Softwr

Marketing · head to head

Freshpaint vs LimeSurvey

Freshpaint logo

Freshpaint

Marketing

Privacy layer that lets healthcare organisations run marketing analytics without sending PHI

From
On request
Free plan
No
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

  • Only LimeSurvey has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Freshpaint filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.; 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: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, LimeSurvey covers Self-hosted deployment.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and LimeSurvey actually diverge.

Attributes where Freshpaint and LimeSurvey differ
AttributeFreshpaintLimeSurvey
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, with paid cloud hosting
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Self-hosted
CategoryMarketingSurveys

Identical on both: 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 Freshpaint

  • PHI detection and redaction
  • Business associate agreement
  • Event verification
  • Pixel replacement
  • Consent governance
  • Advertising destinations
  • Analytics and session tools
  • Audience activation

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.

Freshpaint

  • A health system told by legal to remove its Meta and Google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaignsnot LimeSurvey
  • A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot LimeSurvey
  • A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot LimeSurvey
  • A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot LimeSurvey

LimeSurvey

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

Where each one falls short

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

Freshpaint

  • Filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.
  • Pricing is not published on the vendor site despite three named tiers, and third party reports of entry around 599 US dollars a month cover only the lowest tier, with audiences and advertising activation sitting above it.
  • It addresses web and marketing tracking rather than the whole protected health information estate, so it solves one exposure while patient data in the CRM, call centre and email tooling remains a separate problem.
  • The commercial case rests on a specific regulatory interpretation of online tracking technologies, and litigation and future guidance could narrow or widen it, which makes the size of the problem it solves less stable than a compliance purchase usually is.
  • It is built for healthcare and priced accordingly, so an organisation wanting a general customer data platform pays for a regulatory specialism it does not need and gets narrower general purpose functionality than Segment or RudderStack.

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

Freshpaint

On request
  • Comply$undefined/month
    • Governance and consent foundation
    • PHI detection and redaction
    • Web analytics, funnels and surveys
  • Perform$undefined/month
    • Everything in Comply
    • Audiences and demand side platform activation
    • Attribution, journeys and recommendations
  • Scale$undefined/month
    • Everything in Perform
    • Ad performance reporting
    • Full AI feature access

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 Freshpaint if

  • You need phi detection and redaction.
  • You also want business associate agreement.
Freshpaint 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 Freshpaint or LimeSurvey better?
Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and LimeSurvey at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or LimeSurvey?
LimeSurvey has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for LimeSurvey.
Does Freshpaint or LimeSurvey run on more platforms?
Freshpaint runs on Web. LimeSurvey runs on Web, Self-hosted.
Can I use LimeSurvey for free?
Yes. LimeSurvey has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Freshpaint starts at On request.
What is Freshpaint best used for?
Freshpaint is most often used for a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns, a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed, a compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committee, a multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tags. Of those, a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns and a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed are not what LimeSurvey is typically brought in for.
What can Freshpaint do that LimeSurvey cannot?
Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. LimeSurvey covers Self-hosted deployment, Question type depth, Expression manager, Quotas and screening.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Freshpaint: Why can a hospital not just use Google Analytics?

US Department of Health and Human Services guidance treats IP addresses and health related page URLs as protected health information in this context, and advertising and analytics platforms will not sign a business associate agreement, so the disclosure is unlawful without an intermediary that filters.

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.

Freshpaint: Does Freshpaint sign a BAA?

Yes, and it holds SOC 2 Type II. That is the central reason it exists, because the destination platforms will not.

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.

Freshpaint: What does it cost?

Freshpaint does not publish prices. Three tiers, Comply, Perform and Scale, are all sales led, and third party sources report entry around 599 US dollars a month for the lowest.

LimeSurvey: Can it handle complex research designs?

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

Freshpaint: Will my ad performance suffer?

Somewhat. Stripping identifiers reduces what platforms can optimise against. The trade is weaker targeting in exchange for measurement that a compliance committee will approve.

Share

Related pages

More on Freshpaint

More on LimeSurvey

Keep looking

Other head to heads