GoodWorkshop as an alternative to SessionLab
Both tools plan workshop agendas, and both take the arithmetic off your hands. This page says what GoodWorkshop does differently — and, at the end, where it is the weaker choice. Anybody comparing has no use for advertising anyway.
SessionLab is a hosted session design tool with a large public method library. What is written there is written better there than here; we name no prices and no features of somebody else's product, because both are out of date the moment we write them down. Go and look, and compare for yourself.
What GoodWorkshop does differently
You can run it yourself
The source is public, and one Docker container plus a Postgres database is all it takes. Commercial use included, with no licence cost: the workshops you earn your money with are exactly the ones you may plan with it. The cloud sells operation, not access to the software.
Your AI plans with you, with nothing in between
GoodWorkshop is itself an MCP server. Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini connect to it directly and create workshops, rewrite agendas, park blocks. No copying out of a chat window, no add-on product — one connection you set up in the settings.
The data sits where you want it
The cloud runs in the EU, operated by an Austrian company, with a data processing agreement. If that is not enough, run it yourself and it sits in your own house. Either way you get every agenda back out as Markdown, without asking anybody.
Two pricing models, one of them for irregular work
Per active member per month, billed by the day — or per workshop created, with as many members as you like. The second model exists because facilitation comes in waves: three workshops in spring, then three quiet months. Guests never count.
Built for the room, not only for the preparation
The agenda works on a phone, survives bad wifi, and lets your co-facilitator edit the same day at the same time. Facilitation notes stay with you: the print view and the export leave them out by default, so the group gets the agenda and you keep the rest.
Where GoodWorkshop does less
GoodWorkshop's library is deliberately small. Discover holds a curated set of methods and ready-made workshop designs that we write and maintain ourselves: dozens, not hundreds, and no gallery of templates for every occasion. If what you want is the largest possible collection to browse, you are better served elsewhere. GoodWorkshop is also younger and smaller: fewer integrations, no team of thirty behind it. If what you want is an agenda that does the arithmetic, that belongs to you, that your AI can operate — and a handful of designs you can adopt into a workshop in one step — you are in the right place.
See for yourself
Fourteen days, no payment details. If it does not fit, it simply runs out.