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Surveys · head to head

LimeSurvey vs Soketi

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
Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: LimeSurvey self-hosting shifts patching, backups and PHP upgrades onto your own team, and neglected installations become a security liability holding participant data.; Soketi maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • They diverge on capability: LimeSurvey covers Self-hosted deployment, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which LimeSurvey and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where LimeSurvey and Soketi differ
AttributeLimeSurveySoketi
Pricing modelOpen source, with paid cloud hostingOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Windows
CategorySurveysDeveloper Tools

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 LimeSurvey

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

Only in Soketi

  • Pusher protocol compatibility
  • Presence and private channels
  • Horizontal scaling
  • App management backends
  • Webhooks
  • Prometheus metrics

What people use each for

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

LimeSurvey

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

Soketi

  • A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot LimeSurvey
  • Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot LimeSurvey
  • A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot LimeSurvey
  • A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot LimeSurvey

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Soketi

  • Maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • Dependency drift on Node and uWebSockets.js will eventually force you to fork or migrate, and that cost is unbudgeted at the point you adopt it.
  • There is no commercial support to buy, so a production incident at three in the morning is entirely your problem with no escalation path.
  • Scaling beyond a single node needs Redis and careful configuration, and getting presence channels correct across nodes is a genuine source of subtle bugs.
  • It implements the Pusher protocol rather than tracking it, so any protocol feature Pusher adds later will not appear, and the compatibility guarantee slowly decays.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Soketi

Free
  • SoketiFree
    • MIT licensed
    • Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
    • No vendor billing

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Soketi if

  • You need pusher protocol compatibility.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want presence and private channels.
Soketi review

Questions people ask

Is LimeSurvey or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. LimeSurvey starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, LimeSurvey or Soketi?
LimeSurvey starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does LimeSurvey or Soketi run on more platforms?
LimeSurvey runs on Web, Self-hosted. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use LimeSurvey for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is LimeSurvey best used for?
LimeSurvey is most often used for a university study whose ethics approval requires participant data to stay on institutional servers, a public body procuring survey software under european data protection rules, a market research agency running multilingual instruments with quotas and screening logic, a team that needs complex matrix and ranking questions consumer form builders do not support. Of those, a university study whose ethics approval requires participant data to stay on institutional servers and a public body procuring survey software under european data protection rules are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can LimeSurvey do that Soketi cannot?
LimeSurvey covers Self-hosted deployment, Question type depth, Expression manager, Quotas and screening. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Soketi: Is Soketi still maintained?

Barely. The maintainer has stated that available time is very limited and releases have been sparse; treat it as community-maintained.

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.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.

LimeSurvey: Can it handle complex research designs?

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

Soketi: What does it cost?

Nothing in licence fees. It is MIT licensed; you pay for the server it runs on.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

Laravel Reverb for Laravel applications, and Sockudo, a Rust reimplementation, for others.

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