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.
Full review →
TeleRetro
5.8Agile retros you'll love
TeleRetro is a remote-first retrospective tool built around team engagement — animated GIF reactions, emoji reactions on notes, icebreaker games, background music and a clean facilitation flow. Participants join by link with no account. It pairs retros with a Pulse Survey module for tracking team health between sessions, and prices per team rather than per user, aimed at small to mid-size agile teams who want retros that feel lively rather than mechanical.
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.
TeleRetro scores 5.8 overall and is best for remote and hybrid agile teams who prioritise engagement and fun alongside a solid retrospective facilitation workflow. It offers a free tier.
Parabol leads on retro toolkit, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade. TeleRetro leads on ease of use, value and fun factor.
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 | TeleRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Category | All-in-One Agile | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Any | Small |
| 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 team, 3 retros total (deleted retros still count), 14-day retro access, 1 pulse survey, limited AI Retro Bot access |
| Starting price | $8/active user/mo | £26/mo (Team plan, 1 team, unlimited members; £21/mo billed annually) |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo | £72/mo (~$97/mo) on the Business plan — 3 teams, unlimited members; £58/mo billed annually |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2015 | 2020 |
| HQ | Remote (San Diego, CA) | UK |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Self-hosted | — |
| Languages | English only | 14 (English, German, Spanish, …) |
| Export formats | CSV · Email | Email · Image · JSON |
| Features | 48 | 36 |
| Integrations | 8 | 10 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Parabol | TeleRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓note |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓note |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓note | — |
| Icebreaker games | — | ✓ |
| Agile Estimations | ✓ | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓note | — |
| AI action items | — | — |
| AI Summaries | ✓note | — |
| Team Insights | ✓note | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | — |
| Action dashboard | ✓ | ✓ |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | ✓note |
| Azure DevOps | ✓ | ✓note |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓note | ✓note |
| GitHub | ✓ | ✓note |
| GitLab | ✓ | — |
| Jira | ✓ | ✓note |
| Linear | ✓ | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | ✓note |
| Monday.com | — | ✓note |
| Notion | — | ✓note |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trello | — | ✓note |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓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
TeleRetro — pros
- + The deepest <strong>retro-native engagement set</strong> of any tool here — GIF and emoji reactions on notes, background music during brainstorming, an AI icebreaker bot, and 50+ themed formats with their own backgrounds
- + Participants join by link with <em>no account required</em> — the fastest path from invite to first note
- + Clean facilitation flow: brainstorming mode, drag-and-drop grouping, Spotlight to focus the room on one note, facilitator-gated voting with a configurable vote count, and mood polls at both ends of the session
- + Pulse Surveys track team health between retros — 16 fully anonymous templates, custom models, and a cross-team dashboard on the Business plan
- + Flat per-team pricing with <em>no per-user charge</em> — £72/mo covers 3 teams, unlimited members and unlimited retros
TeleRetro — cons
- − Slack is the only native integration; the in-app integrations panel offers Slack and Zapier and nothing else, despite Jira appearing on the vendor's comparison pages
- − No way to schedule a future retro or set one to recur, and actions carry owners but <em>no due dates</em> — nothing links an action back to the idea that prompted it either
- − AI never touches the board — Retro Bot generates formats and icebreakers, but there is no clustering, summary, sentiment or action extraction
- − Export is thin: an emailed summary, a PNG of the summary screen, and an org-metrics JSON dump. No CSV, PDF or Excel
- − No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 of its own (the certs cited are AWS's), no SCIM, no audit logs, and SSO is Enterprise-plan only
Keep comparing
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.