LimeSurvey (formerly PHPSurveyor) is a free and open source online survey application written in PHP based on a MySQL, PostgreSQL or MSSQL database, distributed under the GNU General Public License. Designed for ease of use, it enables users to develop and publish surveys, and collect responses, without doing any programming.
LimeSurvey is a web application that is installed to the user’s server. After installation users can manage LimeSurvey from a web-interface. Users can use rich text in questions and messages, using a rich text editor, and images and videos can be integrated into the survey. The layout and design of the survey can be changed by modifying the template. Templates can be changed in a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Additionally, templates can be imported and exported through the template editor. Once a survey is finalized, the user can activate it, making it available for respondents to view and answer. Likewise, questions can also be imported and exported through the editor interface. LimeSurvey has no limit on the number of surveys a user can create, nor is there a limit on how many participants can respond. Aside from technical and practical constraints, there is also no limit on the number of questions each survey may have.
Questions are added in groups. The questions within each group are organized on the same page. Surveys can include a variety of question types that take many response formats, including multiple choice, text input, drop-down lists, numerical input, slider input, and simple yes/no input. Questions can be arranged in a two-dimensional array, with options along one axis based on the questions on the other axis. Questions can depend on the results of other questions. For instance, a respondent might only be asked about transportation for his or her commute if he or she responded affirmatively to a question about having a job.
LimeSurvey also provides basic statistical and graphical analysis of survey results. Surveys can either be publicly accessible or be strictly controlled through the use of "once-only" tokens, granted only to selected participants. Additionally, participants can be anonymous, or LimeSurvey can track the IP addresses of the participants. A much more detailed listing of features can be found on the LimeSurvey web page.
LimeSurvey in general uses the UTF-8 character set to be able to display all languages. Both the frontend and backend of LimeSurvey are available in 60 languages and dialects; 22 of these have over 95% of the translations done. Primary translations include: Albanian, Basque, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish. There are also many other partial translations in other languages.
LimeSurvey allow users to create and host surveys, for general data gathering purposes. It can be used for collecting data from customers and employees.
LimeSurvey is used by the Austrian Vorarlberg State Government, Ars Electronica, and several open source organizations such as OpenOffice.org, Ubuntu, and GNOME. LimeSurvey is also used by educational institutions in 19 countries.
