Parabol
7.4Open-source agile meetings for retros, poker, standups and check-ins
Parabol is an open-source agile meeting platform spanning retrospectives, sprint poker, async standups, team check-ins and lightweight team health, with deep backlog sync to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear, recurring meeting series, Zoom and Google Meet transcript capture, a scoped GraphQL API, and a built-in knowledge base (Pages) that auto-publishes every meeting summary and runs AI queries across past retros.
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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
Parabol scores 7.4 overall and is best for distributed agile teams that want one open-source tool for retros, poker, standups and lightweight team health. 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.
Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, value, fun factor, integrations and enterprise-grade. ScatterSpoke leads on AI & insights and open platform.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, Parabol edges ahead with an overall score of 7.4. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | Parabol | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Category | All-in-One Agile | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Any | Mid-market |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries/month | 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 | $8/active user/mo | $29/user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo | $814/mo on Business (includes 5 seats; 19 extra seats at $35/seat/mo) — Pro is capped at 5 seats |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2015 | 2019 |
| HQ | Remote (San Diego, CA) | USA |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Self-hosted | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | CSV · Email | CSV · PDF |
| Features | 48 | 46 |
| Integrations | 8 | 3 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Parabol | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓note |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓note | ✓note |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓ | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓note | ✓note |
| AI action items | — | ✓note |
| AI Summaries | ✓note | ✓ |
| Team Insights | ✓note | ✓ |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | ✓ |
| Action dashboard | ✓ | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | ✓ | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓note | — |
| GitHub | ✓ | — |
| GitLab | ✓ | — |
| Jira | ✓ | ✓note |
| Linear | ✓ | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | ✓note |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | ✓note | — |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓note |
| Webhooks | ✓note | — |
| MCP server | — | ✓ |
Parabol — pros
- + Open source (AGPL-3.0) with Docker/Kubernetes self-host, on-prem and air-gapped deployment
- + 40+ meeting templates plus poker, standups, check-ins and team health in one tool
- + Strong backlog write-back to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear
- + CSV export of reflections, groups, votes and discussion threads on <em>every</em> tier
- + Public GraphQL API with published schema, a GraphiQL explorer and scoped personal access tokens
- + Recurring retro series with a real recurrence rule, Google Calendar sync and automatic facilitator rotation
- + DoD Iron Bank hardened container — IL4 via Platform One, IL5 via Arcus
Parabol — cons
- − Free tier capped at 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history and 3 AI summaries
- − No native whiteboard, presentation mode or screen-share mode
- − Health checks are still an emoji poll for most accounts — editable question packs and the standalone Team Health meeting sit behind an org feature flag
- − AI grouping and team health need the paid Team tier; Pages Insights and Confluence export need org-level enablement
- − Webhooks stop at Mattermost/MS Teams notification URLs — no general event subscriptions and no MCP server
- − English-only UI; no Trello, Asana, ClickUp or Notion integration
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
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.