Retrospective Tools

QRetro vs RetroTool

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

QRetro logo

QRetro

5.8

Manage 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 continuously 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 auto-generated summary, ROTI score and action items. An official MCP server exposes 29 read/write tools so Claude, Cursor or VS Code can query boards, health trends and actions directly.

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RetroTool logo

RetroTool

3.2

Anonymous online retrospectives, no login required

RetroTool is a low-friction online retrospective board built by NY/Poland software agency u2i as a side project. Free anonymous retros run from a unique URL with no signup; paid tiers add private boards, team management and longer retention. The product still works, but the site shows no shipped activity in years.

Full review →

Summary

QRetro scores 5.8 overall and is best for small agile teams and independent squads that want a genuinely well-equipped retro — 52 templates, health checks, ROTI, timer, icebreaker games and MCP access — at zero cost, and can accept a solo-maintainer vendor with no SSO, no export files and no certifications. It offers a free tier.

RetroTool scores 3.2 overall and is best for small or ad-hoc teams who want a free, no-signup retro board with secret voting and a few standard templates — provided you're comfortable using a tool that hasn't shipped visible updates in years. It offers a free tier.

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

Across our eight scoring dimensions, QRetro edges ahead with an overall score of 5.8. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.

Scores compared

QRetro
Ease of Use8.5
Retro Toolkit6.5
Value9.0
Fun Factor7.0
AI & Insights5.5
Integrations5.0
Open Platform3.0
Enterprise-grade1.5
RetroTool
Ease of Use7.5
Retro Toolkit4.0
Value9.0
Fun Factor3.0
AI & Insights0.0
Integrations0.0
Open Platform1.0
Enterprise-grade1.0
DetailQRetroRetroTool
CategoryRetrospectivesRetrospectives
Team sizeSmallSmall
Free tierYesYes
Free limitEverything 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 accessAnonymous boards; unlimited cards, columns, action points and participants; 3 basic templates; secret voting, dot-vote limits, timer, grouping, action points; Markdown export; 12-month retention
Starting priceFree$10/team/mo ($100/team/yr billed annually)
Est. 3 teams × 8 peopleFree (no paid tier)$30/mo (Individual — 3 teams x $10/team, unlimited members per team; $25/mo billed annually)
EnterpriseNoNo
Founded2023
HQPoland
Data residency
LanguagesEnglish onlyEnglish only
Export formatsMarkdown · Confluence
Features3218
Integrations30

Feature & integration comparison

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

CapabilityQRetroRetroTool
Features
AI Summaries
AI grouping/clustering
AI action itemsnote
Action tracking
Team Insightsnote
Polling
Action dashboardnotenote
Custom templatesnote
Anonymous inputnotenote
Independent voting
Async mode
Agile Estimationsnote
Health Checksnote
Team Kudosnote
Whiteboard
Integrations
Asana
Azure DevOps
Basecamp
ClickUp
Confluence
GitHub
GitLab
Jiranote
Linearnote
Microsoft Teams
Monday.com
Notion
Shortcut
Slacknote
Trello
Security & Privacy
SOC 2
GDPRnotenote
SSO / SAML
SCIM provisioning
ISO 27001
On-premises
Public API
Webhooks
MCP server

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, private-mode submission, timer, drag-and-drop grouping with auto-named groups, action items, team agreements, ROTI and a radar-charted health check stage
  • + 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 and OAuth sign-in, so Claude, Cursor or VS Code can pull board summaries, health trends and action items with nothing to paste
  • + Guest access with no account or password, and guest contributions now persist permanently rather than expiring after a day
  • + Visibly active despite being a solo project — 15+ dated changelog entries across 2026, including the v4 relaunch, MCP OAuth, poker over MCP and two new games in July–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 at all: no SSO or SAML, no SCIM, no audit logs, no SOC 2 or ISO 27001; a DPA and sub-processor list are published but there is no explicit GDPR compliance claim
  • No file export — results share to Slack or Telegram as a recap message, but there is no documented PDF, CSV, Excel, Markdown or email export, so the retro record cannot be filed anywhere outside those two channels
  • 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, and the stage order itself cannot be customised
  • AI is deliberately limited — summaries, recommended next steps and health trends, but no clustering, sentiment analysis or coaching; the vendor pitches this as avoiding 'intrusive chatbots'
  • No cross-team or org-level reporting, so health and action data stays inside a single team's boards

RetroTool — pros

  • + Genuinely free anonymous retros with no account required
  • + Three-click setup — unique URL, share, run
  • + Zero-knowledge encryption with custom passwords on Company plan
  • + Per-team flat pricing ($10 or $20/team/mo, 15%+ off annually) with <em>unlimited members per team</em>, not per-seat

RetroTool — cons

  • <strong>Apparently dormant</strong>: blog stopped in March 2022, no changelog or release notes, legal docs unchanged since August 2020
  • No native integrations with Jira, Slack, Teams or any agile-stack tool
  • No AI features (clustering, summary, action extraction, sentiment)
  • No health checks, recurring retros, or cross-team reporting
  • Most templates, image cards, named participants, private invite-only boards and zero-knowledge encryption are all behind paid tiers
  • Not SOC 2; no SSO/SCIM/audit logs for enterprise buyers

Keep comparing

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