Surveys · head to head
Microsoft Forms vs Umami
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
Umami
Marketing
Open source, cookie-free web analytics you can self-host for the cost of a database
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Umami there is no cohort analysis, retention curve, session replay or multi-touch attribution, so a marketing team that needs to justify channel spend will still buy a second tool and Umami becomes a supplementary dashboard.
- They diverge on capability: Microsoft Forms covers Bundled licensing, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Microsoft Forms and Umami actually diverge.
| Attribute | Microsoft Forms | Umami |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Included with Microsoft 365, not sold separately | Per month by event count |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web, Linux |
| Category | Surveys | Marketing |
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 Microsoft Forms
- Bundled licensing
- Very high response ceiling
- File upload questions
- Co-authoring
- eDiscovery coverage
- Surveys Agent in Copilot
Only in Umami
- Cookie-free tracking
- Self-hosting
- Small tracking script
- Custom events
- Funnels and goals
- Multi-site and teams
- Public dashboards
- API access
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Microsoft Forms
- Internal surveys and quizzes inside an organisation that already pays for Microsoft 365 and does not want a second vendor contractnot Umami
- Education settings where quizzes need automatic grading and results in Excel without procurement approvalnot Umami
- Quick polls inside Microsoft Teams where the response data should stay in the same tenant as everything elsenot Umami
- Any case where the deciding factor is that no purchase order is requirednot Umami
Umami
- A developer who wants traffic numbers on a personal or client site without adding a consent bannernot Microsoft Forms
- An organisation whose legal or procurement team has ruled out sending visitor data to a US advertising companynot Microsoft Forms
- A high-traffic site where hosted analytics priced by pageview band has become expensive and self-hosting removes the ceiling entirelynot Microsoft Forms
- A team that wants analytics data in a database they already control so they can query and join it themselvesnot Microsoft Forms
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Umami
- There is no cohort analysis, retention curve, session replay or multi-touch attribution, so a marketing team that needs to justify channel spend will still buy a second tool and Umami becomes a supplementary dashboard.
- Self-hosting is only free in licence terms; you own the database, the upgrades, the backups and the query performance at scale, and a busy site's events table grows quickly enough to need real attention.
- Because it stores no persistent identifier, it cannot follow a user across devices or sessions in any meaningful way, which makes returning-visitor and lifetime-value questions unanswerable by design rather than by omission.
- Cloud overage is billed per event beyond the plan allowance, so a traffic spike or a badly instrumented custom event can produce a bill materially above the $20 or $200 headline before anyone notices.
- It is maintained by a small team, so the pace of new capability is modest and enterprise expectations such as SSO, granular role permissions and formal support agreements are limited compared with commercial analytics vendors.
Pricing, plan by plan
Microsoft Forms
Free- Free consumer Microsoft accountFree
- 200 responses per form
- 400 forms per account, including the recycle bin
- 200 questions per form
- Paid consumer Microsoft account$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
Umami
Free- Self-hostedFree
- MIT licensed, no licence fee
- No event limit imposed by the software
- Unlimited websites and users
- Cloud HobbyFree
- Up to 100,000 events per month
- 3 websites
- 6 months data retention
- Cloud Pro$20/month
- Up to 1,000,000 events per month
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited team members
- Cloud Business$200/month
- Up to 10,000,000 events per month
- All Pro features
- Higher volume overage rate
Which should you pick?
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.
Choose Umami if
- You need cookie-free tracking.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux.
- You also want self-hosting.
Questions people ask
- Is Microsoft Forms or Umami better?
- Neither clearly leads. Microsoft Forms starts at Free and Umami at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Microsoft Forms or Umami?
- Microsoft Forms starts at Free and Umami at Free.
- Does Microsoft Forms or Umami run on more platforms?
- Microsoft Forms runs on Web, iOS, Android. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
- Can I use Microsoft Forms for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Microsoft Forms best used for?
- Microsoft Forms is most often used for internal surveys and quizzes inside an organisation that already pays for microsoft 365 and does not want a second vendor contract, education settings where quizzes need automatic grading and results in excel without procurement approval, quick polls inside microsoft teams where the response data should stay in the same tenant as everything else, any case where the deciding factor is that no purchase order is required. Of those, internal surveys and quizzes inside an organisation that already pays for microsoft 365 and does not want a second vendor contract and education settings where quizzes need automatic grading and results in excel without procurement approval are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
- What can Microsoft Forms do that Umami cannot?
- Microsoft Forms covers Bundled licensing, Very high response ceiling, File upload questions, Co-authoring. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
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.
Umami: Is Umami really free?
Self-hosted, yes; it is MIT licensed with no event cap. You pay for the server and database. Umami Cloud has a free tier at 100,000 events a month and paid tiers from $20.
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.
Umami: Do I need a cookie consent banner?
For Umami analytics specifically, generally no, because it sets no cookies and stores no personal data. Other tags on your site may still require one.
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.
Umami: Can it replace Google Analytics?
For traffic, referrers and event counts, yes. For attribution modelling, audiences and advertising integration, no.
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.
Umami: What does it need to run?
A container and a PostgreSQL or MySQL database. Most people deploy it on infrastructure they already pay for.
Related pages
More on Microsoft Forms
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