Retrospective Tools

Parabol vs TeamRetro

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

Parabol logo

Parabol

7.4

Open-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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TeamRetro logo

TeamRetro

8.7

Retrospectives, health checks and agile estimations in one suite

TeamRetro pairs structured retrospectives with longitudinal team health checks and planning-poker estimations, aimed at agile organisations running multiple teams under a coach or programme. An in-meeting AI assistant (trAI) and a GA MCP server sit on top of all paid plans.

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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.

TeamRetro scores 8.7 overall and is best for agile coaches and engineering managers running ongoing health-check programmes alongside sprint retros. It offers paid plans from $20.83/mo billed annually ($25/mo billed monthly) — Single Team, 1 team, 25 members.

TeamRetro leads on ease of use, value, fun factor, AI & insights, open platform and enterprise-grade.

Across our eight scoring dimensions, TeamRetro edges ahead with an overall score of 8.7. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.

Scores compared

Parabol
Ease of Use8.5
Retro Toolkit9.0
Value5.0
Fun Factor7.0
AI & Insights8.0
Integrations9.0
Open Platform5.0
Enterprise-grade8.0
TeamRetro
Ease of Use9.0
Retro Toolkit9.0
Value8.0
Fun Factor8.5
AI & Insights8.5
Integrations9.0
Open Platform9.0
Enterprise-grade8.5
DetailParabolTeamRetro
CategoryAll-in-One AgileRetrospectives
Team sizeAnyAny
Free tierYesNo
Free limitUnlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries/monthNo free plan — 30-day trial, no credit card required
Starting price$8/active user/mo$20.83/mo billed annually ($25/mo billed monthly) — Single Team, 1 team, 25 members
Est. 3 teams × 8 people$192/mo$50/mo billed annually ($60/mo billed monthly) — Small Organization plan, a 3-team bundle with unlimited members
EnterpriseYesYes
Founded20152017
HQRemote (San Diego, CA)Australia
Data residencyUnited States · European Union · Self-hostedUnited States · European Union
LanguagesEnglish only29 (English, Arabic, Bengali, …)
Export formatsCSV · EmailExcel · CSV · PDF · Markdown · Email · Image
Features4868
Integrations815

Feature & integration comparison

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

CapabilityParabolTeamRetro
Features
Custom templatesnote
Anonymous input
Health Checksnote
Action tracking
Async mode
Whiteboard
Independent voting
Pollingnote
Icebreaker gamesnote
Agile Estimations
Team Kudos
AI grouping/clusteringnote
AI action items
AI Summariesnote
Team Insightsnote
In-meeting AI assistantnote
Action dashboard
Integrations
Asana
Azure DevOps
Basecamp
ClickUp
Confluencenote
GitHub
GitLab
Jira
Linear
Microsoft Teams
Monday.com
Notion
Shortcut
Slack
Trello
Security & Privacy
SOC 2note
GDPR
SSO / SAMLnote
SCIM provisioningnotenote
ISO 27001note
On-premisesnote
Public APInote
Webhooksnote
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

TeamRetro — pros

  • + Health checks and maturity models as a first-class module — custom dimensions, radar charts, trends across sprints
  • + Three modules on one subscription: retrospectives, health checks, planning-poker estimation
  • + SAML SSO, RBAC and US-or-EU hosting on <em>every</em> plan, not just Enterprise
  • + GA MCP server, team-level API keys and HMAC-signed webhooks on all plans; 15 native agile-stack integrations plus Zapier and n8n
  • + <em>trAI</em> in-meeting assistant on trial and paid plans, plus 12 native in-meeting icebreaker games on every account

TeamRetro — cons

  • No free tier — 30-day trial, then a paid plan
  • The SOC 2 Type 2 report is Enterprise-only; lower tiers get the SOC 3 report instead
  • SCIM, IP allowlisting, domain capture and guest/observer roles are Enterprise-only, and audit logs are on request rather than self-serve
  • Cross-team insights, reports and programs (team-of-teams) require Enterprise
  • ISO 27001 is inherited from AWS, and hosting is US or EU only — no APAC region despite the Australian HQ

Keep comparing

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