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Developer Tools · head to head

Atlantis vs LimeSurvey

Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

Runs Terraform plan and apply from pull request comments, self-hosted and free

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
LimeSurvey logo

LimeSurvey

Surveys

Open source survey software you can self-host, with German-hosted cloud as the alternative

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Atlantis there is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.; LimeSurvey self-hosting shifts patching, backups and PHP upgrades onto your own team, and neglected installations become a security liability holding participant data.
  • They diverge on capability: Atlantis covers Pull request plans, LimeSurvey covers Self-hosted deployment.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Atlantis and LimeSurvey actually diverge.

Attributes where Atlantis and LimeSurvey differ
AttributeAtlantisLimeSurvey
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeOpen source, with paid cloud hosting
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedWeb, Self-hosted
CategoryDeveloper ToolsSurveys

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Atlantis

  • Pull request plans
  • Comment driven apply
  • Workspace locking
  • Policy checking
  • Multi-platform webhooks
  • Custom workflows

Only in LimeSurvey

  • Self-hosted deployment
  • Question type depth
  • Expression manager
  • Quotas and screening
  • Multilingual surveys
  • Participant management

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Atlantis

  • Making Terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approvernot LimeSurvey
  • Removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keysnot LimeSurvey
  • Getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platformnot LimeSurvey
  • Enforcing Conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can runnot LimeSurvey

LimeSurvey

  • A university study whose ethics approval requires participant data to stay on institutional serversnot Atlantis
  • A public body procuring survey software under European data protection rulesnot Atlantis
  • A market research agency running multilingual instruments with quotas and screening logicnot Atlantis
  • A team that needs complex matrix and ranking questions consumer form builders do not supportnot Atlantis

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Atlantis

  • There is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.
  • The security surface is inherently sharp, because it is an internet-reachable webhook endpoint that executes applies with privileged credentials, gated by pull request comment authorisation that is coarse next to a real policy engine.
  • It is stateful, holding a working directory and lock database on local disk, so high availability and horizontal scaling are awkward and you own upgrades, webhook plumbing, secret rotation and the host itself.
  • It lacks the features that distinguish the commercial alternatives, with no native drift detection, no cost estimation, no managed state interface and no policy engine beyond the Conftest integration.
  • Terragrunt and monorepo layouts are not first-class, requiring hand-written custom workflows and repository configuration that becomes a growing maintenance burden as the number of repositories increases.

LimeSurvey

  • Self-hosting shifts patching, backups and PHP upgrades onto your own team, and neglected installations become a security liability holding participant data.
  • The default interface and themes look dated beside Typeform or Jotform, which measurably lowers completion rates on consumer-facing surveys.
  • Cloud plans are capped on responses per period, so an unexpectedly successful field wave can force an upgrade in the middle of data collection.
  • Serious theming and layout changes require template and CSS work rather than a visual designer, so agencies often budget developer time per project.
  • Support on the free edition is community forums only, and paid support is a separate purchase, which is a poor fit for teams with no technical staff.

Pricing, plan by plan

Atlantis

Free
  • AtlantisFree
    • Apache-2.0, no usage limits and no seat count
    • No commercial edition and no paid support tier
    • Community support through GitHub and the CNCF Slack channel

LimeSurvey

Free
  • Community Edition (self-hosted)Free
    • Free under the GNU General Public Licence
    • No response limits imposed by the vendor
    • Hosting, patching, backups and upgrades are your responsibility
  • LimeSurvey Cloud$undefined/year
    • Hosted on servers in Germany
    • Tiered on responses and storage per period rather than per user
    • Higher tiers add branding removal, more storage and support

Which should you pick?

Choose Atlantis if

  • You need pull request plans.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want comment driven apply.
Atlantis review

Choose LimeSurvey if

  • You need self-hosted deployment.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted.
  • You also want question type depth.
LimeSurvey review

Questions people ask

Is Atlantis or LimeSurvey better?
Neither clearly leads. Atlantis starts at Free and LimeSurvey at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Atlantis or LimeSurvey?
Atlantis starts at Free and LimeSurvey at Free.
Does Atlantis or LimeSurvey run on more platforms?
Atlantis runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted. LimeSurvey runs on Web, Self-hosted.
Can I use Atlantis for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Atlantis best used for?
Atlantis is most often used for making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver, removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys, getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platform, enforcing conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can run. Of those, making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver and removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys are not what LimeSurvey is typically brought in for.
What can Atlantis do that LimeSurvey cannot?
Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Comment driven apply, Workspace locking, Policy checking. LimeSurvey covers Self-hosted deployment, Question type depth, Expression manager, Quotas and screening.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Atlantis: Is there a company behind Atlantis?

No. It runs as a series of LF Projects under the Linux Foundation and is maintained by volunteers. There is no vendor to buy support from and no service level agreement.

LimeSurvey: Is LimeSurvey really free?

The self-hosted Community Edition is free under the GPL with no vendor response limits. The hosted cloud is paid and tiered by response volume.

Atlantis: Is it a CNCF project?

No. It uses a channel in the CNCF Slack, which is often misread as membership, but the project sits under LF Projects rather than the CNCF.

LimeSurvey: Where is cloud data stored?

On servers in Germany, which is why public sector and academic buyers choose it over United States hosted competitors.

Atlantis: Does it work with OpenTofu?

Yes, there is a dedicated integration guide alongside Terraform, and it also has configuration for working with hosted Terraform backends.

LimeSurvey: Can it handle complex research designs?

Yes. Quotas, randomisation, piping and matrix question types are core features rather than enterprise add-ons.

Atlantis: What does it not do that a paid platform does?

Drift detection, cost estimation, a managed state and run interface, and a real policy engine. Atlantis does pull request plan and apply well and stops there.

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