How to Create a Google Forms Alternative — 5 Free Survey Tools

Google Forms is widely used in schools for surveys, quizzes and data collection. But depending on your needs — question types, design, analytics or privacy — one of these free alternatives might serve you better.

1. Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms is the direct Google Forms equivalent for Microsoft 365 schools. It includes multiple-choice, text, rating, ranking, date and Likert-scale question types. Results appear in real time in a summary view and can be exported to Excel. Forms created in Microsoft Teams can be shared directly in class channels. Free for all Microsoft 365 Education accounts — already available to most school-issued accounts without any additional setup.

2. Typeform

Typeform's conversational format shows one question at a time — more like a dialogue than a form. This dramatically improves completion rates for longer surveys. The free plan allows up to ten questions per form and 100 responses per month. Best for: feedback surveys, student check-ins and market research projects. Not suitable for high-volume data collection on the free plan.

3. SurveyPlanet

SurveyPlanet offers unlimited surveys and unlimited questions on the free plan — a genuine rarity. Themes are customisable and results can be viewed with basic charts. The free plan does not allow data export (you have to view results in the browser), which is the main limitation. Paid plans are affordable if you need CSV export.

4. Zoho Survey

Zoho Survey is part of the Zoho business suite and offers a solid free tier: unlimited surveys, up to 10 questions each and 100 responses. Notably, the free plan includes branching logic (skip logic) — a feature many tools reserve for paid plans. This allows you to show different follow-up questions depending on a respondent's previous answer.

5. Tally

Tally is a newer entrant with an unusually generous free plan — unlimited forms, unlimited questions and unlimited responses, with no Tally branding. The editor uses a Notion-like slash-command interface for adding question blocks. It lacks advanced analytics but is excellent for data collection where you will analyse results in your own spreadsheet.

Feature comparison

When to stick with Google Forms

Google Forms remains the best default for Google Workspace schools because it is already integrated into Classroom, automatically collects respondent email addresses from Google accounts, and sends results directly to Google Sheets. If you are in a Google school, use Forms for most tasks and consider alternatives only when you need something it cannot do (conversational format, better analytics, branching logic).