Ceremonies vs Clear Retro

Ceremonies is an open-source toolkit for agile estimation and retrospective sessions, offered as a web service or for self-hosting. Estimation rooms use a Modified Fibonacci deck with a coffee-cup choice; votes remain hidden until reveal, results can be sent to Jira, and sessions synchronize through WebSockets without page refreshes. Earlier estimation rounds can be copied into a Slack summary. Retrospectives use Happy, Sad, and Confused cards, anonymous writing, enforced phases, and action items that continue into the next retrospective. Participants join through a link or room code without creating accounts. The source is MIT-licensed. The hosted service is operated by Shadman Rahman. Its Free plan costs nothing and allows one team, five members, and ten sessions per month. The privacy policy says user data is not sold, used for ads, or used to train AI models.

Clear Retro is a free web tool for live Agile retrospectives, designed by developers for developers and remote engineering teams. WebSocket synchronization updates teammates’ boards without refreshes, while guest access lets participants join without logging in. Focus Mode blurs cards during writing to reduce groupthink and social bias. Teams can prioritize issues with numerical votes from 0 to 5, then use Gemini AI to categorize and semantically group cards. Templates include Start, Stop, Continue; Mad, Sad, Glad; 4Ls; Lean Coffee; and Sailboat. The tool supports action tracking and exports PDF and Excel reports with AI-generated summaries and sentiment analysis. Its Community Edition costs nothing and includes unlimited boards, members, and history, plus all current features. Clear Retro identifies Gemini AI and Google Cloud Platform (Firebase) for storage, says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and says retrospective data is not used to train Google’s public AI models.