Comparison
An open-source alternative to Kahoot!
A presenter-led quiz game with phone buzzers, a speed bonus, a leaderboard and a podium — plus the surveys, polls and self-paced quizzes around it, in a tool that is free, open source and can run on your school's own servers.
Tap a buzzer — no answer text, by design.
Does Jackpoll have a live quiz game like Kahoot!?
Yes. Jackpoll's live quiz is the format people know from Kahoot!: the question and the coloured answer tiles go on the big screen, and every phone in the room becomes a buzzer showing the same colours and shapes without the answer text — which keeps eyes on the front and stops the back row copying a neighbour.
Players join with a PIN or a QR code, with no account and nothing to install. Each question runs on a timer with a speed bonus, the leaderboard goes up between rounds, and the game ends on a top-three podium. Nothing advances until you advance it.
Join at jackpoll.org/join
Game PIN
481 902
10 players joined
Phone buzzers
Colours and shapes on every phone, answers on the board.
Speed bonus
A timer per question rewards quick, correct answers.
Leaderboard and podium
Standings between rounds, top three at the end.
How is Jackpoll different from Kahoot!?
Kahoot! is built around the game, while Jackpoll is a survey platform that also runs one, so the same questions can go out afterwards as a self-paced quiz that grades itself on submission — for revision, or for the pupils who were absent.
Around the game sits everything a class or a training session needs between rounds: word clouds for a quick check of what the room thinks, anonymous polls, exit tickets and feedback forms, with fifteen question types, conditional logic and exports to CSV, Excel and PDF.
How well did today’s topic land?
No name, no account — nothing that ties an answer to a pupil.
- Got it12
- Mostly9
- Still fuzzy5
- Lost me2
A quarter of the class is not there yet — worth five more minutes tomorrow.
Jackpoll compared with Kahoot!
| Feature | Jackpoll | Kahoot! |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source — the full source is public | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | Yes, Docker and Docker Swarm ready | Not offered |
| Cost model | Free, no paid tiers | Free plan plus paid plans |
| Players per game | No limit, no per-player pricing | Depends on the plan |
| Live quiz game | Buzzers, speed bonus, leaderboard, podium | Core feature |
| Live word cloud | Built-in question type with presenter view | Available on some plans |
| Self-paced use | Self-paced quizzes plus full surveys and forms | Assigned self-paced kahoots |
| Joining | PIN or QR code, no account, no app | PIN, link or QR code, no account |
| Where responses are processed | Hosted in Germany, or your own server | Vendor-hosted; for EU users in the EU and Canada |
About this comparison
This table compares structural properties — licence, hosting model, pricing model — because those rarely change. It deliberately avoids specific prices and plan limits, which vendors change without notice. Last reviewed October 2026; check the vendor's current pricing page before deciding.
Is Jackpoll free for schools, and where does pupil data go?
Jackpoll is free for a whole school: there is no player cap, no per-pupil licence and no paid tier, so a full year group costs exactly what a single class does. Every feature is available on every quiz.
Pupils never create accounts, retention rules delete or anonymise responses after a period you choose, and the hosted version runs exclusively on servers in Germany. If your school or authority requires that data never leaves its own systems, the whole application is open source and runs on school infrastructure with Docker.
Responses older than this are removed automatically by a daily job. Leave empty to keep them indefinitely.
Anonymise instead of delete
Keeps the statistics, drops anything identifying.
After 90 days, responses stay as anonymous statistics.
Last updated
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a free Kahoot alternative without a player limit?
- Yes. Jackpoll's live quiz has no player cap and no paid tiers. For very large events you can self-host and size the server to match.
- Do players need an account or an app?
- No. They join with the PIN on the presenter screen or by scanning a QR code, and their phone becomes the buzzer.
- Can a live quiz be reused as homework?
- Yes. Anything built in quiz mode can be hosted live or sent out as a self-paced quiz that grades itself the moment it is submitted.
Keep reading
Related pages on the same topic.
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