Mora vs. Lattice vs. 15Five: Which 1:1 Tool Fits an Individual Manager?

If you run 1:1s with your own direct reports and you're shopping for a tool, you've probably landed on the same three names. Lattice and 15Five are the platforms your HR team mentions. Mora is the one built for you, the manager, buying it yourself.

They are not the same kind of product. Two of them are performance-management platforms sold to companies. One is a 1:1 meeting tool sold to a person. The differences matter most in three places: how they handle notes, how they build an agenda, and how they help you follow through - and in who ends up paying and sitting on a sales call.

Here's an honest side-by-side.

What an individual manager actually needs

Start with the job you're doing, not the software category. You want to remember what your report said last month. You want to walk in prepared instead of improvising. You want to track the promises you made and the promises they made. And you want your notes to stay yours - not become a company record that someone else can read.

That's a small, specific job. It doesn't need an HR suite, a review cycle, or a seat license for the whole team. It needs one place per report, private to you.

Notes: where everything is kept

Lattice and 15Five are built around the organization. Their 1:1 features live inside a broader platform - engagement surveys, performance reviews, goal cascades. Notes and check-ins tend to flow into that shared system, which is the point for a company that wants visibility. If you're one manager with four reports, that structure is a lot of surface area for a simple task.

Mora is built around the relationship. Notes, goals, and follow-ups are kept per report, and they're private to you. You jot down what came up, mark what matters next time, and it stays with that person. Nothing gets surfaced to a dashboard you didn't ask for.

If your problem is "I can't remember what we agreed to," a private per-report notebook solves it. If your problem is "the company needs to see engagement scores," that's a different purchase - and a different buyer.

Agendas: from blank page to ready

This is where the tools feel most different in daily use.

15Five leans on check-in rhythms and prompts - it nudges both sides to submit updates before the conversation. That's useful if you can get your reports to fill things in. It's a habit change for the whole team.

Lattice offers 1:1 agenda collaboration, where both manager and report add talking points to a shared doc. Good for a tight, transparent team. It also means the agenda is a group artifact, not your prep notes.

Mora drafts a suggested agenda before each conversation, based on what you two talked about before - the open thread, the goal you set, the follow-up you owe. You don't start from a blank page and you don't need your report to do homework first. You walk in with something concrete and edit it in a minute.

Follow-through: the part everyone drops

The promise you made in a hallway - "I'll look into that" - is exactly the thing that slips. All three tools gesture at this. The question is how much effort it takes to keep it true.

On a platform, follow-ups live inside a system designed for many people and many cycles. That can work, but it's more than one manager needs to maintain alone.

Mora keeps follow-ups attached to the report and to the last conversation, so the loop closes without you building a tracking system. Open the person, see what's unresolved, handle it.

The seat math and the sales call

Here's the honest part that comparison pages usually skip.

Lattice and 15Five are priced and sold for teams and companies. That usually means seats for multiple people, an annual contract, and a conversation with a sales team before you see a number. If those decisions belong to your HR or People team, that's fine - it's just not a tool one manager buys on a Tuesday.

Mora is built for the individual buyer. No seat math for the whole org, no sales call to sit through, and your notes stay private. You decide, you start, and you don't need anyone's approval.

Which tool fits which buyer

Pick an enterprise platform if you need company-wide reviews, engagement surveys, and shared visibility across many teams. That's real work, and Lattice and 15Five do it. They're also the wrong size for one manager who just wants better 1:1s.

Pick Mora if you run your own 1:1s, want your notes to stay yours, want a drafted agenda you can trust, and don't want to do seat math or book a demo. That's the whole product.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mora a full performance-management platform?

No. Mora does 1:1s: notes, goals, follow-ups, and a suggested agenda per report. It doesn't currently run review cycles or engagement surveys.

Can I try it without talking to sales?

Yes. Mora is made for the individual manager to buy directly - no sales call, no company rollout, no seat license for your whole team.

Are my notes private?

They're kept per report and private to you, not pooled into a shared company dashboard.

What if my company already uses Lattice or 15Five?

Then keep it for the company-level work. Mora can still be the place you keep your own 1:1 notes and prep - the two aren't in conflict.

The short version

Lattice and 15Five are platforms for a company's people program. Mora is a 1:1 tool for one manager. If your goal is to remember what was said, arrive prepared, and follow through - without seat math or a sales call - Mora is the one built for exactly that.