LimeSurvey
Open-source online survey and statistical data-collection software.
Last updated August 31, 2026
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Overview
LimeSurvey is an open-source web application for designing, publishing, administering, and analyzing online surveys. The software began in 2003 as PHPSurveyor, a SourceForge project created by Australian software developer Jason Cleeland. It was initially written in PHP and used relational database systems including MySQL; later documentation and distributions supported SQLite, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server as well. The project was renamed LimeSurvey in 2007, partly to avoid incorporating PHP, a third-party project name, into the product name and to simplify licensing considerations. The platform is designed for organizations that need more control over survey structure, hosting, customization, and data management than is typically available from a basic hosted form service. Users can install the Community Edition on their own server, manage surveys through a browser-based administration interface, and customize the visual appearance through templates. The system supports multilingual surveys, rich text, images, video, question groups, conditional branching, token-based participant access, anonymous or identifiable response collection, and multiple response formats. These include text fields, numerical inputs, dropdowns, multiple-choice questions, sliders, yes-or-no questions, and matrix or array questions. Conditions can make later questions depend on earlier answers, allowing researchers to build screening, routing, and questionnaire logic. LimeSurvey also provides tools for activating and publishing surveys, managing participants, exporting data, and producing basic statistical and graphical summaries. Results can be transferred to other applications for more advanced analysis. Its open-source distribution model makes it suitable for self-hosting by universities, public bodies, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and open-source communities. The software has been used for customer and employee feedback, academic research, public consultations, election-related incident reporting, and general data collection. Reference material identifies users or adopters including the Austrian Vorarlberg State Government, Ars Electronica, OpenOffice.org, Ubuntu, GNOME, and educational institutions in multiple countries. The project underwent a major technical redevelopment for version 2.0, released in 2012. That release replaced the earlier code structure with a model-view-controller architecture based on the Yii PHP framework and introduced a substantially redesigned, AJAX-enabled interface. Later releases continued to modernize administration and survey presentation. Version 2.50, released in 2016, introduced a redesigned administration interface and responsive survey templates. Version 3.0, released in December 2017, further improved usability and moved the template system to the Twig templating engine. LimeSurvey's business model combines freely available open-source software with commercial services. In 2008, a hosting service called LimeService was established, and LimeSurvey GmbH was founded in August 2015 to coordinate development and provide services around the project. The organization offers LimeSurvey Cloud for customers who prefer hosted deployment rather than maintaining their own infrastructure. The hosted service has been described as charging primarily according to the number of respondents within a billing period, rather than restricting core functionality by feature tier. The project continues to emphasize flexibility, multilingual operation, extensibility, and the choice between self-hosting and managed cloud use. As of October 2024, reference material states that the front end and administration interface were available in 116 languages and dialects, although the completeness of translations varied by language.
History
LimeSurvey originated as PHPSurveyor, a SourceForge project registered on February 20, 2003. Australian software developer Jason Cleeland wrote the initial application, and the first public release, version 0.93, appeared on March 5, 2003. Early development focused on making a general-purpose web survey system rather than a simple polling form. Features such as conditional branching, token-based participant control, and customizable templates helped the project attract a broader user community. One early public application occurred during the 2004 United States presidential election. PHPSurveyor was used to collect reports of voting irregularities and identified more than 13,500 incidents during the first ten hours of voting. It was subsequently selected for use as part of an Election Incident Reporting System. This episode demonstrated that the software could be used for structured, high-volume data collection beyond ordinary customer questionnaires. On May 17, 2007, the project adopted the LimeSurvey name. The change reduced reliance on the PHP name in the product title and made the project's licensing and branding position simpler. The project continued to grow within the open-source ecosystem. It reached a high SourceForge ranking in 2008 and was nominated in the enterprise category of the 2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards. In December 2007, it won first place in the enterprise-management category of Les Trophées du Libre, an awards program focused on open-source projects. The development community also participated in educational open-source programs. LimeSurvey joined Google Summer of Code in 2009, with student work contributing to the interface and statistical components planned for the next major version. Participation continued in 2010 and 2011. Projects included a database storage engine, a file-upload question type, interface improvements, and other development or documentation tasks. In late 2010, the project also joined Google Code-in, where participating students worked on tasks including user-interface improvements and documentation. The 2.0 generation represented a substantial technical reset. Released in 2012, it was rewritten around a model-view-controller architecture and the Yii PHP framework. The release also introduced a new graphical interface using AJAX technology and was intended to make the codebase more modular and maintainable. In parallel with community development, hosted services gave users an alternative to installing the application themselves. LimeService was created in 2008, while the organization behind the project later developed LimeSurvey Cloud. LimeSurvey GmbH was founded in August 2015 as a limited liability company. Its purpose was to coordinate continued software development and provide commercial services around the project. Long-term project leader Carsten Schmitz was associated with the company's formation. This structure allowed the brand to combine a GNU General Public License software offering with support, hosting, and other service activities. Version 2.50 arrived in 2016 with a rebuilt administration interface and responsive survey templates, reflecting the growing importance of mobile-compatible questionnaires. Version 3.0 followed in December 2017. In addition to usability improvements, it replaced the older template system with Twig, a widely used templating engine that enabled a more modern and maintainable approach to survey design. The resulting platform supports the full basic survey lifecycle: questionnaire construction, visual customization, conditional routing, participant control, publication, response collection, data export, and introductory analysis. It can be deployed on infrastructure controlled by the user or consumed as a hosted cloud service. The project has maintained an international orientation through broad translation coverage and UTF-8 support. Reference material available for October 2024 reports front-end and back-end availability in 116 languages and dialects, with only a subset having highly complete translations. LimeSurvey therefore occupies a distinct position between community-developed infrastructure software and a commercially supported online survey service.
- 2017
Version 3.0 released
[1]Version 3.0 improved usability and adopted Twig for survey templates.
- 2016
Version 2.50 released
[1]The release introduced a refreshed administration experience and responsive survey templates.
- 2015
LimeSurvey GmbH established
[1]A German limited liability company was founded to coordinate development and provide project-related services.
- 2012
LimeSurvey 2.0 released
[1]The codebase was rewritten using an MVC architecture and Yii framework, with a redesigned AJAX-based interface.
- 2009
Google Summer of Code participation
[1]Student contributions supported work on the interface and statistical modules planned for LimeSurvey 2.0.
- 2007
Renamed LimeSurvey
[1]PHPSurveyor adopted the LimeSurvey name to simplify branding and licensing considerations.
- 2007
Les Trophées du Libre award
[1]LimeSurvey won first place in the enterprise-management category of the open-source project competition.
- 2004
Election incident reporting use
[1]The software supported collection of voting-irregularity reports during the U.S. presidential election and was selected for an Election Incident Reporting System.
- 2003
PHPSurveyor project registered
[1]The project was registered on SourceForge on February 20, 2003, and was initially developed by Jason Cleeland.
- 2003
First public release
[1]PHPSurveyor version 0.93 was released on March 5, establishing the first public version of the survey application.
Products and positioning
A flexible open-source alternative to proprietary survey platforms, aimed at organizations that value self-hosting, customization, multilingual support, extensible survey logic, and control over collected data.
Self-hosted open-source survey software · 2003
LimeSurvey Community Edition
The Community Edition is the installable form of LimeSurvey, distributed as free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Organizations can deploy it on their own server and manage survey creation, question logic, templates, participant access, response collection, exports, and basic analysis through a web interface. Its self-hosted model is particularly relevant to institutions that require control over infrastructure, customization, integrations, or survey data.
Hosted survey service
LimeSurvey Cloud
LimeSurvey Cloud provides managed hosting for customers who do not want to install or maintain the application themselves. It offers the principal survey-building and response-collection capabilities of LimeSurvey through a hosted environment. Reference material describes a usage model based substantially on the number of people responding during a period, rather than limiting the product primarily by feature availability.
Hosted LimeSurvey deployment · 2008
LimeService
LimeService was an early hosting service associated with the LimeSurvey project. Created in 2008, it provided hosted LimeSurvey installations for users who preferred a managed service and charged a fee connected to survey responses.
Marketing campaigns
- 2010Google Code-in participation
Global open-source community
The project used Google Code-in tasks to involve students in documentation, Wikipedia-related work, and user-interface improvements.
Outcome. The program expanded community participation in project maintenance and presentation.
- 2009Google Summer of Code participation
Global open-source developer community
LimeSurvey participated in Google Summer of Code, using student projects to support development of the interface and statistical modules associated with the planned 2.0 generation.
Outcome. The work contributed to the project's next-generation development effort.
- 2004Election Incident Reporting System use
United States
PHPSurveyor was used to collect structured reports of voting irregularities during the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
Outcome. The system reportedly recorded more than 13,500 incidents in the first ten hours and was selected for an election incident reporting system.
Brand decisions
2015
Create LimeSurvey GmbHStrategyBackground
The project needed an organizational structure to coordinate development and provide commercial services around the open-source software.
Action taken
LimeSurvey GmbH was established as a German limited liability company.
Aftermath
The brand combined community-developed software with hosted services and other project-related offerings.
2012
Rebuild the platform for LimeSurvey 2.0Generation changeBackground
The project sought greater modularity and a more modern administrative experience.
Action taken
The development team rewrote the codebase around an MVC architecture and the Yii PHP framework and introduced a new AJAX-enabled interface.
Aftermath
Version 2.0 established a new technical foundation for subsequent interface and feature development.
2007
Change the project name from PHPSurveyor to LimeSurveyStrategyBackground
The original name incorporated PHP, the name of an external software project and programming language.
Action taken
The project adopted the LimeSurvey brand to establish a more independent product identity and simplify licensing considerations.
Aftermath
The LimeSurvey name became the continuing identity of the open-source project and its associated services.
Recent events
- 2017
LimeSurvey 3.0 released[1]
Product launch · Product generation
Version 3.0 improved the administration experience and replaced the older design-template system with Twig-based templates.
- 2016
LimeSurvey 2.50 released[1]
Product launch · Product generation
The release introduced a redesigned administration interface and responsive survey design templates.
- 2015
LimeSurvey GmbH founded[1]
Other
LimeSurvey GmbH was established as a limited liability company to coordinate development and offer services around the open-source project.
- 2008
LimeSurvey hosting service launched[1]
Product launch
A hosting service known as LimeService was created to provide hosted LimeSurvey installations for a fee related to survey responses.
- 2007
PHPSurveyor renamed LimeSurvey[1]
Other
The open-source survey project changed its name from PHPSurveyor to LimeSurvey, in part to avoid using PHP in the product name.
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