Retrospective Tools

Spreo vs RetroFlow

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.

Full review →
RetroFlow logo

RetroFlow

3.4

Your team's favourite way to retro

RetroFlow is a free, no-signup retrospective board built by solo developer Prashant Meena, with colourful boards, real-time collaboration, 11 ready-made templates plus a custom board builder, anonymous feedback, unrestricted upvoting, drag-to-move between columns, action items and PDF/Excel export. Participants join a shared link in one click with no account; the whole product is free with no paid tiers or locked features. The board is desktop-only — any viewport under 768px is blocked outright.

Full review →

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).

RetroFlow scores 3.4 overall and is best for small or ad-hoc teams on laptops who want a genuinely free, zero-friction retro board they can share with one link — no signup, no payment and no setup, accepting that there is no timer, no phone support, no integrations, no AI and no enterprise controls. It offers a free tier.

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

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
RetroFlow
Ease of Use8.0
Retro Toolkit4.0
Value9.0
Fun Factor4.5
AI & Insights0.0
Integrations0.0
Open Platform1.0
Enterprise-grade1.0
DetailSpreoRetroFlow
CategoryRetrospectivesRetrospectives
Team sizeSmallSmall
Free tierNoYes
Free limit30-day free trial; boards become read-only when the trial expiresEverything is free — all 11 templates, custom boards, saved layouts, real-time collaboration, anonymous feedback, unlimited upvoting, action items and PDF/Excel export, with no account required to join a board and no paid tier to upgrade to
Starting price$4/user/mo billed annually ($5 monthly)Free
Est. 3 teams × 8 people$144/mo billed annually (Business — 24 x $6; Starter's $96/mo covers only one shared team space)Free (no paid tier)
EnterpriseYesNo
Founded2019—
HQUK—
Data residencyEuropean Union—
LanguagesEnglish onlyEnglish only
Export formatsPDF · CSV · HTML · Markdown · JSON · JiraPDF · Excel
Features448
Integrations10

Feature & integration comparison

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

CapabilitySpreoRetroFlow
Features
Custom templates✓✓note
Anonymous input✓note✓note
Health Checks——
Action tracking✓✓note
Async mode——
Whiteboard✓—
Independent voting✓✓note
Polling✓note—
Icebreaker games——
Agile Estimations✓—
Team Kudos✓note—
AI grouping/clustering✓note—
AI action items——
AI Summaries✓note—
Team Insights——
In-meeting AI assistant——
Action dashboard✓note—
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——
ISO 27001——
On-premises✓note—
Public API✓note—
Webhooks——
MCP server✓note—

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>

RetroFlow — pros

  • + Genuinely free with no paid tiers, no paywalled features and no account required to join a board
  • + Anonymous feedback — participants contribute with no signup, email or PII collected
  • + Three-step setup — pick a template, share the link, run the retro; participants join in one click and notes sync live
  • + Eleven ready-made formats plus a Custom Board builder (2-6 columns, 7 palettes, 48 emoji) with reusable saved layouts
  • + <strong>Unrestricted voting</strong> — no vote budget, no phase gate, and you can upvote your own cards; cards also drag between columns
  • + PDF and Excel export of the finished board — the only route to getting your data out, and it works

RetroFlow — cons

  • − No timer or phase controls — <em>still</em> nothing in the shipped app, and two timer requests raised in July 2026 sit unshipped as <em>Planned</em> on the vendor's own public roadmap
  • − <strong>Desktop-only</strong> — every board route hard-blocks viewports under 768px with a 'Whoa, tiny screen detected' overlay, even though the marketing FAQ promises a fully responsive phone experience
  • − No grouping of similar cards, no in-column reordering and no carry-over of previous action items; the 'Present' button is still badged SOON
  • − No integrations at all — nothing pushes to Jira, Linear, Slack or Teams, and there is no public API, webhooks or AI
  • − No health checks, recurring retros, mood tracking or cross-team reporting
  • − Solo-developer project with no support team, SLA, SOC 2, SSO or GDPR statement — support routes to a personal WhatsApp number and LinkedIn DMs, and the free-tier backend still shows a ~10s cold start plus a first-load error

Keep comparing

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