Ceremonies vs Echometer

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.

Echometer combines team retrospectives, team health checks, and one-to-one meetings in browser-based software for agile leadership. Its retrospective tool includes more than 50 templates, a shared board, private brainstorming, dot voting, surveys, whiteboards, and action tracking. Jira integration lets teams track retrospective action items in Jira boards. Dashboards show health trends and activity, including health checks across teams. The 1:1 tool supports agenda and notes management and connects with Microsoft calendar. Echometer works in modern browsers on Windows, Linux, and Mac computers and tablets, but it is cloud-only; customer-hosted on-premise deployment is not offered. The free Starter plan allows one team to run one retrospective per month after the trial, with an archive of two retrospectives per team. Its free 1:1 version allows unlimited meetings with up to two employees. Pro costs €29 per team/month with an annual term, or €35 with a monthly term. Echometer says it uses TLS encryption and hosts exclusively at Deutsche Telekom in Germany.