NimbleRetro
3.8Time-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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QRetro
6.3Manage team health, not sticky notes
QRetro is a completely free retrospective tool with no seat or team caps, built by solo developer Roman Ermilov and shipping since January 2023. It runs a fixed seven-stage session — optional health check, optional icebreaker game, cards, grouping, voting, discussion, results — and closes with an OpenAI-generated summary, a ROTI score, suggested next steps and an analysis layer that clusters the cards by topic, sentiment and urgency. An official, open-source MCP server exposes 29 read/write tools so Claude, Cursor or VS Code can query boards, health trends and actions directly.
Full review →Summary
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).
QRetro scores 6.3 overall and is best for small agile teams and independent squads that want a genuinely well-equipped retro — 52 templates, health checks, ROTI, timer, in-board surveys, icebreaker games and MCP access — at zero cost, and can accept a solo-maintainer vendor with no SSO, no PDF or spreadsheet export and no certifications. It offers a free tier.
NimbleRetro leads on open platform and enterprise-grade. QRetro leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, value, fun factor, AI & insights and integrations.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, QRetro edges ahead with an overall score of 6.3. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | NimbleRetro | QRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Small | Small |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Free limit | Free 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 | Everything is free with no seat or team caps — 52 templates, unlimited public and team boards, planning poker, team games, health checks, ROTI, summaries and MCP access |
| Starting price | $15/mo (up to 20 users) | Free |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $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 | Free (no paid tier) |
| Enterprise | Yes | No |
| Founded | 2002 | 2023 |
| HQ | Cupertino, CA, United States | — |
| Data residency | United States · European Union | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | — | Markdown · Email · JSON |
| Features | 19 | 38 |
| Integrations | 4 | 3 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | NimbleRetro | QRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓ | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓note |
| Health Checks | — | ✓note |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | — | — |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | — | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓ | ✓note |
| Icebreaker games | — | ✓note |
| Agile Estimations | — | ✓note |
| Team Kudos | — | ✓note |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓note |
| AI action items | — | ✓note |
| AI Summaries | — | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | ✓note |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | — |
| Action dashboard | ✓note | ✓note |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | ✓note | — |
| GitLab | ✓note | — |
| Jira | — | ✓note |
| Linear | — | ✓note |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓note | — |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓note | ✓note |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓note | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓note |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | — |
| SCIM provisioning | — | — |
| ISO 27001 | ✓note | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓note | — |
| Webhooks | ✓note | — |
| MCP server | ✓note | ✓ |
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
QRetro — pros
- + Genuinely free with no seat caps, team caps or paywalled features — a 24-person org across three teams pays nothing, and there is no paid tier to be upsold to
- + Retro toolkit is deep for a free product: 52 templates, editable columns, private-mode submission, a timer, drag-and-drop grouping with auto-named groups, presentation mode, up to five in-board surveys, action items with owners and due dates, ROTI and a radar-charted health check stage
- + The analysis layer is the surprise — every card gets a system-assigned sentiment, category and urgency score, and the <strong>Perception Mirror</strong> compares the system's own topic clusters against the groups the team made and names the ones that quietly hold three different problems
- + Unusually strong engagement layer for a product that charges nothing — four built-in games (Draw & Guess, Sprint in one GIF, Hangman, Decoded) usable as a switchable icebreaker stage, plus GIF cards, emoji reactions and live cursors. TeleRetro and the whiteboard tools still go further, mainly on music and ambient audio
- + Official MCP server at a single address (mcp.qretro.com) with 29 read, write and delete tools, two analysis prompts and OAuth sign-in — verified live at v1.3.0, and the server source is public on GitHub
- + Guest access with no account or password, and guest contributions persist permanently rather than expiring after a day
- + Visibly active for a solo project: 14 dated changelog entries in 2026 (MCP, OAuth, poker over MCP, two new games), legal pages rewritten in late July 2026 and a site rebuild on 15 August 2026
QRetro — cons
- − Built and maintained by a single developer (Roman Ermilov) with no support team, SLA or published company entity — the enterprise-grade cap for founder-only vendors applies regardless of how good the product is
- − No enterprise controls: no SSO or SAML, no SCIM, no audit logs, no SOC 2 or ISO 27001, and no published hosting location or data-residency option
- − Export is thin — a Markdown copy of the summary, an email to the team, a Slack or Telegram recap, and a JSON dump of your own account data. There is no PDF, CSV or Excel, so there is nothing to hand a stakeholder and nothing to drop into a spreadsheet
- − Integration set is narrow: Jira, Linear, Slack and Telegram only — nothing for Teams, Confluence, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps or any other tracker
- − No async or distributed-team support — the seven-stage flow assumes a live session, and there are no recurring or scheduled retros
- − Vote allowance is computed automatically (cards + 3, capped at 10) rather than set by the facilitator, the timer maxes out at 30 minutes, and the stage order itself cannot be customised
- − No working-agreements artifact that survives between retros — what the vendor calls an 'agreement' is an action item on a board
- − No cross-team or org-level reporting: the Analytics section of the dashboard is still labelled <em>Coming soon</em>, so health and action data stays inside a single team's boards
Keep comparing
Other NimbleRetro comparisons
Other QRetro comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.