Ceremonies vs RetroTool

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.

RetroTool is a web tool for running retrospectives with remote or hybrid teams. Teams can start with Mad | Sad | Glad, Liked | Learned | Lacked, or Start | Stop | Continue templates. Participants can draft cards in private sections and move them into a public section. Voting includes dot and secret voting, with controls for the number of votes allowed per participant, column, and card. Teams can turn discussion into action points, assign a responsible teammate, and set a due date. A timer is among the facilitation tools. Paid plans add facilitator-only moderation, readiness checks, read-only locking, and private, invite-only retrospectives; the Company plan adds zero-knowledge encryption with custom passwords. The Anonymous plan costs nothing and keeps data for up to 12 months. Individual costs $10 a month per team, and Company costs $20 a month per team. RetroTool offers a 90-day trial. The maker says u2i first created the tool for its own remote retrospectives before offering it to others.