Open source alternatives to Google Forms

What Google Forms does

Google Forms creates online forms, surveys and quizzes as part of Google Workspace, and anyone with a Google account can use it. Questions include short answers, paragraphs, multiple choice, checkboxes, dropdowns, file uploads and linear scales. Respondents can be sent to different sections depending on their answers, and forms can become graded quizzes. Results appear as charts and can be stored in a Google Sheet, while the form itself lives in Google Drive. Add-ons, Apps Script and AppSheet extend it.

Why people look for an alternative

• Data stays with Google. Forms and responses are stored in the owner’s Drive and Sheets on Google’s infrastructure, and there is no self-hosted edition.
• A hosting region only on some paid plans. Workspace data regions, US or Europe, do cover Google Forms content and responses, but only on certain Business, Enterprise, Education and Frontline editions. Personal accounts and other editions cannot choose.
• Uploads need a Google account. Respondents must sign in to answer a file upload question, and that question type is unavailable for forms in shared drives or when the administrator has turned on Data Loss Prevention.
• Limited design and automation. Customization is limited to colors, images and fonts, branching works by jumping between sections, and connecting non-Google tools usually means add-ons or Apps Script.

What to compare in an alternative

1. Question types. Check the ones you use today, such as file uploads, scales, grids and quizzes, and any you are missing, such as payments, signatures, rankings or matrices.
2. Logic. Section jumps like Google’s, or real conditional logic, piping and calculations.
3. Where results go. Built-in charts, CSV or spreadsheet export, or a spreadsheet that updates itself the way a linked Google Sheet does.
4. Who can answer. Public links, accounts on your own system, groups, or invitation lists, and whether respondents need an account to upload files.
5. Running it. An app on a server you already have, or a separate stack with its own database.

Which one to choose

If your organization already runs Nextcloud, Nextcloud Forms is the most direct replacement. It is just as simple, exports in Google’s CSV layout, and can keep a spreadsheet in your Files in sync, but it has no branching. For general business forms with logic, payments and integrations, look at OpnForm or, for one-question-at-a-time forms, HeyForm. For surveys that need complex logic, invitations, quotas or statistical exports, LimeSurvey is the long-standing choice, and SurveyKing adds auto-graded exams in a single container. Formbricks fits feedback surveys inside your own website or app. For research or field work on mobile devices, often offline, choose KoboToolbox or ODK Central.