[HN Gopher] Show HN: SnoopForms - Open-Source Typeform Alternative
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       Show HN: SnoopForms - Open-Source Typeform Alternative
        
       Author : beanclap
       Score  : 107 points
       Date   : 2022-08-01 10:16 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (snoopforms.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (snoopforms.com)
        
       | RichardDL wrote:
       | Great looking site! It took less than a minute to create a first
       | form. Very intuitive. Just the 'Submit' button on the form create
       | page was a bit confusing as it didn't do anything. Good job!
        
       | bobbitthehobbit wrote:
       | As a former Typeform user, I like this. I actually like that it
       | doesn't look too much like Typeform. I did notice in a comment
       | that you want to have an option to "Typformerize" a form, which
       | is neat because it gives the user the option for it even if I
       | wouldn't use it myself. I also really like your landing page
       | design, very easy to parse and read.
        
       | paulgb wrote:
       | This is very cool, there's definitely a need for something that
       | sits between the completely no-code tools and a completely DIY
       | approach.
       | 
       | Your submission-based pricing is also very approachable to small-
       | volume forms -- the industry standard is about a $25-35 minimum
       | monthly, and even though there's often a free tier it usually
       | includes a small subset of features.
       | 
       | One thing that's a blocker for me at the moment is that I can't
       | seem to add text besides the field name to a field in the no-code
       | tool. It's useful for providing instructions on the field, but I
       | don't see a way to do it.
       | 
       | Overall this feels pretty polished, I'm impressed.
        
         | matthiasnannt wrote:
         | thanks for the feedback, Paul :-) currently you can add text
         | blocks above or below the questions and add there any
         | instructions you like. but you are right, there are no
         | dedicated help texts, etc. at the moment. but I think we will
         | have a good solution for that very soon
        
       | throwawayaway9 wrote:
       | From the name "snoop" forms, I genuinely thought this was some
       | kind of tracking/telemetry forms tool. It's not.
        
         | beanclap wrote:
         | hey! Interesting, this is kinda where we came from.
         | 
         | We thought that with a form you always try to get as much
         | information as possible, hence your "snooping" around.
         | 
         | You took it a step further, good that extensive form analytics
         | are coming :)
        
           | nprateem wrote:
           | I wouldn't want to have to list on my privacy policy that we
           | use a tool called snoop anything.
           | 
           | Change the name.
        
             | beanclap wrote:
             | fair point, we'll consider
        
               | aaaaaaaaata wrote:
               | SomethingForm (by SnoopTool)
        
               | beanclap wrote:
               | forms.com :D
        
               | dotcoma wrote:
               | OpenForms dot something
        
             | tailspin2019 wrote:
             | Sadly I have to agree.
             | 
             | Data privacy is a key driver for me to not use something
             | like Typeform and to choose something with supposedly
             | better privacy features.
             | 
             | It's a shame to nitpick on the name, but I do feel that
             | having "snoop" in the brand name is not a good move for the
             | target audience segment that I fall into!
        
             | samatman wrote:
             | I don't disagree in this case, yet Little Snitch doesn't
             | really have this problem. Then again, it's more obvious
             | that the Snitch is on your side.
        
             | r_hoods_ghost wrote:
             | Yep. My gdpr obsessed dpo would have kittens. Other than
             | that it looks great!
        
       | tylermenezes wrote:
       | Wow this is awesome! We have been building similar pipelines on
       | top of CognitoForms but this is a much easier fit.
        
       | lmarcos wrote:
       | Looks great! Is there a company (e.g., LLC) behind this? I don't
       | see any information about it in the Imprint section.
        
       | beanclap wrote:
       | hoi!
       | 
       | we just launched the first public beta of Typeform open-source
       | tool snoopForms.
       | 
       | Apart from OS, we want to differentiate by:
       | 
       | - offering code & no-code interfaces to create forms (beta) -
       | offering in-depth form analytics & improvement tools like A/B
       | testing (tba) - granular and conditional data piping i.e. "if
       | newsletter checkbox is set, send name & email field to SendGrid".
       | Essentially, well integrated and GDPR compliant Zapier
       | 
       | What do you think?
        
         | FionnMc wrote:
         | Will handling signatures be on your roadmap?
        
         | aviramha wrote:
         | Awesome. Always good to have more open source products. Will
         | you make it easier to make forms look like Typeform?
        
           | beanclap wrote:
           | Hey! Yes, this has been requested a few times. Thinking of a
           | "Typformerize" Toggle :)
        
       | sebastianconcpt wrote:
       | Is that politically loaded marketing working?
        
         | beanclap wrote:
         | what do you mean? Elon?
        
           | sebastianconcpt wrote:
           | Yes, do you see an impact in conversion if you A/B test that
           | with or without political load?
        
           | jebronie wrote:
           | Why do you respond in such a hostile manner to a legitimate
           | question? Why even put this stuff on the page? It makes you
           | look like a really bitter, childish and hateful person.
        
             | elliottcarlson wrote:
             | I took his response to be that of uncertainty, and asking
             | if it was related to the (definitely inappropriate) Elon
             | reference. Your response is coming across just as hostile,
             | as is the top-level comment you posted. There are other
             | ways you could have approached both of these comments.
        
       | scottydelta wrote:
       | I might be an outlier but not a big fan of the pricing model.
       | 
       | $0.02 per submission can get very expensive very fast. For 10,000
       | submissions, it will cost the user $200 where as Typeform costs
       | $83 for the same[1]. Is it really that expensive to store 10,000
       | rows of data?
       | 
       | I understand the other features provided with the storage such as
       | analytics and integrations but it still doesn't justify the cost
       | imo.
       | 
       | While you can argue that you offer self-hosting as well and as
       | someone who is a big fan of self-hosting(I self-host over 8+
       | apps[2]), It's another thing I can self-host if I need to someday
       | and I thank you for making it self-hostable/open-source. But from
       | my experience, only very technical users self-host apps.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.typeform.com/pricing/
       | 
       | [2] https://vikashbajaj.substack.com/p/the-slippery-slope-of-
       | sel...
        
         | twostorytower wrote:
         | If it's really not that expensive, couldn't you just self-host
         | it? I think the developer is just trying to make a reasonable
         | amount for providing a service for those who don't want to
         | self-host.
        
           | scottydelta wrote:
           | As someone who self-hosts a lot of apps myself[1], I can
           | assure you it's not easy to self-host/maintain the apps. Even
           | for very technical people, it still takes a lot of effort to
           | self-host apps(setup server, run in docker, configure a web
           | proxy like caddy/nginx, provision ssl certificates, add
           | firewall security etc) along with doing regular db backups
           | just for one person.
           | 
           | [1] https://vikashbajaj.substack.com/p/the-slippery-slope-of-
           | sel...
        
             | victor106 wrote:
             | I am sorry I failed to understand, so you just want
             | everything for free?
             | 
             | The developer should not only open source his/her work but
             | also host it free for you?
        
               | scottydelta wrote:
               | Typeform costs $83 for 10,000 responses[1](it's reliable,
               | been around for almost a decade, used by leading
               | companies around the world and it provides way more
               | features than this) where as snoopforms will cost $200
               | for the same number of responses. That is more than 200%
               | markup.
               | 
               | I am merely comparing prices here.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.typeform.com/pricing/
        
             | the_common_man wrote:
             | Try something like cloudron or yunohost for selfhosting
        
               | scottydelta wrote:
               | I will try them out, thanks for the suggestion
        
       | hhw3h wrote:
       | Is there a form SaaS that allows the admin to give feedback on
       | the form submission and then have the user resubmit their form?
       | 
       | I run a coaching business and I'd like my students to be able to
       | submit their work for feedback and review. Then if they need to
       | make changes, I'd like to make it as easy as possible for them to
       | resubmit the form with tweaks to their submission.
        
       | social_quotient wrote:
       | I love this pricing model of .02 per submission for the pro plan.
       | Often, as an agency, our customer or project needs are "lumpy" in
       | terms of usage and the monthly base fees are a serious margin
       | killer. The usage based fee like a cloud provider would charge is
       | awesome for our use case.
        
         | beanclap wrote:
         | that was the idea, great to hear it resonates!
        
           | nivertech wrote:
           | Is there a hard limit/upper cap?
           | 
           | What stops some spammer from ramming the bill?
        
             | samatman wrote:
             | This is very important. I'm rather averse to signing up for
             | paid service which is only limited by the option I provide
             | for payments. It took me years to be willing to put a
             | service on autopay which is merely variable, such as a
             | power bill.
        
       | maxwell_smart wrote:
       | You should really fix the spelling of "HIPAA" on the front page
       | if you want to be taken seriously as advertising a HIPAA-
       | compliant piece of software.
        
       | jebronie wrote:
       | Since you are german: Your website is in violation of the GDPR
       | and german law in general. Fix those problems immediately or I
       | will report you.
        
         | lorn3 wrote:
         | Yikes. Even the Discord embed is saving some cookies. How can
         | you launch something in this day and age and not loose a single
         | thought on GDPR?
        
         | lloydatkinson wrote:
         | Who pissed in your cereal?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | matthiasnannt wrote:
         | You are right, sorry about that. In the last iteration of our
         | footer redesign these informations were accidentally removed.
         | We have added the pages again and republished the website.
         | Since the discord plugin also concerned you, we now removed it
         | from our website.
        
           | jebronie wrote:
           | Great
        
         | twostorytower wrote:
         | There's a way to point this out without the hostility.
        
           | jebronie wrote:
           | I threatened the report because I wanted to annoy the OP who
           | seems to be a leftist. I can only threaten OP this way
           | because leftists created this stupid GDPR legislation, which
           | I have to deal with almost every day.
           | 
           | A report to the ULD will also most likely only result in a
           | slap on the wrist.
           | 
           | I actually did them a favor by pointing out their problems,
           | because some german law firms use crawlers to detect GDPR and
           | other violations. They then send cease-and-desist orders and
           | collect expensive legal fees for that.
        
       | bastardoperator wrote:
       | Is there an API to pull answers from?
        
         | matthiasnannt wrote:
         | we don't have an official API documentation yet. But we have a
         | REST-API for everything that the frontend uses, so that
         | shouldn't be a problem.
        
       | xwowsersx wrote:
       | Nice project. I'm not sure about the name though. "snoop" has
       | some nefarious connotations..."snooping around":
       | 
       | > investigate or look around furtively in an attempt to find out
       | something, _especially information about someone 's private
       | affairs._
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-01 23:02 UTC)