When it comes to managing surveys, having full control over your data is crucial. Relying on third-party platforms often means facing limitations in customization, data storage, or integration. DIY survey software allows you to create, manage, and analyze your surveys without compromise. These tools give you the flexibility to design forms that suit your exact needs while ensuring your data remains secure. Here’s a rundown of six web-based customizable survey tools, each with its own strengths in form creation, survey filling, data analysis, pricing, and accessibility.
1. SurveyJS
Overview
SurveyJS is an open-source, highly customizable survey software with a focus on flexibility and ease of integration into modern web applications. SurveyJS client JavaScript libraries support every common front-end framework that you could imagine, and even the ones you couldn't. It's even more flexible when it comes to the backend - you can integrate with any backend system of your choice.
Form Creation
The form management platform offers a visual form builder, allowing non-tech users to build forms quickly. Its drag-and-drop interface simplifies form setup, and it supports custom themes and layouts.
Form Filling
With responsive designs and mobile optimization, forms are easy to fill out on any device. SurveyJS also supports complex conditions, allowing for dynamic changes based on user input.
Survey Data Analysis
SurveyJS offers a Dashboard library that enables users to analyze survey results using various customizable charts and tables. It provides real-time feedback, so responses can be analyzed instantly. You have complete control over your data, allowing you to sync it with platforms like Google Sheets or your company’s business insights tools.
Pricing
SurveyJS offers a flexible pricing model by publishing its libraries on GitHub for free trial use. The survey rendering library is MIT licensed, allowing free use even for commercial purposes. However, for products like Survey Creator, a 'Basic' license costs around $499. For the Survey Creator, Dashboard and PDF Generator, you'll need a 'Pro' license at $899. Commercial licenses are perpetual, but access to updates requires an annual renewal. It’s ideal for both small businesses and large enterprises as it imposes no usage limitations.
Accessibility
This survey tool prioritizes accessibility, adhering to WCAG guidelines to ensure that forms are usable by everyone, including those with disabilities.
2. LimeSurvey
Overview
LimeSurvey offers an all-in-one solution for the entire form lifecycle, from building and publishing to collecting and analyzing results. It’s a great option for those who want to get started quickly without managing backend infrastructure. However, it does involve sending user data to a third-party platform, meaning less control over backend technology and potential difficulties integrating with existing authentication systems.
Form Creation
Though slightly less intuitive than some of the others, LimeSurvey offers a rich set of question types. However, its user interface can feel outdated and more suited to advanced users.
Form Filling
LimeSurvey offers a simple form-filling UI with responsive validation after publishing, but customization options are limited unless you self-host. Self-hosting allows you to apply custom CSS, but it requires significant development work and affects all forms. It's a great choice for users seeking a ready-made solution but less ideal for those who need extensive design flexibility.
Survey Data Analysis
LimeSurvey excels in data analysis, with strong export options and built-in reporting features. The reporting is detailed, making it a solid choice for data-heavy projects.
Pricing
LimeSurvey offers a free, open-source 'community' edition for self-hosting, which can be complex to set up. For easier use, their cloud hosting service starts at 23€ per month (billed annually) for 10,000 responses annually, with higher plans reaching 58€ per month (billed annually) for 100,000 responses.
Accessibility
It is compliant with major accessibility standards, but some users find that its default templates may require additional customization to be fully accessible.
3. Formium (by Formik)
Overview
Formium originated from the React library Formik, designed to simplify form creation in React by providing components that streamline initial values and validation processes. Building on Formik's success, Formium introduced an online form builder platform comprising an online form interface, SDKs for integrating forms into React applications, and a robust submission and storage system that connects with Zapier for automation. However, Formium appears largely unmaintained, with no updates to its SDK in three years and unanswered issues on GitHub, raising concerns about its future viability.
Form Creation
Formium features a user-friendly logic editor that allows users to set rules for form interactions, similar to SurveyJS, by specifying criteria for fields and defining actions, primarily limited to showing or hiding questions. However, its functionality is quite basic, lacking advanced features such as copying answers between questions or making fields conditionally required, and it does not offer tools for multilingual support, necessitating additional manual effort for translations; while the form editor is intuitive, users may feel frustrated by the absence of more comprehensive features that are yet to be implemented.
Form Filling
Formium offers two options for form display: a built-in form viewer on their online platform that is clean and user-friendly, and a React SDK that allows for simple rendering of forms with customizable components, providing significant flexibility for developers.
Survey Data Analysis
Formium allows users to send form submission results for storage and processing, but its dashboard lacks data visualization tools, requiring users to manually download CSV files to create graphs. While it offers 'workflows' for connecting to third-party services like Slack, email, or webhooks upon submission, any complex workflows must be managed through Zapier, which is a separate paid service not included natively in SurveyJS.
Pricing
Formium has a pricing model based on form submissions, which can be a drawback for larger surveys or those with high respondent counts. The lowest tier starting at $20 per month for 25 forms and 1,000 monthly submissions.
Accessibility
The platform allows developers to create accessible forms, though out-of-the-box accessibility depends on the developer's implementation.
4. Form.io
Overview
Form.io offers a comprehensive suite of tools for building, publishing, and managing forms, providing both front-end and back-end solutions to meet various user needs. Their products are delivered as Docker containers for easy deployment in your own environment, while also offering a hosted SaaS solution that, although lacking some features of the self-hosted option, allows users to quickly get started with form management.
Form Creation
Its form builder is feature-rich and allows for the creation of highly complex forms. The drag-and-drop interface is intuitive, but the learning curve can be steep due to the variety of options.
Form Filling
Forms built with Form.io are responsive and efficient, though customization often requires a developer’s input for fine-tuning.
Survey Data Analysis
Form.io's basic product lacks comprehensive reporting functionality, allowing only data exports as spreadsheets without native graphing capabilities; users can purchase a separate reporting module for $600 per month, which still offers limited reporting options. However, Form.io provides a robust developer interface for integrating form results with third-party services, including pre-built integrations like a SQL connector to sync data with custom SQL databases.
Pricing
Form.io's pricing model is primarily based on deployment rather than usage, starting at $600 per month for one enterprise-level project and API server management, with an additional $300 per month for enhanced security compliance features. Their hosted SaaS version costs $300 per month, offering unlimited forms but capping submissions at 1 million per month and 1,000 monthly PDF downloads, after which they encourage users to consider self-hosted options; both self-hosted and cloud versions can be trialed for 30 days, though accessing the self-hosted trial requires scheduling a sales call.
Accessibility
Form.io offers an accessibility compliance module aimed at helping users create accessible forms, but charging extra for this feature is considered unfair since accessible design should be standard.
5. FormEngine
Overview
FormEngine, developed by Optimajet as the successor to their original FormBuilder, provides a set of tools for building and deploying forms within React applications, featuring a Form Builder and a Form Viewer component. This front-end-only solution allows developers to integrate forms seamlessly into their existing applications while giving them the flexibility to manage data storage according to their preferences.
Form Creation
FormEngine requires integration into a React application, limiting its use to that framework. While it offers a customizable drag-and-drop interface for building forms, the complexity of implementing rules and actions - such as showing or hiding fields based on responses - makes it less accessible for non-technical users; these features rely on programming references rather than a user-friendly interface, which could be a barrier for those unfamiliar with coding.
Form Filling
The forms are fast-loading and optimized for mobile, ensuring a positive user experience across all devices.
Survey Data Analysis
FormEngine lacks built-in solutions for accessing and visualizing form submission results, leaving users to manage and process their data independently; although Optimajet offers a separate product called WorkflowEngine for data processing, it does not integrate natively with FormEngine and incurs additional costs.
Pricing
FormEngine offers two payment options: a perpetual license starting at approximately $899, which includes six months of updates and two months of support, allowing users to maintain the same version indefinitely; or a subscription model at around $1,499 per year, providing access across all subdomains and continuous updates as long as the subscription is active, with additional pricing options available for further inquiries.
Accessibility
FormEngine prioritises accessibility by ensuring their entire UI is keyboard accessible and incorporating aria labels throughout the application. This ensures that screen reader users can navigate and interact with the platform fully.
6. Tripetto
Overview
Tripetto is a visual survey tool that stands out for its unique flowchart-based form builder. It’s designed for building conversational-style forms and surveys.
Form Creation
Tripetto’s flowchart interface allows users to create forms that feel more dynamic and interactive. It is especially useful for creating surveys with a conversational feel.
Form Filling
Tripetto allows users to customize form colors, fonts, and choose from various ‘form faces’ that dramatically alter the form's appearance and functionality. While the ‘autoscroll’ face resembles Typeform and can feel gimmicky, the ‘chat’ face offers an engaging design but lacks practicality. The ‘classic’ face is the most user-friendly, providing a responsive experience with quick error feedback. Overall, Tripetto's form designs showcase a strong attention to detail and aesthetic appeal.
Survey Data Analysis
Tripetto does not offer any built-in solutions for accessing or visualizing form results after submission. Users must independently manage and analyze the submitted data without support from the platform.
Pricing
Tripetto offers several pricing options for its SDK. The cost for accessing the form runner is €900 per year, but this only covers one ‘form face’; additional licenses are required for each extra form face. If you also want to use the builder on your own webpages, the cheapest builder license is €699 per year, which includes standard question types and allows for five users. To enable custom question types, a more expensive builder license costing €3.900 per year is necessary. The most economical combination of the builder and runner licenses totals €1,599 per year.
Accessibility
Tripetto lacks information on its accessibility practices, and unfortunately, the platform fails to meet basic accessibility standards. The editor is not effectively navigable via keyboard, and screen readers struggle due to missing or incorrect ARIA tags. While the forms are somewhat keyboard accessible, they deviate significantly from standard keyboard controls.
Conclusion
Each of these tools brings something unique to the table. SurveyJS survey software excels in customization and seamless backend integration, while Form.io is ideal for users requiring comprehensive data management. LimeSurvey is perfect for research-heavy projects, thanks to its robust data analysis capabilities. Tripetto shines with its conversational style, but falls short in accessibility. Ultimately, assessing your priorities - be it customization, ease of use, data management, or cost - will guide you to the survey solution that best fits your needs.
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