Alignlee vs Parabol Sprint Poker
Comparison as of October 2026, based on Parabol Sprint Poker's public website. Plans and features change; check www.parabol.co before you decide.
Parabol is a full agile meeting platform: retrospectives, standups, check-ins and Sprint Poker live in one workspace, tied to your team and your issue tracker. Alignlee does one meeting, estimation, in a room anyone can join without an account. If your team wants estimates to sync straight back to Jira, GitHub or GitLab and also runs retros in the same tool, Parabol is the stronger choice. If you only need planning poker and want guests in without signups, Alignlee is simpler and free.
This is less a head-to-head between two poker tools than a choice between a platform and a single-purpose room. Be honest about which one your team actually needs.
Who should pick which
Pick Alignlee if
- You only need estimation, and you already run retros somewhere else (or on a whiteboard).
- People outside your workspace join: contractors, client stakeholders, another team's tech lead for one story.
- You don't want per-user billing, or you'd exceed the free plan's 2 teams or 10 meetings a month.
- You want a confidence-weighted estimate rather than only the card values.
Pick Parabol Sprint Poker if
- You want to search Jira, GitHub or GitLab issues from inside the meeting and have estimates written back automatically.
- You run retros and standups and want them in the same tool, with history.
- You need custom or multi-dimensional scales, for example for WSJF.
- You need SAML SSO, SCIM or on-prem hosting (Parabol Enterprise).
Alignlee vs Parabol Sprint Poker: feature comparison
| Feature | Alignlee | Parabol Sprint Poker |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free. No paid tiers, no trial, no feature limits. | Starter free (up to 2 teams, 10 meetings per month, unlimited users, 30 days of meeting history). Team: $8 per active user per month. Enterprise: custom. |
| Signup required | No. Enter a name; others join with a link or 6-character room code. | Yes. You start with a Parabol account and team. |
| Participant limits | No cap. | Unlimited users on every plan; Starter limits teams and meetings instead. |
| Decks | Fibonacci, modified Fibonacci, T-shirt (each with ?). No custom decks. | Fibonacci, five fingers and T-shirt sizes (with ? and Pass cards), plus custom and multi-dimensional scales. |
| Spectator mode | Yes. Spectators can't vote and are excluded from the vote math. | No dedicated spectator role advertised; participants can choose to Pass. |
| Integrations | None. No Jira sync, no Slack app. Paste issue keys in, type points back. | Search Jira, GitHub and GitLab issues; estimates sync back to the chosen field. Slack, Mattermost, Microsoft Teams and Azure DevOps are also listed. Jira Data Center and self-managed GitLab are Enterprise-only. |
| Export | Meeting minutes as a Markdown (.md) file. No CSV. | CSV export on all plans. |
| Confidence voting | Yes. 0-100% slider on every vote; confidence-weighted estimate. | Not advertised. |
| Other meetings | Confidence Pulse (sprint confidence 1-5) and a sales deal-qualification mode. | Retrospectives, standups, check-ins. |
| SSO | No (there are no accounts). | SAML SSO and SCIM on Enterprise. |
What Parabol Sprint Poker does better
Two-way tracker sync
Parabol lets you search issues with JQL or GitHub syntax during the meeting and writes the agreed estimate back to the field, comment or label you choose. Alignlee has nothing comparable: you type points back by hand.
One tool for the whole sprint cycle
Retros, standups and estimation share one team, one history and one set of integrations. Alignlee covers estimation and a sprint confidence check, nothing more.
Scales
Custom scales built from letters, numbers or emoji, shareable across your organization, and multi-dimensional formats. Alignlee's three decks are fixed.
Enterprise controls
SSO, SCIM, an org admin role and optional on-prem hosting on the Enterprise plan.
What Parabol costs, worked out
Parabol's Starter plan is free for up to 2 teams and 10 meetings a month, with 30 days of history. Many single teams fit inside that. Once you need more, the Team plan is $8 per active user per month (users who haven't logged in for 30 days are marked inactive).
For a hypothetical 5-person team on the Team plan, that is $40 a month, or $480 a year. For 20 active users it is $160 a month, or $1,920 a year. That is reasonable if you use the retros, standups and integrations; it is a lot to pay for estimation alone. Alignlee costs nothing at any size, but you also get none of the platform features.
A quick decision path
- Do you need retros and standups in the same tool as estimation? Yes: lean Parabol.
- Do you need estimates written back to Jira, GitHub or GitLab automatically? Yes: Parabol. Alignlee has no sync.
- Do people outside your organization regularly join estimation? Yes: lean Alignlee, since nobody needs an account.
- Is it just one team estimating a couple of times per sprint, with points typed into Jira afterwards? Either works; Alignlee has less setup, Parabol's free Starter plan may cover you.
Using both
Plenty of teams don't pick one. A common split: Parabol (or another tool) for retrospectives, and a no-signup room for estimation sessions that include stakeholders from outside the workspace. Because Alignlee keeps nothing beyond 24 hours, there is no second history to maintain; export the Markdown minutes if you want a record.
What you get with Alignlee
Alignlee is free planning poker with no accounts and no participant cap. Votes stay hidden until half the voters are in, then reveal automatically with names. Every vote has a confidence slider, and the result is a confidence-weighted estimate. Spectators can watch without voting. Rooms last 24 hours, and you can export meeting minutes as Markdown. It does not integrate with Jira or Slack and has no custom decks. The full feature list is in our planning poker guide.
FAQ
Is Parabol Sprint Poker free?
Sprint Poker is included on Parabol's free Starter plan, which allows up to 2 teams and 10 meetings per month with 30 days of history. Beyond that, the Team plan is $8 per active user per month (as of October 2026).
Does Alignlee sync estimates back to Jira like Parabol?
No. Alignlee has no Jira, GitHub or GitLab integration. You paste issue keys into rounds and type the agreed points back into your tracker. If automatic write-back matters, Parabol does it.
Can guests join Parabol without an account?
Parabol's sign-up flow starts with creating an account and a team, and we couldn't confirm a guest option for Sprint Poker, so check Parabol's documentation. In Alignlee, nobody needs an account: guests open the link and type a name.
Which is better for retrospectives?
Parabol. It has a full retrospective feature; Alignlee does not run retros.
What we couldn't confirm
We didn't want to guess. These points weren't clear from Parabol Sprint Poker's public pages:
- Whether participants can join a Parabol Sprint Poker meeting as guests without an account.
- Whether Azure DevOps issues can be estimated in Sprint Poker (it is listed as an integration, but not on the Sprint Poker page).