FluidSurveys (Discontinued) vs. Formstack Forms

I think FluidSurveys is appropriate for almost all scenarios. For now, the only time I used another product was when the survey I was managing was being done using tablets (such as Ipads or Samsung tablets) and I used ODK Collect. I think FluidSurveys now has the option of uploading the survey to a tablet and collect the data through it. However, I have not tried it. ODK Collect is an open source and free software compared to FluidSurveys. Thus, if the user wishes to use tablets, I might recommend using ODK Collect even if there is some learning to do in terms of coding your question in an Excel sheet for it to be "uploadable" to the ODK Collect "hub" (the server).

Formstack makes it easy to create a variety of forms. I have used it for event interest and registrations, email list sign-ups, and surveys. I have found it easy to customize, and easy to export data for import into other systems (e.g., CRM).

Incentivized

• User-friendly. For the majority of the general and basic tools you can use with FluidSurveys to build surveys are simple to use and intuitive. When certain issues come up, the service is quick (chat room) and effective.
• Anonymity: the software has the reputation of being safer in terms of safeguarding private information the respondents share by answering surveys (this is mainly due to the fact that the servers are in Canada). Thus, indirectly, they increase response rates.
• Extensive possibilities: FluidSurveys offers a plethora of possibilities and options that really renders the experience interesting in terms of micro-managing each details of the surveys you are sending out there. When the invitation leaves by email, it is exactly how you want it.

• Formstack allowed us to customize the look and feel of our forms to match our branding. It was easy for our engineers to integrate the forms within our onboarding process to deliver a seamless experience.
• Formstack integrates well with HubSpot, our marketing automation platform of choice.
• Formstack offered us a lot of flexibility in the types/formats of questions we could deploy (open-ended text, multi-choice, single choice, etc.). This made it easy to get data the way we wanted and facilitated getting that data into HubSpot.

Incentivized

• There should be more flexibility and customizability with regard to survey design (e.g. background, fonts...)

• Buggy Updates: Formstack tends to make on-the-fly updates that break features. We run into this about once a year
• Appearance: the forms are starting to look dated compared to some of the competitors (looking at you, Typeform)
• Dynamic Data: passing data from one field to another is not-exactly doable
• Paid Add-Ons: the price for Formstack is already an arm and a leg; the fact that they have additional monthly paid add-ons is frustrating
• User Limits: user accounts barely do anything outside of 'view/edit' permissions, thus the low volume allocated seems a bit greedy at $10/user/mo for more

Incentivized

We are very happy with FluidSurveys. It is a simple and intuitive tool, has a good variety of sample survey templates, allows real-time response analysis and easy report-generation feature. We have been able to access support very quickly from their team when we had a question / concern. We will most likely upgrade to the Ultra version, though, as the branching options in Pro package are somewhat limited

Our user base has come to rely on Formstack to get forms done. The Formstack tools make it easy to start from scratch or copy an existing form to "quick start" a new, similar form. The price is right and frees up IT staff to do more transformative work.

Incentivized

I think the average person can very quickly pick up on the basics of the system: they would have no problems programming and launching a basic survey. Organizations may benefit from having people of different backgrounds getting their hands dirty in the system: at a minimum, both web programmers and opinion research advisors should be solicited for input or help.

I give it this rating because Ali feel like just about anyone can use this. Now with 7 billion people in the work I understand that’s not the case but I feel like Formstack get it pretty simple where a majority of humans could use it and navigate through. The only reason I didn’t give it a higher rating is because I think Google Forms is a little easier to use and that it’s pretty much impossible for any product to get a 10 on usability in my opinion.

Incentivized

Formstack has awesome support! They are always quick to respond and genuinely care for their clients' success. They will work with you to find a solution or let developers know about your feature request. There are a few things on the feature request forum that I wish they would implement sooner, but I am at least grateful that they give clients a space to voice their ideas and take them into consideration.

Incentivized

We implemented on one of the earlier versions. Through continuous engineering improvements, the interface keeps getting easier and more intuitive. Therefore, later implementations keep getting easier and better.

Incentivized

From a Government perspective, FluidSurveys offers some qualities that make it stand out:

• It is located in Canada;


• It's servers are located in Canada;


• They are willing to host user-group meetings, so that Government departments can explain how they have implemented a wide variety of tasks with it (and people can get very creative with FluidSurveys! If they can use an in-house option they've already purchased to conduct non-survey-related tasks, it introduced major cost savings to taxpayers. So it's also very important to share this type of creativity with other departments).

Formstack just had more versatility. We had to start in a rush and they gave us what we needed to hit the ground running. They didn't delay or bog us down with complicated sales pitches, and didn't leave us in the dark on what to do. We didn't need to google how to use the program!

Incentivized

• The cost savings in using FluidSurveys to conduct research, rather than outsource it, has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the few years that we have been using it. Contracting out research is costly, so if you have the right people/skills and technology to do the work in-house, you're able to conduct a lot more research than you would otherwise be able to.

• Positive - ability to analyze submission trends - e.g. when a marketing email is sent, looking at increased form viewing and submissions in relation to the sending of the campaign.
• Immediate response - those that submit forms receive immediate response that their form has been submitted.

Incentivized