Free alternatives to LimeSurvey

Formbricks keeps the parts of LimeSurvey people value, open source and self-hosting free with no response caps, and fixes the part they complain about, the dated interface. It is AGPL-3.0, runs on Docker, and hosts data on EU servers or your own (as of July 2026). The trade is methodology: Formbricks is built for in-app, website and email surveys, not research quotas, randomization or SPSS exports, and its hosted free cloud allows 250 responses a month.

• Free plan, paid from $74/month (as of July 2026)
• Germany
• Open source (AGPL-3.0)

Best for:

Teams that want self-hosted open source surveys with a modern interface

The catch:

No quotas, randomization or statistics-ready exports, and the hosted free cloud caps at 250 responses a month.

If LimeSurvey feels like too much machinery for the surveys you actually run, Google Forms is the opposite: free, unlimited responses, and no server anywhere. It comes with any Google account and exports straight to Google Sheets (as of July 2026). It has none of LimeSurvey's research methodology, so quotas, randomization and raw statistical exports are off the table, but for straightforward surveys it never caps or charges.

• Completely free (as of July 2026)
• United States

Best for:

Straightforward surveys where research methodology is not needed

The catch:

No quotas, randomization or SPSS exports, and design control is minimal.

forms.app is the managed option when you want more than Google Forms but none of LimeSurvey's server work. The free plan covers 5 forms with unlimited responses, unlimited views and unlimited team members (as of July 2026), plus logic, answer recall, auto-scoring quizzes, payments and e-signatures. It is a form builder rather than a research platform, so there are no quotas, randomization or SPSS exports, and the free plan stops at 5 forms.

• Free plan, paid from $19/month (as of July 2026)
• Estonia

Best for:

Teams that want a modern, feature-rich free survey builder without a server

The catch:

Not research-grade, with no quotas or statistical exports, and the free plan caps at 5 forms and 10 MB of storage.

Tally is the pick if LimeSurvey's dated interface is your main frustration and research features are not. The free plan has unlimited forms and unlimited submissions under a fair-use ceiling around 50,000 a month (as of July 2026), with logic, calculations, payments and e-signatures, in a Notion-style editor that is far quicker to build in. It is cloud-only and single-user on free, and it does no research methodology at all.

• Free plan, paid from $24/month (as of July 2026)
• Belgium

Best for:

General surveys and forms where a modern editor matters more than quotas

The catch:

No research methodology, cloud-only with no self-hosting, and the free plan is single-user.

SurveyMonkey is the closest managed match to LimeSurvey's research ambitions: crosstab analysis, 500+ templates and a paid respondent panel, all hosted for you. The catch is the free plan, which shows only 25 viewable responses per survey and caps surveys at 10 questions (as of July 2026), similar to LimeSurvey Cloud's ceiling, so the real value sits on paid tiers.

• Free plan (as of July 2026)

Best for:

Researchers who want managed analytics and a panel and can pay for them

The catch:

The free plan caps surveys at 10 questions and 25 viewable responses, so serious use means paying.

HeyForm is another open-source, self-host-free option, aimed at conversational one-question-at-a-time forms rather than research surveys. Self-host the AGPL-3.0 edition with Docker and it is free with full data ownership (as of July 2026). Like LimeSurvey it asks you to run a server, and the hosted cloud has no permanent free plan, only a 7-day trial before $15 a month. Its interface is more modern than LimeSurvey's.

• From $15/month (as of July 2026)
• Open source (AGPL-3.0)

Best for:

Developers who want modern self-hosted forms and prefer conversational surveys

The catch:

Free means self-hosting only; the hosted cloud has just a 7-day trial, and there is no research methodology.

Fillout is the managed generalist here: 1,000 responses a month free with unlimited forms and unlimited seats (as of July 2026), in a modern builder with conditional logic. It clears LimeSurvey Cloud's 25-response cap by a wide margin and needs no server, though it is not a research platform, so quotas and statistical exports are not part of it. Full white-labeling sits on paid plans.

• Free plan, paid from $15/month (as of July 2026)
• United States

Best for:

Teams that want a modern managed survey tool with room to grow

The catch:

No research methodology, and full white-labeling and custom domains need a paid plan.