LimeSurveyvs
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Alchemer: Hosted research-grade logic and reporting for teams that do not want to run servers
LimeSurvey
Open source survey software you can self-host, with German-hosted cloud as the alternative
As of 30 August 2026, LimeSurvey is free to use. LimeSurvey is the survey tool for organisations that cannot let response data leave their own servers or the European Union, and it is licensed under the GPL so the self-hosted edition costs nothing but administration. Softwr lists it under Surveys. LimeSurvey is made by LimeSurvey GmbH, available on Web, Self-hosted.
Overview
What LimeSurvey does
LimeSurvey is an open source survey application maintained by LimeSurvey GmbH in Hamburg, Germany, released under the GNU General Public Licence and originally published as PHPSurveyor. It runs on a standard PHP and MySQL stack, supports a very wide set of question types, complex conditional branching, quotas, multilingual surveys and anonymised responses, and is used heavily in universities, public bodies and market research. The differentiator is control of the data. An institution can install LimeSurvey on its own infrastructure, so participant responses never touch a third-party processor, which resolves ethics committee and public procurement requirements that no hosted competitor can satisfy. Where self-hosting is impractical, the vendor cloud runs on servers in Germany under German and European data protection law, which is a narrower but still meaningful guarantee than a general promise of European availability. For any project involving health, minors or public sector participants this is usually the decisive fact. Buyers are academic researchers, national statistics and public sector teams, and market research agencies with panel work. The trade-offs are effort and finish. Self-hosting means someone must patch PHP, back up the database and manage upgrades; the interface and default themes look plain next to consumer form builders; and cloud plans are capped on response volume per period, so a large field wave can force a mid-project upgrade.
What people use it 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
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of LimeSurvey
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- LimeSurveyvsFormstack
Formstack: Stronger workflow and document generation where the survey is part of a business process
- LimeSurveyvsCognito Forms
Cognito Forms: Simpler hosted forms with conditional logic and payments for non-research use
Pricing
What LimeSurvey costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
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
- Community forum support only
LimeSurvey Cloud
On request
- 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
- Response allowance is the limit that usually forces an upgrade
Capabilities
Features
Self-hosted deployment
Install on your own servers under the GPL so response data never leaves your infrastructure
Question type depth
Array, ranking, matrix and masked numeric types beyond what consumer form builders offer
Expression manager
Conditional branching, piping and calculations across questions and pages
Quotas and screening
Close a survey to a demographic segment automatically once the target count is reached
Multilingual surveys
One instrument fielded in many languages with per-language text and export
Participant management
Token-based invitations, reminders and anonymised response separation for ethics compliance
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
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.
Where is cloud data stored?
On servers in Germany, which is why public sector and academic buyers choose it over United States hosted competitors.
Can it handle complex research designs?
Yes. Quotas, randomisation, piping and matrix question types are core features rather than enterprise add-ons.
Keep looking
Where to go from LimeSurvey
- LimeSurvey alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- LimeSurvey pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- LimeSurvey badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Surveys softwareThe full category
- Best Surveys softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Surveys software for
Compare LimeSurvey with
- SurveyLegend
- Alchemer
- Google Forms
- Cognito Forms
- Formstack
- KoboToolbox
- Tally
- Gravity Forms
- Medallia
- Sogolytics
- QuestionPro
- Zoho Survey
- Wufoo
- Paperform
- Device Magic
- SurveyLegend
- KoboToolbox
- Zoho Survey
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Pricing on request12 researched notesSwedish survey tool hosted only in Frankfurt, where response limits are counted per survey and export is capped below what you can collect
Free, then $15/mo12 researched notesOffline-first data collection for humanitarian, development and research field work
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Free plan11 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for LimeSurvey, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on LimeSurvey
LimeSurvey alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
LimeSurvey pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare LimeSurvey
Put it head to head with anything we hold
LimeSurvey badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Surveys software alternatives
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quoteValue-priced survey and experience management platform, rebranded from SoGoSurvey in 2021
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quote