Positives
- Fully customizable
- Multilingual surveys
- Built-in Google translate
- Varied question types
- Unlimited users
Negatives
- Coding skills required
- Hard-to-read reports
- Limited customer service
LimeSurvey is an open source survey platform that allows users with coding skills to create and customize questionnaires, surveys, and polls, from start to finish.
Everything can be tailored to your liking – but that’s not even the software’s main selling point. What truly puts LimeSurvey in the limelight is that users can create unlimited surveys, easily translate them with a built-in Google translate tool, and display them in over 80 languages.
The icing on the cake is that such useful features are available even in the free plan. Still, for as little as $29 per month (billed annually), it’s worth going for the paid plan to take advantage of unlimited users, larger cloud storage space, and an increased number of submissions.
Subscribe to LimeSurvey and take advantage of the free version to build surveys at zero cost.
Features
One thing is for sure – LimeSurvey is not a small-scale survey software company. The highest-tier plan allows for 100,000 responses per year, which is excellent for running transactional surveys.
Along with various customization options, seamless collaboration is another advantage of using LimeSurvey, as all paid plans let unlimited users create and manage ongoing surveys. Even with a free plan, up to two users can develop surveys together.
However, what truly sets LimeSurvey apart from other survey software is that surveys can be created in over 80 different languages, and it’s possible to add multiple languages to the same survey. Plus, built-in Google translation support allows users to instantly translate surveys directly from the survey creation page.
Additional Users
Survey Languages
Built-In Google Translate
What’s more, cloud storage is available with up to 3GB of space, depending on the type of subscription chosen. Unfortunately, the data stored isn’t encrypted by default. Still, certain fields and responses can be set to be always encrypted at rest.
Finally, it’s worth noting that it’s possible to use your organization’s website domain to host surveys, so participants don’t have to bother going to a third-party website to complete a survey.
Subscribe to a LimeSurvey annual plan and pay up to 15% less compared to the monthly plan.
More Coupons, Discounts, and Promo Codes
Question Types
LimeSurvey offers an impressive 28 question types, which is more than most other survey companies offers. The options vary from the most basic, such as multiple choice and long text, to the more complex like matrix, equation, and data upload.
Skip logic and question branching are also available even with a free plan, along with question piping. These features help users create engaging surveys that people are more likely to respond to. However, setting them isn’t the easiest of tasks unless you’re already familiar with coding.
Question Types
Question Settings
Unfortunately, LimeSurvey doesn’t offer a bank from which users can pick pre-made questions. This is a point for LimeSurvey to improve, as it can help speed up the survey creation process.
Survey Design
LimeSurvey’s website displays 139 pre-designed survey templates divided into categories related to market research, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and more.
However, we weren’t able to determine how useful these templates are, as we couldn’t try them out. Whenever we clicked the button to create a survey from the chosen template, the platform sent us back to our account details instead of the creation page. So, this is an area that requires the company’s attention.
Survey Templates
Survey and Questions Preview
Regarding layout customization, as an open source platform, personalizing the survey’s layout with your brand’s visual identity is only possible if you have CSS and HTML knowledge.
Finally, as with every other survey platform, users can preview the survey before activating it. However, something unique about LimeSurvey is that it shows the preview for each question, which is highly useful for checking those with advanced logic, branching, or pipeline settings.
Survey Responses Collection
As LimeSurvey is designed to create a webpage for your survey or incorporate it into an existing domain, the primary way of collecting responses is from the developed page.
Still, the survey link is shareable via email or other methods users prefer. It’s worth noting that several email templates are available for users to invite respondents or send reminders and confirmations.
Email Templates
Survey Publication
What’s more, LimeSurvey stands out from other platforms for letting users set the survey’s start and expiry date. Other advanced configurations are also available, such as setting cookies to prevent repeated participation and using CAPTCHA for access, registration, and saving the survey.
Reporting
LimeSurvey’s reporting could be strengthened, as the reports aren’t the most visually appealing. The data collected is presented on the Responses page, which shows the total number of submissions divided into full and incomplete responses.
Then, on the Statistics page, it’s possible to analyze the survey results displayed in graphs, charts, or basic response summaries. Interpreting these results is easier with the extensive data filtering options. They allow users to filter the data by the type of responses and submission date. Plus, depending on the question type used, the data can be refined further by text, numerical value, and others.
What’s more, the statistics can be displayed in HTML, which is set as default, or downloaded in PDF, CSV, or SPSS.
Responses Page
Survey Statistics
Statistics Settings
Ease of Use
The overall experience of using LimeSurvey depends entirely on the user’s programming knowledge. People who aren’t familiar with coding won’t be able to create a survey with ease.
However, for those looking for an open source survey platform, LimeSurvey can be truly helpful, as it offers several different resources to create highly customizable surveys, forms, questionnaires, and polls.
Moreover, even though its dashboard may overwhelm newbies who don’t have computer programming skills, it’s intuitive and easy to navigate for those who know how to manage this type of platform.
Pricing
LimeSurvey’s subscription prices are average when compared with other survey platforms. However, the company stands out for allowing unlimited users in all paid plans. The most affordable option is Expert, billed annually, which costs $29 per month. We consider it the best value for money, as all features are included, offering more monthly responses and cloud storage.
What truly makes LimeSurvey special is that skip logic, multilingual surveys, and varied question types are available in all plans, including the free one. These features are usually limited or inexistent in the free plans of other survey platforms.
Those who prefer to go with a monthly subscription can choose the Basic plan for $34 per month. While this is a popular option, one of the downsides is that it doesn’t allow you to use your own subdomain. It’s worth noting that the annual plan costs 15% less than the monthly one, and provides more features. Also, teachers, students, and non-profits are eligible to get up to 50% off their subscriptions.
Additionally, there’s the Enterprise plan, which costs $74 per month billed annually, and increases the number of responses per year to 100,000 and cloud storage to 3GB. Finally, it’s important to choose the plan carefully, as the company doesn’t have any refund policies.
Customer Service
The only way to contact LimeSurvey’s customer service is via the ticket system, and the company doesn’t specify which times the support team is available. This is an aspect that could be worked on.
On the other hand, when we reached out to the company, we got a clear and helpful response within just a few hours, so its quick assistance is still worth praising.
Contact Page
Help Center
Another positive is that the platform’s help center provides a variety of useful articles – it didn’t take us long to resolve the issues we faced while testing the platform. The topics vary from inquiries related to subscriptions to step-by-step guides on creating a survey. Also, the community support forum and the FAQ page are equally helpful.
Finally, the company doesn’t provide customer service through social media, so adding this channel, along with phone support or live chat, would significantly elevate the user experience.
Bottom Line
All things considered, it’s fair to say that if you’re looking for a highly customizable survey platform, and you have a foundation of programming knowledge, LimeSurvey is likely to serve your every need.
However, the software isn’t suitable for just anyone. Only those with programming knowledge are able to fully squeeze the lime to create multilingual surveys with varied question types and advanced branching settings.
Even though the platform’s reporting and customer service are areas that need some enhancement, LimeSurvey still offers many helpful features for free. Plus, with paid plans starting at $29 per month, those who need more responses per year can still count on LimeSurvey as an affordable option among open source survey software.
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