Miro is one of the most popular online whiteboards and collaboration tools, and provides the capability to create and collaborate in real time and asynchronously. Whether your team is collocated or spread across the world, Miro is a good solution to share ideas, designs, and collaborate. In this review I’ll cover some of the features of Miro, as well as the security features, the pricing levels, and then give you my opinion.
The Infinite Canvas
Miro boasts an infinitely zoomable canvas, which allows you to add elements to the canvas, including templates for different collaboration types as you need to – this means that the canvas can be continuously shaped to follow the flow of the team.
Template Types
Miro caters for many different types of collaboration, and this in this way it is similar to other collaboration tools. What is different for Miro is the ‘Marketplace’, a place where other companies can contribute their templates. Because of this, you can use Miro for so many different purposes, and can be integrated with many external applications.
Mapping and Diagramming
A wide variety of ideation, mapping and diagramming templates are available, including: 5 Whys, reverse brainstorming, dot voting, mind mapping, mind maps, customer journeys, fishbone diagrams.
Wireframes
Miro provides templates and features for producing wireframes for Phone, Tablet and website designs, with the ability to add comments to the designs. And since the canvas is ‘infinite’ you can can keep adding to the designs as you explore your options.
Agile Workflows
Miro provides a template for a Kanban board (that integrates with Jira, Asana, or another task management tool), a template for PI Planning (from the SAFe scaled agile framework), and various templates for product roadmaps and retrospectives formats.
Miroverse
And then there is the Miroverse, a place where other people can share their templates with Miro users. There are so many ways of collaborating for people and teams of all different types, so having an open forum for sharing really makes a lot of sense, and helps to make Miro a very powerful and diverse tool.
Embedding Miro in Other Applications
You can embed a Miro boards in other applications – which means other people can collaborate within their own application (such as a customer’s internet), instead of having to login to Miro to collaborate with you.
Cool Features
Day Passes for occasional users – you don’t need to pay for people who only occasionally use Miro. This is available on the Business and Enterprise plans.
When you add a more complex object to the board (such as a Kanban widget in the example below), a small popup appears to show you how to customise the board).
Integrations
Miro integrates with other services via Apps, and there are Apps for many of the more popular services – for others you can use the Zapier App to integrate with hundreds of other services.
A good example of this is integrating with Jira, so you can link your Miro cards with Jira issues, and then use them on Miro boards such as Kanban, PI Planning and User Story Mapping. This can really transform the way your team or organisation works.
Note though, that the integrations available depends on your plan. Jira and Asana are available on the Team plan, but the Azure DevOps integrations is only available on the Enterprise level.
Some other examples of useful integrations are the ability to view and organise SurveyMonkey responses in the canvas, Zendesk tickets, GitHub issues and Salesforce leads. The integrations are truly diverse, and genuinely useful.
What Do I Need to Run Miro?
Miro runs in your web browser. Miro also provides a native app for Mac and Windows, mobile and tablet apps for iOS, Android and Microsoft, and also for Microsoft’s Surface Hub touch screens.
Security and Authentication
A big consideration for companies is security – it was certainly an impediment to adoption for some companies.
Miro is compliant with the following standards:
- CSA
- SOC 2 Type II
- SOC 3
- CCPA
- EU/US GDPR
- NIST
Miro provides TLS 1.2 (or higher) for data in transit, and AES 256 at rest. In basic terms, this means your data is secure at all times.
And if you’re concerned about lost work, Miro does regular secure backups of data.
Companies using Miro
Miro count some big name companies among their customers such as Cisco, salesforce, Deloitte and Accenture, in fact 95% of the Fortune 100 use Miro. Miro has more than 10 million users worldwide.
Miro Pricing
| Free | Team (from $8 per member, per month) | Business (from $16 per member, per month) | Enterprise (contact Miro for pricing) | Consultant($12 per member, per month) |
| 3 editable board Premade Templates Core Integrations | Unlimited boards Projects Custom Templates Jira, Confluence and Asana integrations Remote Meetings Toolkit | Single Sign OnExternal Editors | Dedicated customer success manager Advanced security Multi-team setup Azure DevOps integration | Designed for freelancers, consultants an agencies. All the Team features, plus a private, secure workspace for each client. |
Miro vs Mural
Mural offers similar basic functionality to Miro – an easy to use online whiteboard, and loads of great templates. Mural is also used by some big name companies. Mural does not offer a free plan, but you can apply to join the Consultant Network, which is free for up to 10 memberships for your team, plus client memberships. Pricing for Mural starts from $20 per person, per month on the starter plan.
What sets Miro apart is the Miroverse, and the large range of integrations.
If you’re keen to learn more about Mural, you can read my review here.
Company Background
The name Miro comes from the famous Spanish artist Joan Miro, and the company see his abstract style as an inspiration for how they would like teams to use their tool, where every board is a unique canvas, and ideas are expressed through unique colours and shapes.
Miro was founded in 2011 and has offices in the US and Europe.
Should I Use Miro?
There are a few, enterprise grade collaboration tools out of the market. I’ve reviewed Mural and Stormboard in the past. Miro competes well with those tools, and even surpases them in a few kew areas.
The sheer number of possible integrations, along with the Miroverse, makes Miro a powerful tool, and definitely worth checking out. At the Business an Enterprise level option, with the security features, Miro offers a high standard application for teams who need it.
Should you use Miro? I think teams should be using an online whiteboard solution to enhance their collaboration, and Miro would be a good choice. The functionality, plus the creating pricing options make it an attractive product.
