Plumeform vs LimeSurvey

Plumeform vs LimeSurvey.

LimeSurvey’s Community Edition lets you host the survey software on your own server. It also has hosted plans, with different response allowances and billing periods. Compare maintenance needs and plan limits alongside the features. Prices below were checked in September 2026.

Pick LimeSurvey if

The data cannot leave your institution. Self-hosting the Community Edition is the cleanest answer to that, and we do not have one.
You have somebody to run it. A server, updates, backups and a database are the price of the licence being free.
You need its question-type catalogue, which is deeper than ours and deeper than most.
Your ethics board has already approved a LimeSurvey deployment and you would rather not reopen that.

Pick Plumeform if

Your allowance should be monthly. LimeSurvey's hosted Expert plan is 10,000 responses a year for $432; Plumeform Pro is 10,000 a month for $180 a year.
You do not want to maintain a server to run a survey.
You want the quality controls without configuring them: attention checks, speeder and straight-lining detection, timers, screening and quotas (all but the detection on Pro).
You want live charts, cross-tabs and a methods summary to review for your report, with significance tests and weighting on Pro.

Side by side

Feature	LimeSurvey	Plumeform
Self-hosting	Yes, Community Edition	No
Hosted entry	$39 / mo, 1,000 responses / month	$0, 100 / month
10,000 responses	Per YEAR on Expert, $432 / yr	Per MONTH on Pro, $180 / yr
Admin users included	1 to 3 on small plans	5 on Pro
Attention checks and quality flags	Build them yourself	Built in (attention checks on Pro)
Panel integrations	Via URL parameters	Prolific, Connect, MTurk built in
Question-type depth	Very deep	30 types
Server to maintain	Yes, if self-hosted	No

This comparison uses pricing reviewed in July and September 2026. Plans can change; check LimeSurvey's current pricing and ours.

Prices and limits

12×

the response allowance for less money

10,000 a month here at $180 / yr; 10,000 a year there at $432

is the right price for Community Edition

if you have somebody to run the server

servers to patch

which is the other half of what hosting costs

Common questions.

Is self-hosting actually free?

The software is. The server, the backups, the TLS certificate, the upgrades and the person who does them are not. That trade is worth it for some institutions and not for others, and only you know which you are.

Can I move a LimeSurvey questionnaire across?

Paste the questions into Plumeform's import (a Pro feature) and it reproduces them as a draft. Complex LimeSurvey question types may need a look afterwards.

Where does Plumeform store data?

In Supabase on AWS, and the security page says exactly what is stored and who can read it. If your requirement is that data stays on your own hardware, self-hosted LimeSurvey is the better answer and we will say so.

All 17 comparisons, side by side

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Build and preview it free.

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100 responses a month on Free, with no credit card. Build and preview every question type, logic rule, template and look; publishing a Pro feature needs Pro, and AI, import, image uploads, integrations and studies need Pro to use.