What’s the best online story estimation tool you ask? Well, Story Estimate sounds like one of the best options out there. Sure, I may be a little biased, since I wrote it, but still, it’s pretty good.

Nonetheless, I’ll pretend to be impartial and give a “fair” overview of several options.

• Story Estimate – free, presents a modern UI, has no known vulnerabilities. It allows to use multiple estimation techniques (planning poker, T-shirt sizes…), including custom ones (specify whatever you want for your votes). Registered users can see additional statistics, including how their vote compare to the rest of the team. Simple to use. Best of all, it is written by me. What not to like?
• Pointing Poker – a little outdated UI, but a pretty nice tool, also free. Unfortunately, it is open to JavaScript injection. Which, in a way, can be thought of as a feature (you can inject some fun JavaScript scripts), as long as you can trust your teammates not to inject any harmful scripts.
• Planning Poker – the original planning poker. Free tier is limited (up to 5 players), paid version has some nice integrations with other tools (JIRA, TFS…). It’s a little more complicated, takes a little longer to setup, requires a user account.
• PlanITPoker – Doesn’t require an account, although you can create one. It is a little more involved to setup, but not bad in terms of functionality.
• Firepoker – Another free and open source tool. Extra points for being open source on GitHub. It’s a little limited in terms of the points you can select (offers two presets – powers of 2 and a slightly modified Fibonacci sequence). Also open to JavaScript injection.