Roundup
Four open-source alternatives to Google Forms that are actively maintained and can run on your own server — Jackpoll, LimeSurvey, Formbricks and Nextcloud Forms — and the situation each one is best at.
The open-source survey tools worth comparing in 2026 are Jackpoll, LimeSurvey, Formbricks and Nextcloud Forms: each publishes its full source under an open-source licence, each was still being actively developed when this page was reviewed, and each can run on infrastructure you control. That is the bar for this page, and it is the reason these four are here.
Two popular projects are left out on purpose. SurveyJS is an open-source JavaScript form library — excellent if you are building your own form system, but a toolkit rather than a finished survey tool. Typebot is a self-hostable chatbot builder, which overlaps with conversational forms but solves a different problem.
| Feature | Jackpoll | LimeSurvey | Formbricks | Nextcloud Forms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | MIT | GPL, version 2 or later | AGPLv3 core; enterprise modules under a separate licence | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-hosting | Docker Compose or Docker Swarm | Any PHP web server with a database | Docker | As an app inside an existing Nextcloud |
| Hosted version | Free, on servers in Germany | Offered by the vendor | Formbricks Cloud | None of its own; runs wherever Nextcloud runs |
| Built for | Surveys, quizzes and live audience formats | Detailed, multi-page questionnaires | In-app, website, link and email surveys | Simple forms for Nextcloud users |
| Stack | Next.js and Quarkus (Java) | PHP | TypeScript and Next.js | PHP and Vue, on Nextcloud |
| In development since | 2026 | 2003 | 2022 | 2019 |
About this comparison
This page is written by the Jackpoll project, so it is not neutral — but every fact about the other tools is taken from their own licence files and READMEs, and it avoids prices and plan limits, which change without notice. Last reviewed September 2026; check each project's current documentation before deciding.
LimeSurvey is the better choice when you need a long-established survey platform for detailed, multi-page questionnaires and already run PHP hosting. It has been developed since 2003, is licensed under the GPL (version 2 or later), and runs on any PHP-capable web server with a database — a setup many universities and hosting providers already support. The vendor also offers a hosted version for those who would rather not operate it.
Formbricks is the better choice when the survey lives inside your product: it is built for in-app, website, link and email surveys that collect user and customer insight along a product journey. It is written in TypeScript on Next.js, self-hosts with Docker, and is also available as a hosted cloud. Its licence is open core — the core application is AGPLv3, while enterprise modules sit under a separate licence.
Nextcloud Forms is the better choice when your organisation already runs Nextcloud and needs simple forms rather than a separate survey platform. It is an AGPL-licensed app that installs into an existing Nextcloud instance, keeps responses on that instance, and deliberately sticks to the essentials; results can be exported as CSV in the same format Google Forms uses.
Jackpoll is the better choice when a survey also has to work in a room: alongside forms and auto-graded quizzes it has live word clouds, real-time results for a projector and a presenter-led live quiz game. It is the only one of the four under the permissive MIT licence, it has a free hosted version running on servers in Germany as well as Docker stacks for self-hosting, and it ships iOS and Android apps.
The honest caveat: Jackpoll is by far the youngest project here — its repository was created in 2026, while the others have years of production use behind them. If a long track record matters more to you than live formats or a permissive licence, weigh that accordingly.
This page is written by the Jackpoll project itself.
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