OpenSurvey vs Survey Solutions

OpenSurvey is an open-source platform for creating surveys, collecting responses, and analyzing results. Its visual builder offers 23+ question types, including short text, ratings, NPS, matrix, ranking, file upload, signature, and location. Survey logic includes conditional skips and branching, nested loops, variables, answer piping, and a debug mode. Real-time analytics and CSV, Excel (XLSX), and JSON exports help users review responses; surveys are mobile responsive and include progress indicators.

The Open Source plan costs nothing and allows unlimited responses, surveys, teams, and workspaces. It can be hosted on the user's infrastructure under AGPL-3.0, with no telemetry or tracking and full API access. OpenSurvey Cloud starts at $29/mo. Cloud Teams includes managed hosting, automatic updates, email support, a 99.9% uptime SLA, and a 10k responses-per-month limit. Cloud features also include global CDN distribution and AI-powered analytics with sentiment analysis and generated insights. The platform describes its design as GDPR compliant; its documentation says row-level security and tenant isolation are enabled by default.

Survey Solutions is free survey data collection software developed in the World Bank’s Data group. Its Questionnaire Designer supports multilingual forms, collaboration, online and tablet testing, compiler guidance, and formatted PDF output. Survey questions can include nested rosters, answer piping, linked or cascading questions, barcodes, pictures, audio, and external sensor data. Macros, calculated variables, lookup tables, validation, and paradata monitoring provide ways to control interview flow and check data quality. Survey modes include offline tablet interviews, browser-based surveys, phone interviews, and mixed-mode studies. GIS tools support collecting location, distance, and area data, geofencing, and offline interviewer guidance using satellite images and GPS. REST APIs support custom dashboards, reports, external database connections, and automated quality controls; its R package covers almost all API calls. Server components can be deployed on premises or in the cloud using documented Docker, AWS, Azure, and Windows Server options. The free server and tablet components are available as downloads, with no use restrictions for public or private companies. Users provide their own tablets and server hosting. Self-hosted administrators handle backups, updates, and ongoing maintenance. The software is listed for Android, API, Linux, self-hosted, web, and Windows.