Marketing · head to head
Mautic vs Microsoft Forms
Mautic
Marketing
The main open source marketing automation platform, self-hosted and GPL licensed
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
Microsoft Forms
Surveys
Survey tool bundled into Microsoft 365 with no standalone price, where the real constraints are tenant policy, residency and admin visibility
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Mautic mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.; Microsoft Forms the Advanced Data Residency add-on explicitly does not cover Microsoft Forms, so a tenant that has paid for regional residency still has its survey responses provisioned according to best-effort guidance rather than a contractual commitment.
- They diverge on capability: Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Microsoft Forms covers Bundled licensing.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Mautic and Microsoft Forms actually diverge.
| Attribute | Mautic | Microsoft Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Open source, no licence fee | Included with Microsoft 365, not sold separately |
| Platforms | Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker | Web, iOS, Android |
| Category | Marketing | Surveys |
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 Mautic
- Visual campaign builder
- Contact management and segmentation
- Landing pages and forms
- Lead scoring
- Dynamic web content
- Email builder and A/B testing
- Self-hosted data control
- No feature gating
Only in Microsoft Forms
- Bundled licensing
- Very high response ceiling
- File upload questions
- Co-authoring
- eDiscovery coverage
- Surveys Agent in Copilot
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Mautic
- A marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact SaaS pricing at scalenot Microsoft Forms
- A European university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controlsnot Microsoft Forms
- A company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where SaaS per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budgetnot Microsoft Forms
- A team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do sonot Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms
- Internal surveys and quizzes inside an organisation that already pays for Microsoft 365 and does not want a second vendor contractnot Mautic
- Education settings where quizzes need automatic grading and results in Excel without procurement approvalnot Mautic
- Quick polls inside Microsoft Teams where the response data should stay in the same tenant as everything elsenot Mautic
- Any case where the deciding factor is that no purchase order is requirednot Mautic
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Mautic
- Mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
- Email sending is not included: you must arrange, pay for and warm up your own sending infrastructure through Amazon SES, SendGrid or similar, and deliverability problems become entirely your problem with no vendor to escalate to.
- Acquia owns the commercial descendant, Campaign Studio, and is the largest contributor, so the loudest commercial interest in the ecosystem benefits from a hosted product rather than from the self-hosted one being easy.
- Upgrades between major versions have historically been disruptive, requiring database migrations and plugin compatibility checks, so a neglected instance can become expensive to bring current.
- The interface and the reporting are noticeably behind commercial platforms, so marketing teams that came from HubSpot or ActiveCampaign will find everyday tasks slower and will need training.
Microsoft Forms
- The Advanced Data Residency add-on explicitly does not cover Microsoft Forms, so a tenant that has paid for regional residency still has its survey responses provisioned according to best-effort guidance rather than a contractual commitment.
- Above 50,000 responses a form degrades sharply: only CSV export continues to work, while summary charts, viewing individual responses, printing, shared summary links and manual quiz grading all stop.
- Forms belonging to an account that is hard deleted, or deleted more than thirty days earlier, are not recoverable at all, so an unmanaged leaver process destroys survey data silently.
- The administrator settings that govern external sharing, template sharing and result summary sharing are only available to education and Microsoft 365 Apps for business customers, leaving many commercial tenants without the controls the documentation describes.
- A summary sharing link that has already been created continues to work for anyone inside or outside the organisation even after the form is restricted, so tightening permissions does not close an existing leak unless the link is deleted explicitly.
Pricing, plan by plan
Mautic
Free- Self-hosted communityFree
- GPL licensed, no licence fee and no contact limits
- All features included, no paid edition
- You provide hosting, database, cron scheduling and email sending
- Managed Mautic hosting$undefined/month
- Third-party managed hosting listed by the project
- Updates, backups and cron scheduling handled for you
- Pricing varies by provider and is not set by the project
Microsoft Forms
Free- Free consumer Microsoft accountFree
- 200 responses per form
- 400 forms per account, including the recycle bin
- 200 questions per form
- Paid consumer Microsoft account$undefined/year
- Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
- 1,000 responses per form
- 400 forms per account
- Microsoft 365 work or school licence$undefined/year
- Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
- 5,000,000 responses per form
- Included in Business Basic, Standard, Premium, Office 365 E1, E3, E5 and Microsoft 365 F3
- Government GCC High and DoD$undefined/year
- Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
- 50,000 responses per form
- No email notification, video insert, Bing image search or phishing protection
Which should you pick?
Choose Mautic if
- You need visual campaign builder.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
- You also want contact management and segmentation.
Choose Microsoft Forms if
- You need bundled licensing.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want very high response ceiling.
Questions people ask
- Is Mautic or Microsoft Forms better?
- Neither clearly leads. Mautic starts at Free and Microsoft Forms at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Mautic or Microsoft Forms?
- Mautic starts at Free and Microsoft Forms at Free.
- Does Mautic or Microsoft Forms run on more platforms?
- Mautic runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker. Microsoft Forms runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Mautic for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Mautic best used for?
- Mautic is most often used for a marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact saas pricing at scale, a european university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controls, a company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where saas per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budget, a team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do so. Of those, a marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact saas pricing at scale and a european university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controls are not what Microsoft Forms is typically brought in for.
- What can Mautic do that Microsoft Forms cannot?
- Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Contact management and segmentation, Landing pages and forms, Lead scoring. Microsoft Forms covers Bundled licensing, Very high response ceiling, File upload questions, Co-authoring.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Mautic: Is Mautic free?
Yes, GPL licensed with no licence fee and no contact limits. You pay for hosting, email sending and the staff time to maintain it.
Microsoft Forms: Can I buy Microsoft Forms on its own?
No. It exists only as a service plan inside Microsoft 365, Office 365 and education or government SKUs, or free with a consumer Microsoft account. There is no standalone product to purchase.
Mautic: Does Acquia own Mautic?
Acquia acquired the founding commercial entity in 2019 and sells Campaign Studio built on it, but the Mautic trademark sits with the Open Source Collective and the project is community governed.
Microsoft Forms: Where are responses stored?
In the United States for most tenants, in the EU and EFTA region for EU tenants, and in Australia only for Forms provisioned after October 2022. Microsoft states this is guidance, not a residency commitment.
Mautic: What breaks most often?
Cron scheduling. If segment rebuilding and campaign triggers are not running on schedule, campaigns quietly stop sending with no alert.
Microsoft Forms: Can an administrator read someone else responses?
Not while that user account is active; ownership transfer is refused. Yes once the account is disabled or deleted, and yes through premium eDiscovery, which is still labelled preview.
Mautic: Can it handle large contact lists?
Yes, but performance at several hundred thousand contacts depends on database tuning and queue configuration, which is work you must do yourself.
Microsoft Forms: How do I turn Forms off for the organisation?
Disable both the Microsoft Forms and the Office Hive enterprise applications in Entra ID, or clear the Forms checkbox per user. Both applications must be disabled for it to take effect.
Related pages
More on Microsoft Forms
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