When workshop ideas end up in scattered notes, retrospective decisions never make it to the task board, and team brainstorming lives in a PDF nobody reopens, the problem is not a lack of creativity: it is the lack of a shared workspace that connects those moments with execution. Miro and Mural are the two most widely used digital whiteboard platforms for solving that problem, and the choice between them is not trivial for a team leader or product manager who has to justify it to the team and to IT.
This guide compares both from the perspective of someone who facilitates workshops, coordinates distributed teams, and needs the tool to work not just in the meeting, but in the everyday workflow.
The Central Difference: Workshop Facilitation vs Visual Work Platform
Mural was born with a clear focus: facilitating structured workshops and ideation sessions. Its interface is designed for the facilitator who builds sessions with specific activities, timers, and dynamics. Mural templates are oriented toward facilitation methodologies: design thinking, retrospectives, empathy maps, journey maps. For a one-time workshop session, Mural has a low entry curve and a fairly polished facilitation experience.
Miro started in the same space but evolved into something broader: a visual work platform where the team does not just run workshops, but works continuously. The canvas is the space where the product roadmap, the visual backlog, the architecture diagram, the process map, and the sprint retrospective all live, in the same environment. For a product manager who wants the team visual workspace to be more than just for meetings, that difference is decisive.
The practical question for choosing is: do I need a tool for occasional facilitation sessions, or do I need a visual workspace where the team works continuously? If the answer is the former, Mural may be sufficient. If the answer is the latter, Miro has more depth of use.
Over 800 Templates: From Methodology to Team Workflow
Miro has over 800 templates covering a range from standard facilitation methodologies to specific workflows for product, engineering, marketing, and design teams. There are templates for sprint retrospectives, product planning, user journey maps, flow diagrams, OKRs, competitive analysis, and project plans, among many others.
For a product manager, that template coverage means Miro can be the environment where very different activities happen without switching tools: the discovery session with the design team, sprint planning with the development team, the stakeholder alignment meeting, and the end-of-sprint retrospective can all happen in Miro, with templates that structure each activity type.
Mural also has quality templates for facilitation, but the catalog is significantly smaller and more concentrated on workshop and design activities. For teams that need templates for product management, technical planning, or cross-functional coordination, Miro has more coverage.
Integrations With Jira, Slack and Notion: the Canvas Connected to the Workflow
One of the frequent limitations of digital whiteboard tools is that work happening in them does not connect with work happening in management tools. The result is that workshop decisions stay in the canvas and someone has to manually transcribe them to Jira, Notion, or the specification document.
Miro has native integrations with Jira that allow creating and updating tickets directly from the canvas, seeing issue status in real time inside the board, and syncing canvas work with the Jira backlog without manual exports. For a product manager who uses Jira as the central backlog management tool, that integration turns the canvas into a visual backlog view that stays updated.
The Slack integration allows receiving board activity notifications directly in team channels, sharing boards from Slack, and getting updates when someone makes changes to a shared canvas. The integration with Notion, Confluence, and other documentation tools allows embedding boards directly in documents, closing the loop between visual work and written documentation.
Synchronous and Asynchronous Collaboration: for Teams Not in the Same Time Zone
For geographically distributed teams, visual collaboration has two modes that need to work well: the real-time session where the whole team is connected at once, and asynchronous work where each person contributes to the canvas on their own schedule. Miro is designed for both modes with equal fluidity.
In synchronous mode, Miro allows seeing all participants cursors in real time, following the facilitator focus with the follow mode, using built-in activity timers, and voting on ideas with dot voting systems. In asynchronous mode, Miro allows leaving comments anchored to specific canvas elements, assigning tasks directly from the board, and using frames to organize content into sections participants can review on their own time.
That combination of synchronous and asynchronous is especially valuable for product managers coordinating teams with people in different time zones. The canvas is not just the meeting space: it is the team permanent workspace, where project context accumulates and everyone can contribute regardless of when they are available.
Cross-Functional Use: When Miro Leaves Product and Enters the Whole Company
One of the characteristics that differentiates from more specialized tools is that it can be adopted by teams with very different profiles without needing a long learning curve. The product team uses it for roadmaps and discovery workshops. The engineering team uses it for architecture diagrams and technical sessions. The marketing team uses it for campaign planning and content maps. The HR team uses it for visual onboarding and team building dynamics.
That cross-functionality has a direct impact on tool ROI: when Miro is adopted by multiple company areas, the cost per user is diluted and the platform becomes collaboration infrastructure, not a niche tool for a specific team. For a team leader who wants to propose Miro as a company-wide tool, that argument is easier to sustain than with Mural, which has a positioning more concentrated on facilitation.
Miro With Aufiero Informatica
Miro is distributed by Aufiero Informatica, an official distributor with extensive experience in collaboration and productivity software for teams of all sizes in Latin America.
If your team is evaluating adopting or migrating from Mural or another digital whiteboard tool, Aufiero can advise you on configuring the right plan for your team size and usage profile, and on integrating with the tools the team already uses.
Frequently Asked Questions: Miro vs Mural
What is the main difference between Miro and Mural?
Mural is more oriented toward facilitating one-time workshops, with an interface designed for the facilitator who builds structured sessions. Miro is a broader visual work platform, where the team not only runs workshops but works continuously: roadmaps, visual backlogs, technical diagrams, and project management coexist in the same environment.
Are the Miro integrations with Jira bidirectional?
Yes. The Miro Jira integration allows creating and updating tickets from the canvas, viewing issue status in real time inside the board, and syncing changes between both platforms. That turns the Miro canvas into a visual backlog view that stays updated without manual exports.
Does Miro work for teams in different time zones?
Yes. Miro has robust asynchronous work support: comments anchored to canvas elements, assignable tasks from the board, and frames to organize content into sections each person can review on their schedule. The canvas works as the team permanent workspace, not just as a meeting tool.
Can Miro be adopted by areas beyond the product team?
Yes. Miro has templates and workflows for engineering, marketing, HR, design, and management teams, among others. That cross-functionality allows the platform to be adopted as collaboration infrastructure for the entire organization, diluting the per-user cost and increasing ROI.
Where can I purchase Miro?
Through Aufiero Informatica, official Miro distributor in Latin America.
Does your team need a whiteboard for workshops, or a complete visual workspace where project context lives permanently? For remote team leaders and product managers who need to connect visual collaboration with the daily workflow, Miro offers the depth of use, integrations, and cross-functionality that requirement demands.
Aufiero Informatica is an official Miro distributor in Latin America.
