Overview

LimeSurvey is survey software with hosted plans and a self-hosted, open-source option. It is best suited to teams that need branching, multilingual surveys, and control over where data is hosted. Its breadth and deployment choice are compelling, but hosted response quotas and admin limits make plan fit important.

Key features

More than 30 customizable question types, media support, and branching let teams build surveys that go beyond basic feedback forms. Support for more than 80 languages and multilingual surveys is useful for organizations serving audiences across regions; more than 800 templates can help start a survey without building every question from scratch.

Distribution options include links, QR codes, social media, email, posters, and flyers. Response analytics and exports to SPSS, R, Stata, CSV, Excel, and PDF suit teams that need to review results in LimeSurvey or continue analysis elsewhere. Google Translate, Google Analytics, and API access add integration options, though their value depends on the tools a team already uses.

Data-center choices include EU and US regions. LimeSurvey says it uses 2048-bit SSL encryption and is GDPR compliant, reports WCAG 2.2 Level AA alignment, and says ISO 27001 is in progress. That combination and its focus on data governance and avoiding vendor lock-in will appeal to organizations weighing privacy and control; the ISO certification is not yet complete. Self-hosting offers another route for teams prioritizing deployment control.

Pricing

The free plan costs 0.00 USD per free and includes 25 responses per month and one admin user. It is a low-commitment way to try survey creation, but the response cap makes it a poor fit for ongoing programs with larger audiences.

Basic costs 39.00 USD per month, billed monthly. It raises the allowance to 1,000 responses per month and includes unlimited surveys and questions, one admin user, and 250 MB of upload storage. It suits an individual running multiple surveys within a defined monthly volume; the storage and single-admin ceiling can constrain teams with more media or shared administration.

Expert costs 432.00 USD per year, billed annually, displayed as $36/month and $432 billed annually. It includes 10,000 responses per year, three admin users, and 1 GB of upload storage. This is a better fit for a small team with annual rather than monthly response needs, but the annual billing term is less flexible than Basic.

Business has custom pricing and includes 50,000 responses per year, 3 GB of upload storage, and selected admin users. It fits organizations with higher response needs, though the listed seat count is not a fixed allowance. Corporate also has custom pricing, with tailored users and responses, SSO, LDAP, SAML, a dedicated server, and VIP support; those provisions suit organizations that need tailored scale and enterprise administration.

Users can sign up for free. The paid plans provide progressively larger response allowances and support levels ranging from community and email to priority email and VIP support. No refund policy is stated.

Platforms

LimeSurvey supports API access and self-hosting. The hosted plans suit teams that want a managed option, while the self-hosted open-source alternative to Google Forms is relevant when deployment control matters more than relying on a hosted service.

Who it's for

LimeSurvey is a strong candidate for research, institutional, and business teams that need complex survey logic, multilingual questionnaires, established analysis exports, or choices about data location. The company reports serving more than 60,000 companies and institutions across over 160 countries. A lightweight survey need or a team likely to exceed the free cap but unwilling to manage a paid quota should look at its expected response volume and admin needs before choosing.

Pros and cons

Pros: Branching, more than 30 question types, and media support give survey designers meaningful control over questionnaire structure.
Pros: Multilingual surveys, 80-plus language support, and broad distribution options accommodate varied audiences and collection methods.
Pros: API access, analytics, and exports to statistical and common office formats support workflows beyond the survey itself.
Pros: Regional hosting choices and a self-hosted option offer useful data-control flexibility.
Cons: The free plan's 25 responses per month is restrictive for real collection at scale.
Cons: Basic limits teams to one admin and 250 MB of storage, while higher allowances require a larger plan.
Cons: Expert requires annual billing, and Business and Corporate use custom pricing.

Alternatives

Qualtrics is worth considering for individuals who can work within its free plan's one user, three active surveys, and 500 total responses.

SoSci Survey offers a free research plan with 5,000 respondents, which may suit research users whose primary concern is a larger free respondent allowance.

Alchemer is another freemium survey platform with API access and a free plan.

Conjointly offers a free trial and a Basic plan with unlimited surveys and questions, plus 20 responses for advanced methods; its Professional plan costs 2895.00 USD per year.

DataLion has a free plan billed free forever, with one user, one project, 100 cases, and Excel, CSV, and SPSS import.

Surveti has a free plan with one seat, 20 client viewers, 100 completes, 1,000 AI credits, and 1 GB of storage; it may fit teams seeking those included capacities.

SurveyLab offers a free plan capped at 50 total responses and a Starter plan at 49.00 USD per month for 1,000 responses per month.

Make Opinion Next offers a free Self-Serve platform fee, with sample costs applying.

Verdict

Choose LimeSurvey if your team needs substantial survey-design flexibility, multilingual collection, and a choice between hosted and self-hosted deployment. Its strongest case is combining those capabilities with data-location control and useful analysis exports. Look elsewhere if the free response cap is too small, or if your team needs more seats or storage than Basic provides without moving to a higher plan.

	LimeSurvey	SurveyExpression
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Free trial	No	No
Paid from	$36/mo	$25/mo
Open source	No	No
Platforms	api, self-hosted	Web
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Paid from	$39/mo	—
Responses included	1,000 /mo	200 /mo
Logic branching	Yes	Yes
Custom branding	Yes	Yes
Response analytics	Yes	Yes
API access	Yes	—
Respondent panel	Yes	—

LimeSurvey vs SurveyExpression

LimeSurvey

SurveyExpression