| Trainyard | iObeya | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, open source; hosted; Jira app and Azure DevOps extension | On premises or separate server |
| PI planning | Integrated: PI planning, team breakouts, PI objectives, confidence vote | Integrated web interface |
| ART and team boards | ART and team boards, PI planning board with milestones and dependency strings, ROAM, WSJF, retrospectives | ART board, ROAM, WSJF, retrospectives |
| Beyond planning | Portfolio Kanban, roadmaps, SAFe canvases, value stream identification and mapping, AI portfolio, dashboards | Portfolio and more |
| Integration | Jira and Azure DevOps, two ways; imports from iObeya, Miro, Mural, monday.com | Full integration through API and iFrame |
| Priced by | Trainer or train; people in the room are free | Room, with a minimum number of rooms |
When iObeya is the better pick
iObeya is the better pick when your organisation already runs its visual management on it beyond PI planning (obeya rooms, lean boards across plants) and wants one vendor for all of it.
When Trainyard is
- The room holds people who are not tracker users: business owners, customers, a class. Trainyard counts trainers or trains, so they cost nothing.
- The plan must flow back to Jira or Azure DevOps and come from it: features, stories, risks and dependencies sync two ways through an inspectable queue.
- You need more than the board: Portfolio Kanban, value stream identification and mapping, SAFe canvases, PI Outcome Planning, an AI-native portfolio, dashboards.
- You host your own tools, or want to be able to: one Docker Compose, Apache-2.0, every feature.
- You train: Leading SAFe, SPC, Advanced SPC, POPM and RTE class boards, and your own Miro class boards imported.
Moving boards over
iObeya board exports (program, team, Kanban, roadmap and free boards, with charts, images and dependencies) import into Trainyard at their positions and colours, become templates, and map onto the plan when you say so.
iObeya is a trademark of its owner. Capabilities are from public pages and a side-by-side evaluation; products change, check the vendor. All comparisons.