Self-Hosted Planning Poker: SOC2 Compliant Agile Estimation
Enterprise teams in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government) can't use cloud SaaS planning poker tools due to data residency, security certification, or compliance requirements. When your security team blocks third-party estimation tools, self-hosted options become mandatory—not nice-to-have.
The Compliance Blocker Problem
Standard planning poker SaaS platforms fail enterprise security requirements:
- Data residency: Story descriptions may contain PII/PHI that can't leave approved regions
- SOC2 Type II certification: Required for vendor approval in enterprise procurement
- SSO/SAML requirements: Must integrate with Okta/Azure AD (freemium tools don't)
- Audit logging: Must track who estimated what when for compliance records
- Air-gapped environments: Government/defense contractors need fully offline tools
Result: InfoSec blocks your planning poker tool, and you're back to Zoom chat or Google Sheets voting.
Why Self-Hosted Matters
Full Data Control
Story descriptions never leave your infrastructure. Critical when stories reference patient data, financial transactions, or unreleased product features.
Custom Security Policies
Enforce your org's authentication, encryption, and retention policies. Not constrained by SaaS vendor's lowest-common-denominator security.
Audit Trail Ownership
Complete logs of estimation sessions stored in your systems, queryable for compliance audits. No dependency on vendor data export.
Air-Gap Capable
For classified or highly sensitive environments, run on isolated networks with zero internet access.
Self-Hosted Planning Poker Options
Alignlee Community Edition (Coming Soon)
Alignlee is building an open-source self-hosted version for enterprise teams. Built on modern stack (React, Node.js) with Docker deployment.
Planned features:
- Docker Compose for single-command deployment
- SAML/OIDC authentication integration
- Postgres backend for auditability
- MIT license for unrestricted internal use
Planning Poker (Open Source)
Axelerant's Planning Poker is a basic open-source option. Lacks polish but functional for air-gapped environments. Requires manual DevOps setup.
Build Your Own
For teams with engineering capacity, a minimal planning poker MVP requires:
- WebSocket server for real-time sync (Socket.io)
- Simple frontend (React/Vue)
- Room state management (Redis or in-memory)
- Optional: Database for history (Postgres)
Estimate: 2-3 weeks for basic functionality, 2-3 months for production-ready system with auth, logging, and edge case handling.
Deployment Considerations
Infrastructure Requirements
- Compute: 2-4 CPU, 4-8GB RAM for teams <100 users
- Database: Postgres or MySQL for session history
- WebSocket support: Load balancer must support sticky sessions
- SSL/TLS: HTTPS required for WebSocket over internet-connected networks
Authentication Integration
Self-hosted tools must integrate with corporate SSO:
- SAML 2.0: For Okta, OneLogin, Azure AD
- OIDC/OAuth2: For Google Workspace, GitHub Enterprise
- LDAP: For legacy on-prem Active Directory
Compliance Checklist
Before deploying self-hosted planning poker, verify:
- ✅ Audit logs capture user actions with timestamps
- ✅ Data encrypted at rest and in transit
- ✅ Regular security patching process defined
- ✅ Backup and disaster recovery plan documented
- ✅ Access controls align with principle of least privilege
Self-Hosted vs SaaS: Cost Reality
Self-hosted is NOT free—total cost of ownership includes:
- DevOps time: 20-40 hours for initial setup, 2-5 hours/month maintenance
- Infrastructure: $50-200/month for hosting (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Security audits: Annual penetration testing, vulnerability scanning
- Upgrade burden: Manual testing and deployment of new versions
Only choose self-hosted when compliance mandates it or data sensitivity justifies the overhead.
Hybrid Approach: Bring Your Own Cloud
Some vendors (like Parabol Enterprise) offer "bring your own cloud" deployments—they manage software updates, you provide infrastructure within your security boundary.
Start Compliant Estimation
For current self-hosted needs, explore open-source options or contact Alignlee about enterprise self-hosted roadmap.