboard templates only
  • Integrations limited to Jira — no Slack, Teams, Confluence, GitHub, Linear or Azure DevOps
  • <strong>Jira, SSO and PDF export all start at the $6/user Business plan</strong>, so the $4 Starter headline is misleading past a single team space
  • In-product AI limited to beta sticky-note clustering — no summaries, action-item extraction, sentiment or coaching; MCP moves the AI into your own assistant rather than the board
  • The HTTP API has no public reference — you need a Spreo login to see what it does, which makes it hard to evaluate before buying
  • No ongoing free plan; expired trials pause to read-only
  • Desktop and laptop only — the vendor states Spreo runs on <em>"all desktop and laptop devices"</em>, with no mobile or tablet support
  • Two renames in under a year leave the review trail split across three names — G2 files it under <em>Ludi</em>, Capterra and Product Hunt under <em>Metro Retro</em>

NimbleRetro — pros

  • + 5-Why root cause analysis is a <em>built-in retro stage</em>, not an afterthought — almost no other retro tool ships one
  • + Anonymous voting plus a facilitator-set timer on every stage keeps a 60-minute retro on the rails
  • + Action items convert directly into Nimble work items, so follow-up lands in the same backlog the team already works from
  • + Included by default in every Public SaaS Nimble account — no separate purchase, no tier upgrade, available to all user roles
  • + NimbleWork runs annual SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 audits, supports SAMLv2/ADFSv3 SSO, and publishes a separate EU data region

NimbleRetro — cons

  • The dedicated NimbleRetro iOS and Android apps have been delisted from both the App Store and Google Play, while the product pages still advertise them
  • No health checks, no recurring retros, no async mode, and no documented export of a retro board in any format
  • The platform surface — REST API, outgoing webhooks and the new Nimble MCP server — reaches Nimble cards only; none of it touches a retro, and no AI runs on retro data despite the Retrium comparison page ticking <em>Generative AI</em>
  • Participants are limited to members of the Nimble project the retro was created from, and the module is unavailable outside Public SaaS
  • No rate card: the only NimbleRetro-specific price NimbleWork publishes ($15/mo for up to 20 users) sits on a blog post, and the retro 'pricing' page is a product page with a demo form

Keep comparing

Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.