LimeSurvey
Form BuildersA PHP survey platform with conditional logic, multilingual surveys and a remote-control API, available self-hosted or as a paid cloud service.
Open-source alternative to:
What the free edition leaves out
Scroll sideways to view all columns →The official pages do not say enough about the free edition to give a verdict. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Not confirmed | The README lists SAML and LDAP integrations, but the cloud pricing page lists 'SSO, LDAP, SAML' only for the Corporate plan. Community Edition availability was not confirmed. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Not confirmed | Roles and permissions are not mentioned on the pricing page. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Not confirmed | The README lists an audit log plugin; whether it is free or paid was not confirmed. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Not confirmed | Cloud plans cap admin users (1, 3, 5 to 10, custom). No user limit for Community Edition was stated in the pages read. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | The installation page gives no backup guidance. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Free | The README lists the RemoteControl API (XML-RPC / JSON-RPC) as a Community Edition feature. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Paid | Community Edition has forums and community help. Priority email support is on Business, VIP email queue on Corporate; no SLA is stated. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Researchers, universities and organisations that need multilingual surveys with branching logic and want to host the data themselves.
Why choose it over SurveyMonkey
The software is GPL-2.0-or-later and the project's README lists unlimited surveys and questions, conditional logic, 80+ languages, two-factor authentication and a RemoteControl API in the Community Edition. You choose where the data is stored.
Where it falls short
The paid cloud plans limit admin users and list SSO only on the top plan. Backups, upgrades and security patching are your job when self-hosting. A feature comparison with SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics has not been done. The install guide describes a ZIP download and a web installer.
Open-source alternative to
- SurveyMonkey — LimeSurvey Community Edition is a self-hosted survey tool with no per-response fees from the project, so it can replace SurveyMonkey for running surveys.
- Qualtrics — LimeSurvey is an open-source survey platform aimed at research and organisational surveys that can be run on your own server.
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