Ceremonies vs RetroStack

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.

RetroStack is a collaborative board app for agile retrospectives, brainstorming, planning, and group decision-making. Participants edit the same board live across phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, using six ready-made formats or custom boards. Voting limits can be set per section to 1, 2, 3, 5, or 10 votes, or left unlimited. Users can join anonymously with the full feature set, and no account is required to start a board. AI analysis can provide team sentiment insights and key themes, and generate action items and meeting recaps. Boards can be shared through private links or exported as PDF or JSON. The free plan is free and lists web, iOS, Android, and Mac access without sign-up. RetroStack says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and user content is not used to train AI models; requested analysis is processed through OpenAI. The service may limit board creation, notes per section, votes per session, and AI analysis requests per day. Email support has a stated response time within 24 hours.