[HN Gopher] Show HN: Formbricks - Open-source alternative to Typ...
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Show HN: Formbricks - Open-source alternative to Typeform and Sprig
Author : matthiasnannt
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-10-31 10:27 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| We have been working on this open source survey toolbox for more
| than a solid year. We started as a pure open source alternative
| to Typeform to allow anyone to run surveys, learn more about
| their users and control the data and infrastructure.
|
| Over time, more and more of our users wanted to survey their
| users inside their software product and get a much higher
| conversion rate by asking short and highly targeted questions to
| better understand their users and improve their product. To help
| them, we have rebuilt Formbricks from the ground up to support
| both in-app surveys and link surveys - all open source and easy
| to self-hosted.
|
| We would love to hear your feedback and see how we can help you
| better understand your users.
| Peer_Rich wrote:
| what inspired you to start this? always curious
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| We have been in the feedback & survey market for many years
| now, and especially with the new privacy regulations (e.g.
| GDPR) and the new rise of Open Source, we often wondered why
| there was no easy to use Open Source solution that you could
| embed into your own technical infrastructure and also customize
| the way you need.
|
| So we built a first MVP as a hobby project and got such a great
| response from the open source community and early customers
| that we decided to go all in at the end of last year .
| estherlita23 wrote:
| Most of the time, survey forms can be boring and monotonous.
| Apart from making an awesome product that works smoothly, do you
| also plan to have a design strategy to make your surveys stand
| out?
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| That's also one reason for highly targeted and contextual in-
| app micro-surveys that help you only ask a few users 1-2
| relevant questions without generating survey fatique :-)
|
| Also this month we organized a hackathon around Formbricks
| where, thanks to the great support of over 100 contributors, we
| developed many of the link survey features requested by the
| community. We also developed features that improve the
| customizability and overall look of link surveys. For example,
| video backgrounds is one of them:
| https://github.com/formbricks/formbricks/pull/1515
|
| We are also currently working with a talented designer who is
| helping us build a great open design system for Formbricks,
| making sure that Formbricks surveys have a recognizable look
| and work consistently across the app #opensourcedesign :-) We
| will likely be able to launch this within the next 1-2 months
| atonse wrote:
| Yes please do more to explain to people how much time
| something will take. I have lost count the number of times I
| start to answer a survey (cuz I'm happy to provide feedback)
| but after 3-4 questions, I'm thinking "yeah I don't have THIS
| much time") and give up.
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| Good point! We already have an open pull request to have
| the "time to complete" calculated and displayed at the
| beginning of the survey.
| https://github.com/formbricks/formbricks/pull/1461
|
| Another idea would be to let the survey creator know the
| current length/time to complete the survey, and if it's
| getting too long, show them advice on how to make it
| shorter, and show them that they will lose participants
| otherwise.
| beanclap wrote:
| looks cool! But you're doing a lot of things at the same time,
| why Typeform AND sprig?
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| When we started, we were focused on building an open source
| alternative to Typeform. But as we continued to talk to users
| and watch them implement our solution, we realized there's a
| huge need for in-app insights similar to what Sprig offers, but
| as an open solution. With highly targeted in-app micro-surveys,
| you can learn a lot about your users without annoying them and
| creating survey fatigue by asking less and only the right
| users.
|
| That's why we've expanded our infrastructure to support in-app
| surveys, which have become the main part of our application
| over time.
|
| But there's still a need for an open survey toolbox that's easy
| to use and allows you to easily send surveys via link or email.
| Since the infrastructure for these two is almost the same, we
| are still building this together with our open source community
| and promised to always keep the link survey features open and
| free for everyone to celebrate their great work and
| contributions.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Does this work without javascript?
|
| I know folks that are very privacy conscious that are used to and
| hate cookie popups and will treat formbricks as just another
| cookie popup and will adblock, download a blocklist, or use a
| PiHole to remove intrusive popups automatically.
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| No, it requires Javascript. Our goal is to avoid survey fatigue
| and not annoy users, so by default a user will only be shown a
| survey once a week, and only surveys they haven't answered or
| seen before and closed before.
|
| Also since it can be self-hosted, it can be served from the
| same domain as the application within the survey. We also see
| the surveys as part of the application and a necessary part for
| the maintainers to provide their service.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > I know folks that are very privacy conscious that are used to
| and hate cookie popups and will treat formbricks as just
| another cookie popup and will adblock
|
| they will do the same without javascript then, why would a
| privacy conscious person reply to a survey - the opposite of
| privacy?
| Fidelix wrote:
| This is a very nice project/product. Congrats.
|
| May I suggest having some premium themes in the paid plan as an
| incentive to upgrade?
|
| Please do keep the option to build a customised theme in the
| self-hosted version, though. Some people might even want to
| contribute back to the project because of that.
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| That's a great idea, thank you :-)
| shubhamintech wrote:
| Looks coool! Had a doubt though, can this be deployed on a public
| website and can I user user targeting in it?
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| We are currently working on an improved version of the
| formbricks-js sdk that is optimized for public websites. It is
| expected to be released next week and will allow you to trigger
| surveys on different parts of your app with code & no-code
| triggers.
| maxisaurus wrote:
| Been looking for an open-source survey alternative tool for a
| long-time! Congrats on the launch.
|
| (sharing this great article btw => https://staltz.com/time-till-
| open-source-alternative.html)
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| Thank you! "Time Till Open Source Alternative" is a pretty
| interesting concept!
| wildspoon wrote:
| So good - I've been watching Formbricks grow since May/June and
| it's really impressive! A LOT of bonus points since it's open
| source.
|
| When is the Flutter support?
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| :-D thank you! We will start working on the mobile SDKs soon
| and Flutter + React Native are highest on the list! Please also
| feel free to submit a feature request for this on Github;
| perhaps a contributor would like to take it up sooner.
| KapadiaNaitik wrote:
| Glad to be a part of the formbricks community
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| Happy to have you!
| zicon35 wrote:
| Congrats on the launch!
|
| Question:
|
| * How do you see open-source being an advantage for Formbricks
| when competing with other tools in the market?
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| Thank you! For us, the decision to go open source wasn't about
| having a competitive advantage, it was more about the open
| source community that we love being a part of. But of course
| there are pros and cons to being open source. Being open source
| can be an advantage in this highly competitive SaaS game
| because it allows you to spread your (free) product much more
| easily around the world as developers and companies tinker with
| it. It also allows us to have a much shorter feedback loop with
| our users and community, which is crucial for an early startup.
| In addition, as an open source product, you are the first
| choice for privacy-conscious customers such as government
| agencies that want to host themselves.
|
| The main downside, of course, is that building a commercial
| product is also harder in the sense that you're competing with
| your own free product, and it's often hard to find the line
| between free and paid without losing on both ends.
| sjbr wrote:
| Form.io is an open source alternative
| itzabhinavarya wrote:
| Formbricks is a really awesome product.
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| :-) thank you! :-)
| vlugorilla wrote:
| One of the best open-source form services I have ever used is
| Typebot (1). The way it works and how users interact is awesome,
| I've been told many times that my forms are awesome. I am not in
| any way affiliated to this project, but I think it deserves some
| attention!
|
| (1): https://typebot.io
| gingerlime wrote:
| Looks great. Was a big fan of Typeform in the early days.
|
| I'm trying it on my iPhone SE 2022 and get this message:
|
| Formbricks is not available for devices with smaller resolutions.
| matthiasnannt wrote:
| The Formbricks admin interface is not yet optimized for mobile
| use. We will address this with the redesign in the next 1-2
| months :-)
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(page generated 2023-10-31 23:01 UTC)