Ceremonies vs FocusRetro

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.

FocusRetro is a web-based retrospective tool for agile, remote, and hybrid teams. Boards organize feedback, blind voting, timers, and action items; phase locks, topic grouping, and moderation controls help structure a session. Templates include Went Well / To Improve / Action Items, Mad Sad Glad, Start-Stop-Continue, 4Ls, and a blank board. Action items can have an owner, due date, and status, then return at the start of the next retrospective. FocusRetro lists Jira and Slack integrations. Guests can join a board through an invite link to contribute feedback, vote, and access action items without an account. The free Starter plan costs nothing and includes three personal boards per month, core templates, voting, reactions, phase timers, and action items. The Team plan costs $15 a month and includes one shared workspace, unlimited boards and members, and private or restricted boards with passwords. Business has custom annual billing, with no price listed. Browser traffic is encrypted with TLS; integration tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. FocusRetro says health-check answers are stored as anonymous aggregates and that it does not yet hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certifications.