Ava: AI live captioning and transcription app for accessibility, providing real-time captions for conversations and video meetings. Parabol: Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Ava when real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants matters most, and Parabol when facilitating sprint poker estimation sessions matters most. Test each on your own meetings; the right choice tends to become obvious quickly.
AI live captioning and transcription app for accessibility, providing real-time captions for conversations and video meetings.
Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping.
Ava is a live captioning and transcription service built primarily for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, as well as for organizations that need accessible meetings and conversations. The app captures audio from in-person conversations and from video conferencing tools, then generates real-time captions on a phone, computer, or in the meeting interface. Ava combines automatic speech recognition with an optional professional scribe service for higher-accuracy, ADA-compliant captioning, giving users a choice between fast AI captions and human-assisted transcription. Features include color-coded speaker identification so users can follow who said what, support for many languages, and stored transcripts and summaries after a conversation ends. Through its Ava Connect integration, the service connects with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and it is available across mobile (iOS and Android), web, and desktop (Windows and Mac). Ava is aimed at individuals who need accessibility support in daily conversations and meetings, as well as at educational institutions, healthcare providers, corporations, and event venues that must provide compliant real-time captioning without committing to a traditional CART contract. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Parabol is a free, open-source platform built for facilitating agile meetings, with a particular focus on sprint retrospectives alongside estimation (sprint poker) and team check-ins. Its retrospective experience follows a structured reflect, group, vote, discuss, and action workflow compatible with popular formats like Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, and Mad/Sad/Glad, plus custom templates. Facilitators get multiplayer drag-and-drop cards, live task editing, timers, dynamic agenda items, discussion threads, emoji reactions, and a large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions. At the end of each retro, Parabol automatically generates a meeting summary that rolls up notes and tasks, posts them to a team timeline, and delivers them to attendees via email or Slack so next steps are clear. Its AI capabilities include automatic naming of grouped card clusters and AI topic summaries to speed up synthesis during retros. Parabol integrates with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost, and because the codebase is publicly available on GitHub, teams can self-host or review how it works. It is used by hundreds of thousands of people across distributed and remote teams. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Ava is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Ava | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Integration with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams | Structured retrospective workflow (reflect, group, vote, discuss, action) |
| Standout feature | Real-time live captions for in-person and online conversations | Automated meeting summaries delivered via email and Slack |
| Team usage | Color-coded speaker identification | AI auto-naming of grouped cards and AI topic summaries |
| Integrations | Optional professional scribe service for higher accuracy | Sprint poker estimation and team standup/check-in templates |
| Languages & capture | Mobile, web, and desktop apps | Large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions |
| Best-fit workflow | Saved transcripts and conversation summaries | Integrations with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost |
Ava
Choose Ava if you need real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants — strengths include strong accessibility focus for deaf and hard-of-hearing users.
Parabol
Choose Parabol if you need running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams — strengths include free and open-source with the option to self-host.
Ava
Parabol
It depends on your workflow. Ava is strong for real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants, while Parabol is strong for running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Ava is a free tier with paid upgrades and Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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