LimeSurvey

LimeSurvey is an open-source, self-hosted web application used to create and manage online surveys, polls, and questionnaires for data collection. The software is deployed on a server and supports various database backends including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and MSSQL.

It is used by academic institutions, businesses, and government agencies to gather feedback and conduct research while maintaining full control over their own data. The platform is designed for a wide range of use cases, from simple customer satisfaction polls to complex academic field studies and global multilingual research projects. Users can distribute surveys via public links, QR codes, or social media, or restrict access to specific invitees through a closed access mode.

Key features

• Over 30 different question types
• Conditional skip logic and question branching
• Multilingual support for more than 80 languages
• Custom branding via CSS, JavaScript, fonts, and colors
• RemoteControl API using XML-RPC and JSON-RPC
• Two-factor authentication and data anonymization
• GDPR and WCAG 2.0 compliance
• Integration with SAML and LDAP

Built with PHP and JavaScript, the platform includes a built-in editor and a library of over 900 survey templates. It provides advanced data analysis tools and statistics to process responses directly within the application. The architecture allows for extensibility through plugins for themes, audit logs, and specialized data exports such as ExportR and ExportSTATAxml. For deployment, it requires a PHP-ready web server such as Apache or nginx, and it is compatible with several major relational database management systems.

LimeSurvey serves as a flexible survey tool for organizations that require high data privacy, strict regulatory compliance, and the avoidance of vendor lock-in.