# Jackpoll — Open-source survey & quiz builder > The open-source, GDPR-compliant alternative to Google Forms. Build surveys and quizzes for free, watch results live, host them yourself if you want. Canonical URL: https://jackpoll.org Language: English German version: https://jackpoll.org/de/llms.txt ## At a glance - Product: Survey and quiz builder (web app, iOS via TestFlight beta, Android) - Publisher: Jackpoll, built by Quavon (https://quavon.de) - Price: Free to use; the hosted app has no paid plan - License: MIT — source at https://github.com/jackpoll-org/jackpoll - Hosting: Hosted app at https://app.jackpoll.org, or self-hosted via Docker - Data protection: GDPR features built in: consent notices, lawful-basis controls, automatic retention, data-subject export and erasure. The hosted version runs in the EU; self-hosting keeps processing on your own infrastructure - Languages: English, German - Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.quavon.jackpoll - iOS app: TestFlight beta: https://testflight.apple.com/join/CDhSAF88 ## Pages - Home — https://jackpoll.org: The open-source, GDPR-compliant alternative to Google Forms. Build surveys and quizzes for free, watch results live, host them yourself if you want. - All features — https://jackpoll.org/features: Every Jackpoll feature: 15 question types, live word clouds, quiz mode, live quiz games, real-time results, a shared builder, exports and webhooks. - Question types — https://jackpoll.org/features/question-types: The 15 question types Jackpoll offers, when to use each one, and how validation, scoring and results differ between them. - Live word cloud — https://jackpoll.org/features/word-cloud: Collect words from an audience on their phones and present them as a live word cloud that grows in real time. Free, open source, GDPR-compliant. - Quiz mode — https://jackpoll.org/features/quiz: Build auto-graded quizzes with point values, time limits, instant feedback and score-based outcome pages. Free, open source, unlimited responses. - Live quiz game — https://jackpoll.org/features/live-quiz: Host a presenter-paced live quiz: join by PIN or QR, phones as buzzers, speed-bonus scoring, live leaderboard and a top-three podium. Free and open source. - Live results — https://jackpoll.org/features/results: Watch responses arrive live, switch chart views per question, and export to CSV, Excel or PDF when you need to. No refresh, no waiting. - Builder & collaboration — https://jackpoll.org/features/builder: Build multi-page forms with drag-and-drop, conditional logic and real-time collaborative editing. Roles for editors and viewers, templates and folders. - All comparisons — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives: Compare Jackpoll with Google Forms, Typeform, Mentimeter and SurveyMonkey on licence, self-hosting, data location and cost model. - vs Google Forms — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/google-forms: Jackpoll vs Google Forms: open source, self-hostable, EU-hosted, 15 question types, live word clouds and quiz games. Free, with no response limit. - vs Typeform — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/typeform: How Jackpoll compares to Typeform: conversational one-question-per-screen forms, 15 question types, unlimited responses, open source and self-hostable. - vs Mentimeter — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/mentimeter: How Jackpoll compares to Mentimeter for live audience interaction: word clouds, live results, presenter-led quiz games, unlimited participants, self-hostable. - vs SurveyMonkey — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/surveymonkey: Jackpoll vs SurveyMonkey: 15 question types, conditional logic, real-time results, CSV/Excel/PDF export and unlimited responses — open source. - All use cases — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases: How Jackpoll is used for classroom quizzes, live event polling, employee feedback, customer feedback and academic research. - Classroom quizzes — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/classroom-quiz: Run live quizzes, quick comprehension checks and anonymous class polls. Free with no pupil accounts, GDPR-compliant and self-hostable for schools. - Live event polling — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/event-live-polling: Run live polls, word clouds and quiz rounds during a talk. Join by QR code, unlimited participants, results on the big screen in real time. - Employee feedback — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/employee-feedback: Run anonymous employee surveys with retention rules, access codes and self-hosting. GDPR-compliant, unlimited responses, no per-seat licence. - Customer feedback — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/customer-feedback: Collect customer feedback with embedded forms, QR codes and email links. HMAC-signed webhooks, real-time notifications, unlimited responses, open source. - Academic research — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/academic-research: Build research instruments with grids, ranking and sliders, export to CSV or Excel, and self-host so participant data stays on institutional infrastructure. - Self-hosting — https://jackpoll.org/self-hosting: Self-host Jackpoll with Docker Compose or Swarm. Published images, PostgreSQL, MinIO, Keycloak and Redis, MIT-licensed, no feature restrictions. - GDPR & privacy — https://jackpoll.org/gdpr: How Jackpoll handles GDPR: consent banners, lawful basis, automatic retention, data-subject export and erasure, EU hosting and self-hosting. - Pricing — https://jackpoll.org/pricing: Jackpoll is free with unlimited surveys and responses and no feature tiers. Optional supporters fund the servers; self-hosting is free under the MIT licence. - Open source — https://jackpoll.org/open-source: Jackpoll is open source under the MIT licence: public frontend and API source, published container images, and self-host stacks anyone can run. - Supporters — https://jackpoll.org/supporters - Sitemap — https://jackpoll.org/sitemap.xml ## Topics in detail ### Survey and quiz features, all included https://jackpoll.org/features Fifteen question types, live word clouds, auto-graded quizzes, presenter-led live games, real-time results and a collaborative builder — with no plan to upgrade to, because there are no plans. #### The parts you will use every day Most of what Jackpoll does falls into six areas, each with a page of its own below. The builder is where forms are made; question types decide what you can ask; quiz mode turns a form into something scored; the live quiz turns a scored form into a game for a room; word clouds collect a crowd's words onto one screen; and results show what came back, as it comes back. They are not separate products bolted together. A question written once can be asked in a form, graded in a quiz, played in a live game and read in the results without being rewritten, because underneath it is all one survey. #### And the parts you will be glad exist Around that core sits the work that a serious survey needs sooner or later. Responses can be exported to CSV and Excel or rendered as a PDF per submission. Webhooks POST each response to your own endpoint, signed with HMAC. Email notifications arrive in real time or as a daily digest, and surveys can close themselves on a schedule. Sharing is equally unfussy: a link, a QR code, or an embed inside your own site. Access codes gate who can respond, survey content can be translated for different audiences, and conversational mode changes the whole feel of a form to one question per screen. - Exports: CSV, Excel and per-response PDF. - Webhooks: HMAC-signed POST to any endpoint, per response. - Notifications: Real-time or daily digest email on new responses. - QR codes & embedding: Share a link, a scannable code, or embed in your site. - Access codes: Per-survey codes decide who can respond. - Multi-language surveys: Translate survey content for every audience. #### Privacy is a feature, not a plan tier Consent banners, privacy notices and lawful-basis controls are built in rather than bolted on, and retention rules delete or anonymise responses automatically after a period you set. Data-subject requests are handled properly: a full export in a machine-readable form, and erasure across every table when an account is deleted. If that still is not close enough to home, the whole thing is open source and runs on your own infrastructure. Nothing about the hosted version is a reduced edition of the self-hosted one. ### Every question type a survey or quiz needs https://jackpoll.org/features/question-types Short answers, grids, sliders, rankings, signatures and live word clouds — fifteen answer formats in one builder, each with its own validation and its own way of showing up in the results. #### The full set, available on every survey There is no feature gate between question types. Every survey you create can use all fifteen, in any combination, on any number of pages — a two-question pulse check and a forty-question research instrument draw from exactly the same toolbox. The types fall into four families. Text and numeric fields capture open input: short answer with validation, sliders along a range, and date and time pickers. Choice fields narrow the answer down: multiple choice, true/false, checkboxes and dropdowns. Matrix fields ask the same scale about several things at once: multiple choice grids, checkbox grids and rating grids. And the specialist fields handle what generic form builders usually cannot: file upload, ranking, star or numeric rating, draw-to-sign signature, and a live word cloud. - Text & numeric: Short answer, slider, date & time — free input with validation rules. - Choice: Multiple choice, true/false, checkboxes, dropdown. - Matrix: Multiple choice grid, checkbox grid, rating grid — one scale, many rows. - Specialist: File upload, ranking, rating, signature, live word cloud. #### Choosing the type that matches the answer The type you pick decides what you can do with the answer afterwards, so it is worth a moment's thought. A five-point rating is comparable across respondents and produces an average; the same question asked as short answer produces fifteen different phrasings that somebody has to read. Where you want to count, use a closed type. Where you want to understand, use an open one. Two types are worth knowing about because they solve problems people usually work around. Ranking asks respondents to drag options into order of preference, which tells you far more than asking them to tick their top three. And the grid types ask one shared scale about several rows at once — five statements rated on the same agreement scale become one compact block rather than five near-identical questions that make a form feel twice as long. #### Validation, scoring and results follow the type Each type brings its own handling, so you do not configure the same thing twice. Short answer fields validate their input. Sliders produce a mean and a median across all responses. Choice and grid questions produce per-option counts that render as bar, donut or line charts. File uploads are virus-scanned on arrival and collected as downloadable references rather than pasted links. Scoring works the same way. When a survey is switched into quiz mode, the types that have a correct answer — choice, true/false, checkboxes, dropdown, grids — take point values per option and are graded automatically, while open text stays unscored unless you review it. Nothing needs to be rebuilt to turn a survey into a quiz. - Sliders get statistics: Mean and median across all responses, not just a bar chart. - Uploads are scanned: Files are virus-scanned on upload before they reach your results. - Word clouds are filtered: A profanity filter runs before crowd words go on a shared screen. #### The same question on any screen Every type is built to work on a phone first, because that is where most responses arrive — a QR code on a slide or a poster puts the form in someone's hand within seconds. Grids reflow instead of forcing a horizontal scroll, signatures accept a fingertip as readily as a stylus, and ranking works by touch. You can also change how the whole form is presented without touching a single question. Conversational mode shows one question per screen in a chat-like flow, which suits long forms and quizzes; the standard layout shows a full page at a time, which suits people who want to see what they are in for before they start. ### A live word cloud generator for a room full of phones https://jackpoll.org/features/word-cloud Ask a question, let everyone answer from their phone, and watch the answers arrange themselves on the big screen — words growing as more people repeat them, live, with no refresh and no export. #### How a live word cloud works Add a word cloud question to a survey, share the link or its QR code, and open the presentation view on whatever screen the room is looking at. Every submission joins the cloud immediately: repeated words grow, new words appear at the edge, and the most common answer ends up unmistakably in the middle. Because it is a question type rather than a separate product, it lives alongside everything else. A word cloud can open a session as an icebreaker, sit in the middle of a longer feedback form, or close a workshop — and the words are stored with the rest of the responses, so you still have them the next morning when the projector is off. - Instant fan-out: Submissions reach the screen as they arrive, with no page refresh. - Join by QR code: Put the code on a slide; nobody has to type a URL. - Full-screen presenting: A dedicated view built for a projector, not a scaled-down dashboard. #### Safe to put on a projector Anonymous crowd input on a wall-sized screen is a small act of trust, so there is a profanity filter between the submission and the projection. It covers English and German, runs before a word ever reaches the shared view, and needs no configuration. Answers are normalised as they arrive, which is what makes the counting meaningful: differences in capitalisation and spacing do not split one popular answer into three lonely ones. The result is a cloud that reflects what the room actually said rather than how carefully people typed. #### What happens after everyone leaves The cloud is a view of the data, not the data itself. Once the session is over the same answers are in your results dashboard, exportable to CSV or Excel alongside every other question in the survey, and subject to the same retention rules — including automatic deletion or anonymisation after a period you set. That matters for workshops and classes that run repeatedly. Because each session is a normal survey, you can compare what a room said in March with what a different room said in November, without screenshotting a projector. - Exportable: Words leave as CSV or Excel with the rest of the responses. - Retention-aware: Auto-delete or anonymise after your chosen period. - Self-hostable: Run the whole thing on your own server if the words are sensitive. ### An online quiz maker that grades itself https://jackpoll.org/features/quiz Turn any survey into a scored quiz: point values per answer, an optional countdown, instant feedback, and outcome pages that change with the score — without rebuilding a single question. #### A survey and a quiz are the same document Quiz mode is a switch on a survey, not a separate editor. Every question type that has a definable correct answer — multiple choice, true/false, checkboxes, dropdown and the grid types — gains point values per option, and grading happens the moment somebody submits. That means a question bank is reusable. The feedback form you wrote last term can become this term's knowledge check without retyping it, and a quiz can contain unscored questions — a name field, an open comment, a rating — sitting quietly between the graded ones. - Points per answer: Weight each option; partial credit where it makes sense. - Optional countdown: A per-quiz time limit for exam-like conditions. - Outcome pages: A different closing page for each score range. #### What the person taking it sees Conversational mode shows one question per screen in a chat-like flow, which keeps attention on the current question and makes a long quiz feel shorter than it is. Feedback can appear immediately after each answer, or be held back until the end when you would rather not have people comparing notes mid-quiz. At the finish, the outcome page is chosen by score range. A pass and a near miss can end on genuinely different pages — one with a certificate-style summary, another pointing at the material worth revisiting — instead of the same generic thank-you for everyone. #### What you get back Results are more than a list of scores. You get the maximum achievable score, the average, how many passed and failed against your passing mark, and the full score distribution — which is where the interesting reading usually is. A cluster just below the pass line means something different from an even spread. Per-question results still work exactly as they do for a survey, so you can see which single question dragged the cohort down. Export the raw responses to CSV or Excel, or generate a PDF per response for the ones that need to go in a file somewhere. - Pass/fail counts: Measured against the passing score you set. - Score distribution: See the shape of the cohort, not just its average. - Per-response PDFs: Export an individual result as a document. ### Run a live quiz game with the room playing along https://jackpoll.org/features/live-quiz Host a presenter-paced quiz on the big screen while everyone answers on their phone: colour-and-shape buzzers, a per-question timer with a speed bonus, a leaderboard between rounds and a podium at the end. #### Two screens, one game The presenter's screen carries the question and the coloured answer tiles; the room reads along from the projector. Everyone else holds a buzzer: their phone shows the same colours and shapes, without the answer text. That one detail is what stops the person at the back from copying off a neighbour's screen, and it keeps eyes on the front where the question is. Players join by PIN or by scanning a QR code — no accounts, no app install. A lobby fills up as people arrive so you can see who is in before you start, which is usually the difference between a game that begins on time and one that begins three times. - Join by PIN or QR: No sign-up and no app; a lobby shows who has arrived. - Phones are buzzers: Colour and shape only — the answer text stays on the big screen. - Answer faster, score more: A per-question timer with a speed bonus, revealed to everyone at once. #### The presenter sets the pace Nothing advances without you. Each question opens when you open it and closes when the timer runs out, and the answer is revealed to the whole room at the same moment — which is what makes the collective groan possible, and what stops a fast reader finishing the quiz while you are still explaining question two. Between rounds the leaderboard goes up. It is the part of the format that keeps a tired afternoon group awake, and it gives you a natural place to stop and talk about a question the room got wrong before moving on. #### The same questions, a different night out A live quiz is a way of running a quiz you already have. Anything built in quiz mode can be hosted live, and the reverse is true too: the questions you write for a game night can be reissued afterwards as a self-paced quiz for the people who could not make it. Results land in the same dashboard either way. You get the standings from the room and, afterwards, the per-question breakdown that tells you what people actually knew — including the question everyone got wrong that felt obvious when you wrote it. - Leaderboard & podium: Standings between rounds and a top-three finish at the end. - Reusable questions: Host live, then reissue the same quiz as a self-paced link. - Unlimited players: No per-participant pricing and no response caps. ### Real-time survey results, without an export step https://jackpoll.org/features/results Every submission updates the dashboard as it lands. Switch between bar, donut and line views, read the numbers behind each question, and export only when something needs to leave the system. #### Live means live Responses appear as they are submitted. There is no refresh button to press and no interval to wait out, which matters most in the moments when it is genuinely useful — a session where the room is answering right now, a link that just went out to a mailing list, the first hour after a form goes live. The same is true on a shared screen. A results view can sit on the projector while people are still answering, so the room watches its own opinion form. If a survey is spread across more than one server, submissions still reach every viewer, because results are relayed between instances rather than being stuck on whichever one received them. - No refresh: New responses push straight into the open dashboard. - Chart views per question: Bar, donut and line — pick what reads best for each one. - Presentable: Put the live results on the big screen while people answer. #### The right summary for each question type A dashboard is only useful when it summarises each question the way that question deserves. Choice, checkbox and dropdown questions get counts per option. Grids break down column counts per row. Sliders report a mean and a median, which together say more than either alone. Short answers are collected as readable text rather than crushed into a chart, and uploaded files are listed as downloadable references. Quizzes get a second layer on top: maximum score, average, pass and fail counts against your passing mark, and the full score distribution. Reading the distribution is usually where a teacher decides whether to re-teach a topic or move on. #### Getting the data out — or keeping it in Export raw responses to CSV or Excel for analysis elsewhere, or generate a PDF for an individual response when a single result needs to be filed, signed off or handed over. Webhooks can push each submission to your own endpoint as it arrives, signed with HMAC so the receiving system can verify it really came from you. Nothing forces data out, either. Retention rules can delete or anonymise responses automatically after a period you choose, so a dashboard that is useful this month does not quietly become a liability next year. - CSV & Excel: Raw responses for analysis in whatever you already use. - Per-response PDF: One document for one submission, ready to file. - Signed webhooks: POST each response to your own endpoint, HMAC-signed. ### A drag-and-drop form builder your whole team can edit at once https://jackpoll.org/features/builder Multi-page forms, drag-and-drop reordering, conditional logic with AND/OR rules — and real-time collaboration, so two people editing the same survey see each other's cursors instead of each other's conflicts. #### Building the form Questions are added, dragged into order and split across pages. Pages matter more than they look: they set the pace of a long form, group questions that belong together, and give conditional logic somewhere sensible to branch. Conditional logic uses AND/OR rules to show or hide questions based on earlier answers. It is what keeps a form that has to cover six situations from feeling like six forms stapled together — everyone only ever sees the questions that apply to them, and the ones that do not simply never appear. - Multi-page forms: Split long surveys into pages that make sense to answer. - AND/OR logic: Show or hide questions based on what came before. - Templates & folders: Start from a template; keep a growing library organised. #### Editing together, live Two people can work on the same survey at the same time and see each other doing it. Changes appear as they are made and cursors show who is where, which removes the usual choreography of asking whether anyone else is in the document before you start typing. Access is role-based. Editors change the survey; viewers see it and its results without being able to alter anything — the right level for a stakeholder who wants to watch responses arrive but should not be reordering questions the night before launch. #### Before and after it goes out Preview submissions let you walk the whole form as a respondent, including the logic branches, without polluting the results — test runs are marked as previews and stay out of the counts. When it is ready, share it as a link, a QR code or an embed inside your own website. After launch the form is still yours to change. Respondents who need to correct something can be given private edit links, drafts let people save a long form and come back to it, and access codes control who can respond at all. - Preview without polluting: Test submissions are flagged and excluded from results. - Share any way you like: Link, QR code or embedded directly in your site. - Save & resume: Respondents can keep a draft and finish a long form later. ### How Jackpoll compares to the tools you already know https://jackpoll.org/alternatives Four honest comparisons — Google Forms, Typeform, Mentimeter and SurveyMonkey — written around the things that rarely change: who owns the code, where the responses are processed, and what costs money. #### What these comparisons do and do not claim Comparison pages age badly, usually because they were written around prices and plan limits that changed a month later. These are written around structural properties instead: the licence, whether you can run the software yourself, where responses are processed, and whether the cost model has tiers at all. Those things move slowly, and they are usually what actually decides the question. Where a competitor's feature is genuinely their core strength, the tables say so. Typeform's one-question-at-a-time format and Mentimeter's live presentation focus are good at what they do, and pretending otherwise would make the rest of the page less believable. #### The part that stays the same Whichever comparison you read, Jackpoll's side of the table does not change. It is open source, free without tiers, has no response caps, is hosted in the EU, and can be run on your own infrastructure with Docker. Every question type and every feature is available on every survey. Where a comparison gets interesting is what that buys you in a specific situation — a school that cannot send pupil data to a third party, a conference that will not pay per participant, a research group whose ethics approval requires institutional hosting. - Open source: The full source is public and can be audited. - No tiers: Every feature on every survey, at no cost. - Self-hostable: Docker and Docker Swarm ready, on your own servers. ### An open-source alternative to Google Forms https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/google-forms Google Forms is quick, free and tied to Google. Jackpoll is quick, free and tied to nobody — the same everyday form building, with the source code published and the option to run it on your own server. #### Why people look for an alternative Google Forms is genuinely good at what it does, and for a birthday RSVP nobody needs anything else. The reasons people move are usually not about the form editor at all. They are about where the responses end up, who else can read them, and what happens when a data protection officer asks a question about a survey of employees or students. The second reason is capability. Google Forms covers the standard question types well, but stops before the things a classroom or a conference actually asks for: a word cloud on a projector, a quiz that plays as a live game, or results a room can watch arrive. #### What changes when you switch The building experience stays familiar — questions, pages, required fields, conditional logic — so nobody needs retraining. What changes is everything around it. You can read the code that processes the answers, run the whole application on a server you control, and set a retention rule that deletes or anonymises responses automatically after a period you choose. You also gain the formats Google Forms does not have. Live word clouds put a room's answers on a shared screen, quiz mode grades automatically against point values you set, and a live quiz game turns the same questions into a presenter-led round with a leaderboard. - Own the data: EU-hosted, or self-hosted on infrastructure you control. - Retention built in: Auto-delete or anonymise responses after your chosen window. - Formats Forms lacks: Live word clouds, live quiz games, ranking and signature fields. #### Where Google Forms is still the easier answer If your organisation already lives inside Google Workspace, Forms is one click from a Drive folder and its answers land in a spreadsheet your colleagues already have open. That integration is real and Jackpoll does not replicate it — exports and webhooks are the route out, not a native Sheets link. The honest summary: choose Forms when the convenience of the Google account outweighs everything else, and choose Jackpoll when you want the same speed without handing the responses to a third party — or when you need a word cloud, a live quiz or a retention policy. #### Jackpoll compared with Google Forms - Licence — Jackpoll: Open source — the full source is public | Google Forms: Proprietary - Self-hosting — Jackpoll: Yes, Docker and Docker Swarm ready | Google Forms: Not offered - Where responses are processed — Jackpoll: EU-hosted, or your own server | Google Forms: Google's infrastructure - Cost model — Jackpoll: Free, unlimited surveys and responses | Google Forms: Free with a Google account - Live word cloud — Jackpoll: Built-in question type with a presenter view | Google Forms: Not a built-in question type - Live quiz game — Jackpoll: Presenter-paced, phones as buzzers, leaderboard | Google Forms: Not offered - Automatic retention rules — Jackpoll: Per-survey auto-delete or anonymise | Google Forms: Not offered per form This table compares structural properties — licence, hosting model, where data is processed — because those rarely change. It deliberately avoids prices and plan limits, which vendors change without notice. Last reviewed July 2026; check the vendor's current documentation before deciding. ### A free, open-source alternative to Typeform https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/typeform Typeform made one-question-at-a-time forms popular. Jackpoll has the same conversational mode as a display option — plus fifteen question types, unlimited responses and a licence that lets you host it yourself. #### The conversational format, without the subscription The thing people like about Typeform is the pacing: one question per screen, a calm rhythm, a form that feels like being asked rather than being processed. In Jackpoll that is conversational mode — a display setting you switch on for any survey, not a different product or a different price. Because it is a setting rather than a format, you are not locked into it. The same questions can be shown as a full page when respondents would rather see everything at once, which suits internal forms where people want to scan before committing. #### What happens when a form does well The moment a form succeeds is the moment plan limits start to matter. With Typeform, response allowances depend on the plan you are on. Jackpoll does not count: surveys and responses are unlimited, and if a campaign lands better than expected there is no upgrade prompt between you and the answers. If capacity certainty matters more than convenience, self-hosting removes the question entirely — the ceiling becomes whatever server you put it on, and nothing about the software changes. - No response cap: Unlimited surveys and responses on the hosted version. - No feature tiers: Every question type and every feature, for everyone. - Self-host if you prefer: Same software, your infrastructure, no licence fee. #### Beyond forms Typeform is a form product. Jackpoll is a form product that also runs a room: live word clouds on a projector, quizzes that grade themselves, and a presenter-led live quiz game where phones act as buzzers and a leaderboard goes up between rounds. If you only ever need a beautiful contact or feedback form, that extra range is irrelevant. If you also teach, present or run events, it is the difference between one tool and three. #### Jackpoll compared with Typeform - Licence — Jackpoll: Open source — the full source is public | Typeform: Proprietary - Self-hosting — Jackpoll: Yes, Docker and Docker Swarm ready | Typeform: Not offered - Cost model — Jackpoll: Free, no paid tiers | Typeform: Free tier plus paid subscription plans - Response volume — Jackpoll: Unlimited | Typeform: Depends on the plan - One question per screen — Jackpoll: Conversational mode, switchable per survey | Typeform: The core format - Live word cloud & live quiz — Jackpoll: Built in, with a presenter view | Typeform: Not offered - Where responses are processed — Jackpoll: EU-hosted, or your own server | Typeform: Vendor-hosted 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 July 2026; check the vendor's current pricing page before deciding. ### An open-source alternative to Mentimeter https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/mentimeter Live word clouds, live results on the projector and a quiz the room plays along with — the audience-interaction formats, in a tool that is free, open source and can run on your own server. #### The formats a room actually needs The audience-interaction basics are all here. A word cloud question collects words from every phone in the room and arranges them live on a shared screen, sized by how often they were said. A results view can go on the projector while people are still answering, so the audience watches its own opinion take shape. For quizzes there is a presenter-led live game: questions on the big screen, phones acting as colour-and-shape buzzers, a timer with a speed bonus, a leaderboard between rounds and a top-three podium at the end. - Live word cloud: Words arrive from phones and grow on the projector. - Live results: Bar, donut and line views updating as answers land. - Presenter-led quiz: Buzzers, speed bonus, leaderboard and podium. #### It is not only a presentation tool The difference in shape is that Jackpoll is a survey platform that presents, rather than a presentation tool that surveys. The same questions you put on a projector can be sent out as a normal form afterwards — to the people who missed the session, or as a follow-up a week later — and the answers land in the same results. That also means the serious survey machinery is there when you need it: conditional logic, fifteen question types, file uploads, exports to CSV, Excel and PDF, signed webhooks, and retention rules that clear responses out on a schedule. #### Cost, participants and control There is no participant limit and no per-event pricing, which is usually the deciding factor for conferences and large lectures. Nothing is metered, so a session with four hundred people costs exactly what a session with four does. For universities and public bodies the second factor is where the answers live. Jackpoll is EU-hosted, and if that is still not close enough, the whole application is open source and runs on your own infrastructure with Docker. #### Jackpoll compared with Mentimeter - Licence — Jackpoll: Open source — the full source is public | Mentimeter: Proprietary - Self-hosting — Jackpoll: Yes, Docker and Docker Swarm ready | Mentimeter: Not offered - Cost model — Jackpoll: Free, no paid tiers | Mentimeter: Free tier plus paid subscription plans - Participants per session — Jackpoll: No limit, no per-participant pricing | Mentimeter: Depends on the plan - Live word cloud — Jackpoll: Built-in question type with presenter view | Mentimeter: Core feature - Full survey platform — Jackpoll: 15 question types, logic, exports, webhooks | Mentimeter: Focused on live presentation - Where responses are processed — Jackpoll: EU-hosted, or your own server | Mentimeter: Vendor-hosted 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 July 2026; check the vendor's current pricing page before deciding. ### A free, open-source alternative to SurveyMonkey https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/surveymonkey Grids, ranking, sliders, conditional logic, exports and per-question analysis — the survey work SurveyMonkey is used for, without plan tiers standing between you and your own responses. #### The survey work itself For most questionnaires the required toolkit is the same everywhere: closed questions that can be counted, matrix grids so a scale can be asked about several statements at once, ranking for preference order, sliders for degree, and conditional logic so respondents only see what applies to them. All of that is standard here, on every survey, without a tier deciding which parts you get. Analysis works the way the question was asked. Counts per option for choice questions, per-row breakdowns for grids, mean and median for sliders, readable text for open answers, and views that switch between bar, donut and line as you read. - Matrix grids: One scale across many rows, in single- or multi-select form. - Conditional logic: AND/OR rules decide which questions appear. - Exports: CSV, Excel and a PDF per individual response. #### Your responses are not a plan feature The uncomfortable moment with subscription survey tools is discovering that the answers you have already collected are only partly available on your current plan. Jackpoll has no tiers: unlimited surveys, unlimited responses, full export, and every question type available from the first survey you make. The project pays for itself through optional supporters rather than plan upgrades, which is why there is nothing to unlock. If you would rather not depend on anyone's hosting at all, the same software runs on your own server. #### When the survey is about people Employee and student surveys draw questions from a data protection officer sooner or later. Consent banners, privacy notices and lawful-basis controls are part of the product rather than something to bolt on, and per-survey retention rules delete or anonymise responses automatically after a window you set. Data-subject rights are implemented rather than promised: a complete export in machine-readable form, and erasure across every table when an account is removed. For public bodies and universities, self-hosting settles the residency question completely. #### Jackpoll compared with SurveyMonkey - Licence — Jackpoll: Open source — the full source is public | SurveyMonkey: Proprietary - Self-hosting — Jackpoll: Yes, Docker and Docker Swarm ready | SurveyMonkey: Not offered - Cost model — Jackpoll: Free, no paid tiers | SurveyMonkey: Free tier plus paid subscription plans - Response volume — Jackpoll: Unlimited | SurveyMonkey: Depends on the plan - Export of raw responses — Jackpoll: CSV, Excel and per-response PDF, always included | SurveyMonkey: Depends on the plan - Live word cloud & live quiz — Jackpoll: Built in, with a presenter view | SurveyMonkey: Not offered - Where responses are processed — Jackpoll: EU-hosted, or your own server | SurveyMonkey: Vendor-hosted 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 July 2026; check the vendor's current pricing page before deciding. ### What people actually use Jackpoll for https://jackpoll.org/use-cases Classrooms, conferences, HR departments, product teams and research groups ask very different questions — and end up needing surprisingly similar things from a survey tool. #### Different rooms, similar requirements A teacher checking comprehension, a conference host warming up a hall, an HR lead running a pulse check and a researcher fielding an instrument are doing genuinely different work. They tend to converge on the same three requirements: ask without making people sign up, see the answers without waiting, and be able to say honestly where the data went. That is why the pages below describe situations rather than features. The tool is the same underneath; what changes is which parts matter, and which questions someone will ask you about it afterwards. - No respondent accounts: Every use case starts with a link or a QR code. - Answers in real time: Results arrive live, whether it is a room or a mailing list. - A defensible answer on data: EU-hosted or self-hosted, with retention rules either way. #### The cost question, answered once None of these use cases hit a paywall. There are no per-pupil, per-seat or per-participant licences, no response caps, and no features reserved for a tier — a school, a conference and a research group all get the same product. That is deliberate rather than promotional. The project is funded by optional supporters and runs on donated time, which is a slower model than subscriptions but does not create a reason to withhold anything. ### Quizzes and polls for the classroom https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/classroom-quiz Check what a class understood in two minutes, run a live quiz game that wakes up a Friday afternoon, and keep pupil data out of a third party's hands — free, with no per-pupil licence. #### In the lesson A live quiz turns a review session into a game the room plays together. The question and the coloured answer tiles go on the board; every pupil's phone becomes a buzzer showing only colours and shapes, which is what stops the back row reading answers off a neighbour's screen. A timer with a speed bonus keeps it moving, and the leaderboard between rounds does more for attention than any amount of asking. For a quieter check, a word cloud asks the class for one word about a topic and puts the whole room's answer on the board at once. It is the fastest way to find out that half the class has quietly misunderstood the central term of the lesson. - Join by PIN or QR: No accounts for pupils, nothing to install. - Answers stay on the board: Phones show colours and shapes only, not the answer text. - Anonymous when it should be: Name capture is optional, so honest answers stay possible. #### Homework that marks itself The same questions can go out as a self-paced quiz — for revision, for the pupils who were absent, or as a low-stakes check before an exam. Point values per answer mean it grades itself the moment it is submitted, and outcome pages let a top score and a borderline one end on genuinely different pages: one a summary, the other a pointer to the material worth revisiting. What comes back is a distribution rather than a pile of scripts. A cluster just below the pass mark tells you to reteach; an even spread tells you something else. Per-question results show exactly which question the class fell over, which is usually the one that seemed obvious when you wrote it. #### Pupil data, handled properly Schools carry a duty that most survey tools ignore. Responses can be collected without names at all, retention rules delete or anonymise them automatically after a period you choose, and consent notices are part of the product rather than something to write yourself. 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. Nothing is withheld from the self-hosted version, and there is no per-pupil licence in either case. - No pupil accounts: Respondents never sign up for anything. - Automatic deletion: Set a retention window and forget about it. - Run it at school: Self-host so answers stay on your own servers. ### Live polling for events, conferences and workshops https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/event-live-polling Put a question on the screen, let the room answer from their seats, and show the result as it forms — word clouds, live charts and quiz rounds, with no participant limit and nothing to install. #### From the stage A QR code on a slide is all the onboarding an audience gets, and all it needs. No app, no account, no queue at a registration desk — the code is scanned, the question opens, and answers start arriving within seconds of you asking. What goes on the screen depends on the moment. A word cloud is the natural opener: ask for one word, and the room's collective answer assembles itself in front of everyone. A live results view suits a poll where the shape of the answer is the point — watching a bar chart tip one way as three hundred people vote is a better argument than any slide claiming the same thing. - Join by QR code: Scan from a slide; no app and no account. - Built for a projector: A presenting view, not a shrunken dashboard. - No participant cap: Four hundred people cost the same as four. #### Workshops, panels and quiz rounds Longer formats need more than one poll. Workshops can collect input at several points and compare what the room thought at the start with what it thinks at the end. Panels can put an audience question in front of the speakers instead of waiting for the one person brave enough to hold a microphone. For a social slot or a conference closing, the live quiz format runs a presenter-paced round: phones as buzzers, a timer with a speed bonus, a leaderboard between questions and a podium at the end. It is the same question editor as everything else, so a quiz written on the train still works when you arrive. #### After the applause Everything asked live remains a normal survey afterwards. The feedback form goes out by link or QR code, the answers land in the same results, and exports to CSV or Excel are ready for the report that has to exist by Friday. For recurring events that continuity is the useful part. Because sessions are surveys rather than disposable presentations, you can compare this year's answers with last year's without hunting for a screenshot of a projector. - Feedback forms: Send the post-event survey from the same tool. - Exports for the report: CSV and Excel, plus a PDF per response. - Comparable over years: Sessions are surveys, so results keep. ### Employee surveys people are willing to answer honestly https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/employee-feedback Anonymous pulse checks, onboarding feedback and annual engagement surveys — with retention rules, access control and the option to keep every answer on your own infrastructure. #### Anonymity that is structural, not promised An employee survey is only as good as the belief that answers cannot be traced back. Name capture is optional per survey, so a pulse check can collect nothing that identifies a respondent. What you get back is a distribution of opinion rather than a list of who said what — which is the only version anyone answers honestly. Where you do need to control participation without identifying people, access codes gate who can respond without attaching a name to the response itself. It is the difference between knowing that only your team could answer and knowing which of them did. - Optional name capture: Collect a name only when you genuinely need one. - Access codes: Restrict who can respond without identifying them. - Retention rules: Answers delete or anonymise themselves on a schedule. #### Surveys that fit how an organisation actually works Conditional logic keeps a survey that must cover several departments from feeling like several surveys. Everyone answers the shared questions; the follow-ups branch by team, role or by an earlier answer, and nobody wades through sections that do not apply to them. Long forms benefit from drafts: someone can start an engagement survey before a meeting, leave it, and come back to it later without losing what they wrote. Rating grids compress a page of near-identical agreement statements into one compact block, which does more for completion rates than any reminder email. #### What the works council and the DPO will ask Two questions come up every time: where does this data live, and when does it go away. Jackpoll is EU-hosted, and per-survey retention rules delete or anonymise responses automatically after a window you set, so an old engagement survey does not sit around indefinitely because nobody remembered it. If the answer has to be "on our own servers", the whole application is open source and runs under Docker on your infrastructure. Data-subject requests are handled properly either way, with a complete machine-readable export and erasure across every table. - EU-hosted or self-hosted: Choose where the answers are processed. - Data-subject rights: Machine-readable export and full erasure, built in. - No per-seat licence: Survey ten people or ten thousand at the same cost. ### Customer feedback forms that reach the rest of your stack https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/customer-feedback Embed a form in your product, collect responses without a cap, and push every submission straight into the systems you already run — webhooks, email alerts and exports included. #### Ask where the customer already is A feedback form works best next to the thing it asks about. Surveys can be embedded directly into your own site or product, shared as a plain link in an email, or printed as a QR code on a receipt, a poster or a parcel insert. The answer rate follows the effort required, and none of these ask for an account. Rating and slider questions give you a number to track over time — a satisfaction score, a likelihood to recommend — while a short answer underneath collects the reason. Sliders report a mean and a median, which together tell you whether a middling average is a room full of lukewarm customers or two groups who disagree strongly. - Embed anywhere: Inside your product, on a page, or behind a QR code. - Score plus reason: A number to track and the sentence that explains it. - No response cap: A form that suddenly performs will not hit a limit. #### Into the systems you already run Feedback that sits in a dashboard nobody opens is feedback nobody acts on. Webhooks POST every response to an endpoint you choose the moment it arrives, signed with HMAC so the receiving service can verify it really came from you — enough to raise a ticket, post to a channel, or write a row somewhere automatically. For lower volumes, email notifications arrive either in real time or as a daily digest. And when someone needs the numbers rather than the alerts, exports to CSV and Excel cover the analysis, with a PDF per response for the individual case that has to be forwarded intact. #### Closing the loop Optional respondent receipts email a copy of the submission to the person who sent it, which quietly does two things: it reassures them that the feedback arrived, and it gives them a record if they want to follow up. When a customer needs to correct or add something, private edit links let them reopen their own response without you creating an account for them. It is a small feature that removes an entire category of support email. - Signed webhooks: HMAC-signed POST per response, to any endpoint. - Alerts or digest: Email in real time or once a day, your choice. - Editable responses: Private links let a customer correct their own answer. ### Survey software for academic research https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/academic-research Matrix scales, ranking, sliders with mean and median, conditional branching and clean exports — on infrastructure you can host yourself when an ethics committee asks where the data lives. #### Building the instrument The types most instruments are made of are all present. Rating grids ask one Likert-style scale about a battery of statements in a single compact block. Ranking captures preference order rather than a rough top three. Sliders record degree and report both a mean and a median, which matters when a distribution is skewed and the average alone would mislead. Conditional logic handles screening and branching: participants who do not meet a criterion never see the block that does not apply to them, and a single instrument can serve several cohorts without becoming several documents. Multi-page structure gives a long questionnaire a rhythm, and drafts let a participant pause and return without losing their progress. - Likert-style grids: One scale across a battery of items. - Mean and median: Slider results report both, not just an average. - Screening logic: AND/OR branching so each cohort sees its own path. #### Participant data and ethics approval Ethics applications tend to ask three things: what is collected, where it is processed, and when it is destroyed. Name capture is optional, so an instrument can be genuinely anonymous. Retention rules delete or anonymise responses automatically after a period you specify, which turns a promise in a consent form into something the system enforces on its own. Where the data is processed is your decision. The hosted version runs in the EU; the same software is open source and runs under Docker on institutional infrastructure when approval requires it. Because the source is public, a data protection officer can read what happens to a response rather than take a vendor's word for it. #### Getting it into your analysis Nothing here tries to replace your statistics package. Responses export to CSV and Excel in a raw, per-response form suitable for reading straight into R, SPSS, Python or whatever the lab already uses, and file uploads are collected as downloadable references rather than pasted links. During collection the live results view is a practical monitoring tool: it shows response counts arriving, so a recruitment drive that is not working reveals itself on the first afternoon rather than at the end of the fieldwork window. - Raw exports: Per-response CSV and Excel for your own analysis. - Monitor recruitment: Watch responses arrive rather than waiting for the deadline. - Auditable code: The processing is public and can be reviewed. ### Run Jackpoll on your own servers https://jackpoll.org/self-hosting Published container images, ready-made Docker Compose and Swarm stacks, and an MIT licence — the same application the hosted version runs, with nothing held back. #### What you are actually deploying Jackpoll is a Quarkus API on Java 21 and a Next.js web app, published as container images that continuous integration builds from the public source. The self-host stacks pull those images directly, so what runs on your infrastructure is the same build as everywhere else — not a stripped-down community edition. Around the two applications sits a small set of well-known open-source services: PostgreSQL for data, MinIO for uploaded files, Keycloak for authentication, Redis for real-time fan-out between replicas, ClamAV to scan uploads, and Traefik in front. If you already run any of these, you know exactly what you are taking on. - Published images: Built by CI from the public source, on GHCR. - Compose and Swarm: Ready-made stacks in a dedicated repository. - Familiar components: PostgreSQL, MinIO, Keycloak, Redis, ClamAV, Traefik. #### Why organisations self-host The usual reason is a rule rather than a preference. A school authority, a hospital, a works council agreement or an ethics approval says that personal data must stay on infrastructure the organisation controls, and no hosted service satisfies that however good its data processing agreement is. The second reason is capacity. A lecture hall of six hundred people or a conference where everyone answers at once is a load you may want to own — self-hosting turns capacity into a question about your server rather than someone else's fair-use policy. #### Operating it Multi-replica deployments work out of the box: real-time features fan out through Redis, so collaborative editing and live results stay consistent whichever replica a visitor lands on. Database migrations run on startup, which keeps upgrades to pulling a new image tag. Everything the hosted version does is available — retention rules, exports, webhooks, live quizzes, GDPR export and erasure. There is no licence key, no seat count and no telemetry to switch off. - Scales to replicas: Redis relays live features across instances. - Migrations on startup: Upgrading is pulling a newer image. - No licence key: MIT-licensed, no seats to count, no phone-home. ### GDPR-compliant surveys, built in rather than bolted on https://jackpoll.org/gdpr Consent notices, lawful-basis controls, automatic retention, data-subject export and erasure, EU hosting and the option to keep everything on your own servers. #### Collecting less in the first place The cheapest way to protect personal data is not to collect it. Name capture is optional per survey, so a pulse check or a class poll can gather nothing that identifies anyone. Where you need to control participation without identifying people, access codes decide who may respond without attaching a name to the response. When a survey does need identifying information, consent banners and privacy notices are part of the product. You record the lawful basis you are relying on, and respondents see what they are agreeing to before they answer rather than in a policy nobody opens. - Optional identification: Ask for a name only when you actually need one. - Consent notices built in: Banners and privacy text without writing your own. - Lawful-basis controls: Record why you are allowed to process the answers. #### Storage limitation, enforced by the system Article 5(1)(e) says personal data should not be kept longer than necessary, and in practice this is where most organisations quietly fail — not out of bad intent, but because nobody remembers a survey from three years ago. Each survey can carry a retention window, and a scheduled job purges or anonymises responses older than it, every day, without anyone having to remember. Anonymising rather than deleting is often the right answer for research and long-running feedback programmes: the statistics survive, the individuals do not remain identifiable, and the obligation is met. #### Data-subject rights that actually run Access, erasure and portability are implemented rather than described. An account's data exports in a structured, machine-readable form covering surveys, responses, drafts, files, collaborators and notification settings; erasure removes the account across every table, including the identity provider. For respondents, private edit links let someone reopen and correct their own submission without you creating an account for them, which is often the quickest route to satisfying a rectification request. - Art. 15 & 20 export: Complete, structured, machine-readable account export. - Art. 17 erasure: Removed across every table and the identity provider. - Art. 5 retention: Daily job deletes or anonymises past the window. #### Where the data is, and who can read the code The hosted version runs in the EU. Uploaded files are virus-scanned on arrival, and word cloud submissions pass a profanity filter before they can appear on a shared screen — a small thing, but the kind of small thing that matters when the screen is in front of a class. If EU hosting is still not enough, the entire application is open source and runs on your own infrastructure with Docker. That also means a data protection officer can read what happens to a response instead of relying on a vendor's description of it — the strongest form of assurance a survey tool can offer. ### Free forever, with no plans to compare https://jackpoll.org/pricing Unlimited surveys, unlimited responses, every question type and every feature — for everyone. There is no paid tier, because there is no tier. #### What costs nothing All of it. Every question type, quiz mode, live quiz games, live word clouds, real-time results, conditional logic, exports, webhooks, collaboration and the GDPR tooling are available on every survey. There is no response cap, no seat count and no feature that unlocks later. That is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly, because most survey tools are free until the moment a form succeeds. Here a form that suddenly collects ten thousand responses behaves exactly like one that collects ten. - Unlimited surveys: No cap on how many you create. - Unlimited responses: Success does not trigger an upgrade prompt. - Every feature: Nothing reserved for a higher tier. #### How it is paid for, honestly Servers cost money and the work is donated. The project is funded by people who choose to support it — Basic, Bronze, Silver or Gold, monthly, yearly or one-off, at an amount they pick. Supporters are listed on a public page with an optional link next to their name, and that is the entire benefit; nothing in the product is gated behind it. Supporting is genuinely optional. If Jackpoll is useful to you and you would rather not pay anything, that is a perfectly good outcome — the alternative to a subscription is not a guilt trip. #### And if you would rather pay nobody The whole application is MIT-licensed and published as container images, so you can run it on your own infrastructure at no cost and with no licence key. Nothing is withheld from the self-hosted version. For some organisations that is not about money at all — it is the only way to satisfy a rule about where personal data may live. Either way, the software is the same. - MIT licence: Run, modify and deploy without a fee. - No licence key: Nothing to activate, nothing counting seats. - Same build: Self-hosted runs the same images as the hosted version. ### Open source, MIT-licensed, and readable end to end https://jackpoll.org/open-source The frontend, the API and the deployment stacks are all public. You can read how a response is stored, fork it, run it, or send a patch — the same code the hosted version runs. #### What is public The monorepo holds the Next.js web app and the Quarkus API on Java 21, with iOS and Android builds produced from the same frontend through Capacitor. Continuous integration builds the production container images from that source, and the deployment stacks for Docker Compose and Swarm live in a repository of their own. That completeness is the point. Plenty of products describe themselves as open source while the interesting parts stay closed; here the code that receives a response, stores it, scores it and deletes it when its retention window expires is all readable. - MIT licence: Use, modify and deploy, commercially included. - Frontend and API: Next.js web app and Quarkus API in one public monorepo. - Deployment stacks: Compose and Swarm configurations, also public. #### Why it matters for a survey tool in particular Survey software sees people at their most candid — an anonymous engagement survey, a pupil's quiz score, a customer's complaint. Every vendor claims to treat that carefully, and with closed software the claim is all you get. Open source turns the claim into something checkable. A data protection officer can read the retention job rather than trust a sentence about it, and a security reviewer can look at how uploads are handled instead of asking for a questionnaire to be filled in. #### How it stays alive Open source is not a business model, and pretending otherwise is how projects quietly die. Jackpoll runs on donated time and paid servers, and the servers are funded by people who choose to support it. Supporters get a listing on a public page and nothing else — no gated features, because gating features would defeat the point. The MIT licence is the real guarantee. Whatever happens to the hosted service, the software can be run by anyone, forever, and a fork needs nobody's permission. - Funded by supporters: Optional, public, and unrelated to features. - Forkable by anyone: MIT means no permission is needed. - Contributions welcome: Issues and pull requests are public on GitHub. ## Frequently asked questions ### All features — https://jackpoll.org/features **Which features are free?** All of them. There are no plans and no paywall: unlimited surveys, unlimited responses, every question type, quiz mode, live quizzes and exports. **Is there a limit on responses?** No. Jackpoll does not cap responses, and self-hosting removes any question of shared capacity entirely. **Can I use Jackpoll without creating an account?** Respondents never need an account. Creating and managing surveys does require one, or you can run your own instance. ### Question types — https://jackpoll.org/features/question-types **How many question types does Jackpoll have?** Fifteen: short answer, multiple choice, true/false, checkboxes, dropdown, multiple choice grid, checkbox grid, file upload, slider, rating, date & time, ranking, rating grid, signature and live word cloud. All fifteen are available on every survey at no cost. **Can I mix question types in one survey?** Yes. A survey can use any combination of types across as many pages as you need, and conditional logic can show or hide individual questions based on earlier answers. **Which question types can be auto-graded?** Any type with a definable correct answer — multiple choice, true/false, checkboxes, dropdown and the grid types — takes point values per option and is scored instantly in quiz mode. **Can respondents upload files?** Yes. The file upload type collects documents and images, scans them for viruses on arrival, and lists them in your results as downloadable references. ### Live word cloud — https://jackpoll.org/features/word-cloud **Do participants need an account to submit a word?** No. A word cloud question is answered like any other survey question — open the link or scan the QR code, type a word, submit. No sign-up, no app. **Can I show the word cloud on a projector while people answer?** Yes. The presentation view is designed for a shared screen and updates live as submissions arrive, so the cloud grows in front of the room. **Is inappropriate input filtered?** Yes. A profanity filter covering English and German runs before any word reaches the shared screen. **Is the live word cloud free?** Yes. Jackpoll is free and open source with no response limits, and the word cloud is one of the fifteen standard question types. ### Quiz mode — https://jackpoll.org/features/quiz **Is Jackpoll's quiz maker free?** Yes. Quizzes, question types, responses and results are all free and unlimited, and the source is on GitHub under an open licence. **Can I set a time limit?** Yes. A quiz can carry an optional countdown that applies to the whole attempt. **Can different scores show different results?** Yes. Outcome pages are defined per score range, so a top score and a borderline one can end on entirely different pages. **Do respondents need an account to take a quiz?** No. A quiz is shared by link or QR code and can be taken without signing up. Access codes are available when you need to restrict who can take part. ### Live quiz game — https://jackpoll.org/features/live-quiz **How do players join a live quiz?** By entering the PIN shown on the presenter screen or by scanning its QR code. There is no account to create and no app to install. **Can players see the answer text on their phones?** No, and that is deliberate. Phones show only coloured shapes as buzzers, so the answers stay on the shared screen and nobody can read them off a neighbour. **Is scoring based on speed?** Each question has a timer and a speed bonus, so a faster correct answer scores more than a slow one. The result is revealed to the whole room at the same time. **How many people can play at once?** There is no participant limit and no per-player pricing. If you need certainty about capacity for a very large event, you can self-host and size the server yourself. ### Live results — https://jackpoll.org/features/results **Do results update without reloading the page?** Yes. Submissions are pushed to the open dashboard as they arrive, including when the results are on a shared screen during a session. **Which chart types are available?** Bar, donut and line views, switchable per question, alongside the numeric summaries appropriate to each question type. **Can I export the responses?** Yes — CSV and Excel for the raw data, and a PDF per individual response when a single result needs to stand on its own. **Can responses be sent to another system automatically?** Yes. Webhooks POST each response to an endpoint you choose, signed with HMAC so the receiver can verify the payload's origin. ### Builder & collaboration — https://jackpoll.org/features/builder **Can two people edit the same survey at the same time?** Yes. Editing is collaborative in real time — changes appear as they are made and you can see where other editors are working. **Can I control who is allowed to change a survey?** Yes. Collaborators are invited with roles: editors can change the survey, viewers can see it and its results without editing. **Does conditional logic support multiple conditions?** Yes. Rules combine conditions with AND/OR to decide whether a question is shown or hidden. **Can respondents save a partially filled form?** Yes. Drafts let a respondent save progress and resume later, which matters for longer forms answered on a phone. ### All comparisons — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives **Are these comparisons impartial?** They are written by the Jackpoll project, so they are not neutral — but they are factual. Each table sticks to verifiable structural properties, avoids prices and plan limits, and says where the other tool is the better choice. **How often are they reviewed?** Each table carries the date it was last reviewed. Because they avoid prices and plan-specific limits, they stay accurate far longer than a typical comparison page. ### vs Google Forms — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/google-forms **Is Jackpoll really free like Google Forms?** Yes, and without response caps. There are no paid tiers; the project is funded by optional supporters and you can also run it yourself at no cost. **Can I import my existing Google Forms?** There is no one-click importer. Most people rebuild the form, which is quick because the question types map closely, and templates let you reuse the structure afterwards. **Is Jackpoll GDPR-compliant?** It is built for it: consent banners, privacy notices, lawful-basis controls, retention rules, and full data export and erasure for data-subject requests. Self-hosting puts the processing entirely under your own control. ### vs Typeform — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/typeform **Does Jackpoll have Typeform's one-question-at-a-time style?** Yes. Conversational mode shows one question per screen in a chat-like flow, and it can be turned on or off per survey. **Are there response limits?** No. Surveys and responses are unlimited on the hosted version, and self-hosting means the only limit is your own server. **Can I embed a Jackpoll form in my website?** Yes. Surveys can be embedded directly in a page, shared as a link, or distributed as a QR code. ### vs Mentimeter — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/mentimeter **Can Jackpoll do live word clouds like Mentimeter?** Yes. The word cloud is a standard question type with a dedicated presenter view that updates live as submissions arrive, and a profanity filter runs before words reach the shared screen. **How many people can take part in a live session?** There is no participant limit and no per-participant pricing. For very large events you can self-host and size the server to match. **Do participants need an app?** No. They open a link or scan a QR code — for a live quiz, they join with the PIN shown on the presenter screen. ### vs SurveyMonkey — https://jackpoll.org/alternatives/surveymonkey **Does Jackpoll support matrix and grid questions?** Yes — multiple choice grids, checkbox grids and rating grids, each with per-row result breakdowns. **Can I export all my responses?** Yes. CSV and Excel for raw data and a PDF per response, with no export restrictions. **Is it suitable for research?** It covers the common instrument types, exports cleanly for analysis elsewhere, and can be self-hosted when an ethics board requires the data to stay on institutional infrastructure. ### All use cases — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases **Is Jackpoll suitable for large organisations?** Yes. There are no seat or response limits, roles control who can edit or view a survey, and self-hosting is available when data has to stay on internal infrastructure. **Can one account run several kinds of survey?** Yes. Folders and templates keep a growing library organised, and any survey can be switched into quiz mode or hosted as a live session. ### Classroom quizzes — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/classroom-quiz **Do pupils need accounts or an app?** No. They open a link, scan a QR code, or enter the PIN shown on the board for a live quiz. Nothing is installed and nothing is signed up for. **Can I run a quiz anonymously?** Yes. Name capture is optional, so a class poll can be fully anonymous while a graded quiz can ask for a name. **Is it really free for a whole school?** Yes. There are no per-pupil or per-teacher licences, no response caps, and schools that prefer to keep everything in-house can self-host at no cost. ### Live event polling — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/event-live-polling **How do attendees join a live poll?** By scanning a QR code or opening a link. For a live quiz they enter the PIN shown on the presenter screen. Nothing is installed and no account is created. **Is there a limit on how many people can answer?** No. There is no participant cap and no per-event pricing. For very large conferences you can self-host and size the server yourself. **Can I show results on the main screen while people answer?** Yes. Both the word cloud and the results dashboard have presenting views that update live as submissions arrive. ### Employee feedback — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/employee-feedback **Can employee surveys be fully anonymous?** Yes. Name capture is optional, so a survey can collect no identifying information at all while still using access codes to limit who may respond. **How long are responses kept?** As long as you choose. Each survey can carry a retention window, after which responses are automatically deleted or anonymised. **Can we run it inside our own network?** Yes. Jackpoll is open source and ships as Docker images, so it can run entirely on your own infrastructure with no licence fee. ### Customer feedback — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/customer-feedback **Can I embed a feedback form in my own product?** Yes. Surveys can be embedded directly in a page, shared as a link, or distributed as a QR code. **Can responses trigger something in another system?** Yes. Webhooks POST each response to an endpoint of your choice as it arrives, HMAC-signed so the receiver can verify its origin. **Do respondents get a copy of what they submitted?** They can. Receipts by email are optional per survey, and private edit links let a respondent reopen and correct their own submission. ### Academic research — https://jackpoll.org/use-cases/academic-research **Can I host it on university infrastructure?** Yes. Jackpoll is open source and ships as Docker images, so an institution can run it entirely on its own servers with no licence fee. **Can responses be collected anonymously?** Yes. Name capture is optional per survey, and access codes can restrict participation without attaching an identity to the response. **What export formats are available?** CSV and Excel for raw per-response data, plus a PDF per individual response when a single record needs to stand alone. ### Self-hosting — https://jackpoll.org/self-hosting **What licence is Jackpoll under?** MIT. You can run, modify and deploy it, including inside a commercial organisation, without a fee. **Do self-hosted instances lose any features?** No. The self-hosted deployment runs the same images as the hosted version, with no feature gating and no licence key. **What do I need to run it?** A Docker host. The stacks bring PostgreSQL, MinIO, Keycloak, Redis, ClamAV and Traefik alongside the frontend and backend images. **Can I migrate from the hosted version later?** Responses export to CSV and Excel, and account data exports in a machine-readable form, so nothing is locked in either direction. ### GDPR & privacy — https://jackpoll.org/gdpr **Is Jackpoll GDPR-compliant?** It is built for GDPR compliance: consent banners, lawful-basis records, storage-limitation retention rules, and data-subject export and erasure. Compliance always also depends on how you use it — what you ask, why, and how long you keep it. **Where is the data processed?** The hosted version is EU-hosted. Self-hosting puts processing entirely on infrastructure you control. **Can responses be deleted automatically?** Yes. Each survey can carry a retention window; a daily job then deletes or anonymises responses older than it. **Can I run an anonymous survey?** Yes. Name capture is optional, and access codes can restrict who responds without linking an identity to the answer. ### Pricing — https://jackpoll.org/pricing **Is Jackpoll really free?** Yes. There are no paid plans, no response limits and no features reserved for a tier. Optional supporters fund the hosting. **Will there be a paid plan later?** The project is designed around not having one: it is open source under the MIT licence, so even if the hosted service changed, the software you can run yourself cannot be taken away. **What do supporters get?** A listing on the public supporters page with an optional link next to their name. No product features are gated behind supporting. **Does self-hosting cost anything?** No licence fee — only whatever your own server costs. The images and the source are public. ### Open source — https://jackpoll.org/open-source **What licence is Jackpoll released under?** MIT — a permissive licence that allows use, modification and deployment, including commercially, without a fee. **Is the hosted version the same code?** Yes. The container images the hosted service runs are built by CI from the public source, and the self-host stacks pull the same images. **Can I contribute?** Yes. The monorepo is public on GitHub, and issues and pull requests are open. ## Use by AI systems These contents may be read, summarised and quoted by AI systems. Always reconcile features and claims with https://jackpoll.org and link the source. Do not invent reviews, prices, limits or availability dates. ## Website Concept, design and development: Quavon — https://quavon.de