Parabol
Open-source retrospectives and agile meetings
- Researched profile
- Free plan
- Open source
What users say
100 reviews on 2 sites
- Starting price
- $8 per active user/month
- Free option
- Free plan
- Pricing
- Free plan + paid
- Licence
- Open source
- Deployment
- Web, Self-hosted (Enterprise)
- Integrations
- 8 listed
The lean-stack take
In lean terms it supports the reflect step of PDCA. Teams collect what went well and what to improve, vote on themes, and turn the discussion into actions they can track.
Best for
Agile and lean teams that run regular retrospectives and want them to end with tracked actions.
Watch out for
The free plan allows 2 teams and 10 meetings per month with 30 days of history, so larger groups will need the paid plan.
About
About Parabol
Parabol is an open-source tool for running retrospectives, standups, sprint poker and other team meetings in the browser. The vendor says 400,000+ people use it.
Written by lean-stack from Parabol's public pages. Vendors can replace it with their own description by claiming this profile.
See it in action
Parabol in 1:22
A short overview from Parabol on YouTube. It shows the product as the vendor presents it, so pair it with the strengths and limitations below.
- Video
- Parabol in 80 seconds
- Channel
- Parabol
Features
What Parabol offers
Retrospectives
Anonymous reflections, grouping, voting and discussion threads, for the check and act steps of PDCA.
Sprint poker
Remote planning poker with a digital card deck for estimating work.
Async standups
Team updates written asynchronously, so daily coordination needs fewer live meetings.
Team health checks
Recurring health checks on the Team plan, to track how the team is doing over time.
Pre- and post-mortems
Templates for spotting project risks up front and capturing lessons learned afterwards.
AI meeting helpers
AI discussion prompts on all plans, plus AI grouping and meeting summaries on the Team plan.
Templates
90+ meeting templates to start from.
Lean techniques supported
The lean practices Parabol is built to support.
Pricing
Parabol pricing and plans
Checked on the vendor's pricing page, October 2, 2026
Starter
Free
- Unlimited users
- Up to 2 teams and 10 meetings per month
- 30 days of meeting history
- 90+ templates
- 7 integrations
Team
$8 per active user/month
Monthly
- Unlimited teams, meetings and history
- Team health checks
- AI summaries and grouping
- Private teams
- Priority support and uptime SLA
Enterprise
Custom
Annual contract
- SAML SSO and SCIM
- Org admin controls
- Jira Data Center and self-managed GitLab
- On-prem or single-tenant hosting
Monthly cost for your team
- StarterFree
- Team$80
- EnterpriseQuote
Free plans cap features rather than seats. Check the plan above before counting on it for a large team.
Billing is per active user, so people who don't attend meetings in a month aren't charged. Team costs use the published per-user price before tax. Prices change often, so confirm them with the vendor.
Strengths and limitations
What stands out, and what to watch
Strengths
- Open source, with code on GitHub
- Free plan with unlimited users
- Actions push to Jira, GitHub and Azure DevOps
- SOC 2 Type II compliance listed on all plans
- On-prem hosting available on Enterprise
Limitations
- Free plan is limited to 2 teams and 10 meetings per month
- Meeting history on the free plan lasts 30 days
- SSO and SCIM are Enterprise only
Based on the vendor's published plans and documentation, not a hands-on test.
Fit
Is Parabol right for your team?
A good fit if…
- You run retrospectives every sprint or every month
- Your team is remote or hybrid
- You want retro actions to land in your issue tracker
- You prefer open-source tools
Look elsewhere if…
- You need a full kaizen or idea management system across a plant
- You only run occasional workshops and a whiteboard is enough
Industries
Named on the vendor's own site
- Software and IT teams
- Agile and product teams
Integrations
Connects with
- Jira
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Azure DevOps
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Mattermost
- Google Calendar
From the vendor's own integrations list.
Support and training
- Support
- Priority support (Team plan), Security FAQs
- Training
- Meeting templates
- Deployment
- Web, Self-hosted (Enterprise)
Reviews
What Parabol users say
From public review sites, checked October 2, 2026
Ratings and mention counts as published by each site. We link to the reviews rather than copy them, and we don't average or adjust the numbers.
Similar tools
Parabol alternatives
Retrium
Published pricing
Retrospective platform with structured formats such as Start/Stop/Continue and Lean Coffee, anonymous brainstorming, grouping, voting and action-item history.
TeamRetro
Published pricing
Workspace for agile teams to run retrospectives, team health checks, standups and planning poker, with integrations to Jira, GitHub and Linear.
| Tool | Pricing | Starting price | Free plan or trial | Deployment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parabol | Free plan + paid | $8 per active user/month | Free plan | Web, Self-hosted (Enterprise) |
| Retrium | Published pricing | $39 per Team Room/month | Free trial | Web |
| TeamRetro | Published pricing | $20.83 per month (Single Team, billed annually) | Free trial | Web |
From each vendor's published pricing. Check current prices on their sites.
FAQ
Parabol: common questions
Is Parabol free?
How much does Parabol cost?
Is Parabol open source?
What integrations does Parabol have?
Can Parabol be self-hosted?
For the Parabol team
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