Ceremonies vs SmartRetro

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.

SmartRetro is a web-based retrospective tool for product and engineering teams, aimed at engineering groups at AI-adopting companies. It offers formats such as Start / Stop / Continue and Glad / Sad / Mad, with card grouping and voting. The product says it detects themes that recur across retrospectives to preserve team memory. Action items can be assigned an owner and status, and unfinished work returns automatically in the next retro. The site names Slack, GitHub, and Linear as sources for signals; paid plans list Slack and Linear exports for action items. AI clustering and summaries require a customer-provided LLM key, and the customer pays the model provider separately. SmartRetro says its integrations do not store source code or read direct messages, and organization-scoped data is encrypted in transit and at rest. The product is in closed beta, with beta access free. The Free plan permits one active team, three retros monthly, three members, 30-day retention, and five action items per team. Team is $49 a month billed annually; Pro is $99 a month billed annually.