Comparison

Microsoft Forms  vs
Survey Everywhere

Different tools for different jobs — here's how to tell which one is yours.

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Microsoft Forms comes bundled with 365, but it was built for quick internal forms, not roster-aware course evaluation — its free tier caps at 200 responses and its logic only branches by section. Survey Everywhere is purpose-built for the job Microsoft Forms wasn't: native LMS-wide delivery with no response ceiling and branching logic that adapts question by question.

 

Author Transparency Note: This comparison was written by Survey Everywhere. We've aimed to give an honest account of where Qualtrics performs better, and where it doesn't. For the full picture across all [eight] tools in this category, see the hub page.

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The bottom line

 

Survey Everywhere is the better choice for research instruments, course evaluations, and institutional surveys that need advanced logic, anonymous roll-ups, and SPSS-ready exports. Microsoft Forms is the better choice for quick internal surveys, quizzes, and sign-ups on campuses that already run Microsoft 365, where it's included at no extra cost. The logic gap is significant: Survey Everywhere supports piped text and loop and merge; Microsoft Forms supports neither, and branching doesn't work on Likert questions.

Feature by feature

Everything below is included in every Survey Everywhere campus license. Microsoft Forms pricing and LMS availability vary by contract.

At a Glance

At a Glance comparison
Feature Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
Best for Campus-wide surveying: course evaluations, research, and institutional surveys Quick internal surveys, quizzes, and sign-ups inside Microsoft 365
Cost Fixed annual campus pricing Included with Microsoft 365 Education
Setup and ease of use Built for first-time builders; launch from the LMS Very easy; limited customization and logic

Pricing & Licensing

Pricing & Licensing comparison
Feature Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
No response caps ✓ ✗ Up to 5,000,000 responses per form
No survey caps ✓ ✗ 400 forms per user (plus 400 group forms)
Fixed Pricing ✓ ✓ Included with Microsoft 365
No overage fees ✓ ✓
Everything Included ✓ ✗ Copilot requires a paid license

LMS Integration

LMS Integration comparison
Feature Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
Canvas certified ✓ Not publicly documented
Canvas embedded Included Via Microsoft 365/Assignments workflows; not Forms-native
Blackboard, Brightspace & Moodle integration Included Via Microsoft 365/Assignments workflows; not Forms-native
LMS survey creation Included Via Assignments
LMS survey sharing Included Via Assignments
LMS quizzing Included Via Assignments
LMS participation / scoring Included Via Assignments
LMS grading Included Grade sync via Assignments only
LMS distribution Included Via Assignments
Assign surveys to courses and groups Included Via Assignments

Survey Features

Survey Features comparison
Feature Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
Question settings ✓ ✓
Branding for surveys and pages ✓ Limited (themes)
Survey and organizational settings ✓ ✓
Survey invitation emails ✓ ✓ Invitations via Outlook or Teams
Reminder and confirmation emails ✓ Limited: Invitation reminders; response receipts available
Visibility, branching & skip logic ✓ Branching only; not on Likert questions
Choice and question randomization ✓ ✓
Matrix questions (incl. multi-question Likert) ✓ ✓ Likert
Piped text ✓ ✗
Loop and merge ✓ ✗
Participant file upload ✓ ✓ Internal respondents only
Create survey from external document (AI) ✓ Copilot (paid license)

Reporting & Analysis

Reporting & Analysis comparison
Feature Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
Results sharing ✓ ✓
Export results ✓ Excel only
AI data analysis ✓ Copilot (paid license)
Advanced reporting ✓ ✗ Summary charts
Admin reporting ✓ ✗
Anonymity details ✓ Limited: anonymity and response tracking don't combine

Security & Administration

Security & Administration comparison
Feature Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
SAML / SCIM ✓ ✓ Via Entra ID
User roles and management ✓ ✓ Via Microsoft 365 Admin
Custom and private domain ✓ ✗
Sharing / teams ✓ ✓ Group forms
Public API ✓ ✗ No general-purpose Microsoft Forms API
GDPR compliance ✓ ✓
WCAG 2.2 AA compliance ✓ Accessibility support; WCAG 2.2 AA not publicly documented
ISO 27001 + 27701 compliance ✓ ✓ Via Microsoft 365
SOC 2 Type II ✓ ✓ Via Microsoft 365

Which tool is right for you

The decision usually comes down to your use case, not the tools themselves. Here's a quick filter.

Choose...

Choose... comparison
Survey Everywhere if... Microsoft Forms if...
Research instruments need piped text, loop and merge, or branching on Likert scales Your survey is short, internal, and doesn't need advanced logic
Course evaluations need anonymous responses and completion tracking at the same time Your campus already runs Microsoft 365 and budget for a new tool isn't available
Results need role-based dashboards for instructors, chairs, and administrators Results only need to reach the survey owner in Excel
Data needs to go straight into SPSS Tight integration with Teams, Excel, and OneDrive matters most
You want one survey platform for academic affairs, advancement, HR, and student life You're running a quick quiz or sign-up form

How each tool performs by scenario

Both tools can handle a research survey. The differences show up in specific conditions. Below is a direct comparison across six common campus use cases.

comparison
Scenario Survey Everywhere Microsoft Forms
Course evaluations Yes — roster-aware delivery via LTI 1.3, anonymous aggregation by section, and department and college roll-ups. Limited — anonymity and response tracking can't both be on without workarounds, and there are no cross-course roll-ups.
Faculty research study Yes — visual branching, piped text, loop and merge, and SPSS export, with no response caps. Limited — works for simple instruments. No piped text, loop and merge, or SPSS export.
Campus-wide deployment Yes — fixed-price campus licence, role-based dashboards, SSO, and all four LMS integrations included. Yes for everyday forms — already deployed wherever Microsoft 365 is. No central reporting across departments.
New-student outreach Yes — welcome surveys and orientation check-ins delivered inside the LMS, with completion tracking by cohort. Yes — fast to build and share. Tracking completion by cohort takes manual work in Excel.
Campus climate study Yes — multi-path logic, authenticated LMS or SAML responses, and anonymous aggregation where needed. Limited — branching is basic, and analysis happens outside the tool.
Quick quizzes and sign-ups Yes — works well, though it's more tool than a two-question form needs. Very well — one of Microsoft Forms' strongest use cases. Fast, familiar, and already in Teams.

Watch our unedited first-time tests of both tools:

Our CEO tries Survey Everywhere — unedited, no prep. Note: our CEO is familiar with this product.

Video transcript – Survey Everywhere

0:00 Hello and welcome back. Uh, so we're looking at the survey tool market. Uh, we're doing some comparisons. This is Survey Everywhere and as the CEO of Poll Everywhere, uh, I have in fact seen this.

0:13 We built this tool. Uh, so I can't do a fresh once through, uh, here. I just want to admit that off the top.

0:21 I can, however, uh, run you guys through a similar workflow and show you what it looks like. Uh, so, of course, if we wanted to make a survey here, I've already logged in.

0:31 Uh, that process I didn't do in any of the other tools. So, this is where we start. So, we have Surveys and we have Teams and we have Course Evals and Courses.

0:39 Courses, of course, are connected to the LMS and Participant Groups would be something that you uploaded if you didn't have an LMS connection.

0:45 Uh, so if if I wanted to make a new survey. Uh, I can, of course, create it with AI. I can do so manually.

0:53 Uh, I can import a Qualtrics file. Uh, I'm going to insert some text from the Berkeley, uh, Center for Teaching and Learning.

1:02 A course evaluation survey from this data site. And we're going to go ahead and use the AI, so the AI is going to show us, uh, the pieces that it's working through along the way.

1:36 Okay, so I'm going to move this out of our way and see where we are. Okay. So it looks like this, uhm, we have men 1 to max 5, so it looks like, uh, the scales came in here positively.

1:56 Of course, we could change these if we wanted to, to, you know, just for a kind. Uhm, it split this survey into some open-ended, uh, on the second page and the scale questions on one page.

2:09 I like that layout, and we can, of course, visualize our overall layout if we want to. Uh, these are the pages, and if we needed to, we could add some branching here so if we wanted to add some branching logic, so if we had, if we wanted to go to the end of the survey when, say, something on the first

2:33 survey, so if these are, uh, well-designed, so if this is five out of five, then maybe you just want to go ahead and say, uh, that's good enough.

2:43 Uh, so if this is a five out of five, then we're gonna go ahead and skip to the end of the survey.

2:49 Uh, and now we can see the branch takes us around to the end of the survey, and they wouldn't fill out the open-ended feedback.

2:56 You probably wouldn't want to do this specific change, but this just gives you an idea of, uh, how this can work.

3:05 So we go back to the editor, uh, that's still there. Um, and you see the branch logic over here. Uh, and it also shows up at the bottom here.

3:15 Um, there is, of course, you know, a variety of ways to, uh, to add things, uh, manually. Um, so if you wanted to do that, you could click here.

3:26 Uh, we could, say, add different types of questions. Um, you can also go back to the AI assistant and ask it to do things.

3:37 Um, the first three questions on page one, rating questions, rather than scale ones.

3:51 Uh, so this is just showing you that not only can you get a jump start in creating the content that you need, but, uh, you can also use the AI to make edits.

4:03 Uh, and it looks like we, uh, updated these. So, now we have rating questions. So these are rate out of five stars.

4:12 Uh, and if we liked that, we could, of course, change the whole thing. Uh, if we wanted to preview the difference, uh, then this is what this looks like.

4:22 So you go through one at a time and you rate. Uhm, and so I think this looks, you know, kind of like what I expected.

4:30 So we built a course evaluation survey pretty quickly here. And if we go ahead and publish this, uhm, we can make a public link for it as well.

4:39 Uh, we can name it Public CE1. Uh, we could limit it to the organization. And we could, uh, put it into a course if we wanted to, or limit it to a participation group.

4:55 We could limit the time period of course, that would make sense for most course evaluation surveys. But for this one, we're just making a quick link.

5:02 Uh, so then if we copy that link, and we wanted to go check that out, uh, now we can do our Reading?

5:13 And I'm not reading these questions, but I'm assuming that, uh, we just need to get some answers in here, so we can see some of the other pieces here, uhm, well, uh, Cheeseburger selection is really what did it for me.

5:37 Uh, and then as far as what one change would most improvement, uhm, Bacon, yeah, I think that's the answer in this case, so, it's important feedback for the instructor, and now we have completed this, and if we go ahead and close, uh, that window, uh, we can go back to our, Oh, well, that's editing.

6:00 I think we can go back to our. Our survey, uhm, and so that's in the distribute, if we go back to build, we can see it, but now we have some results.

6:09 So if we take a look at our results, uh, we got a couple of, uh, participants, only one completed it, looks like somebody else loaded the link, maybe when we clicked on it a second to go, and you can see how it how they replied, uhm, how the distribution looks, uh, you can see by color breakdown what

6:33 this looks like, we can see the, the feedback there, uhm, we can break this down by participants, of course, we can also look by question, uh, let's see, we want to look at these, you know, MediR, open response questions, we can do that, can of course, uh, execute export this, or put it into a PDF, uh

6:53 , and then you can use all sorts of different tools to, uh, report on that, how you want it to, SPSS, uh, you can put it into other packages, or like R as well, uh, and so that is, uh, putting together a course evaluation survey in Survey Everywhere, uh, we think that, uh, Atlassian, how it's connected

7:14 with the LMSs, built with those from the beginning, uh, some of the ease of use here, some of the design features, we really, we tried to find some of the best design ideas and surveys that we could, and combine those with some of the insights from higher education with our partners, uh, and we're really

7:32 excited about what we have for you guys, uh, and, yeah, that's gonna do it for today. Survey Everywhere, uhm, and hopefully you're as excited about this part of the platform as we are.

7:43 Thanks.


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Our CEO tries Microsoft Forms for the first time — unedited, no prep, no retakes.

Video transcript – Microsoft Forms

0:00 Alright, welcome back, uh, to our survey, um, sort of evaluation, if you will, of making course evaluation surveys on a variety of different platforms.

0:12 This is Microsoft Forms, so we have already seen Google Forms, uh, we have several more to go, uh, and similarly when I get in, I'm logged into Microsoft, I have, uh, Microsoft 365 account here, uh, Otherwise, you have to sign up.

0:29 I skipped signing up or signing in or starting a free trial, but the place that I land when I look for Microsoft Forms logged in immediately is this template gallery, and I have a course evaluation survey available right here.

0:43 And I would assume that this will be some, yeah, some gridded questions. Apparently we've got, yeah, these are just templates.

0:54 It's a little bit of a distraction here, but I see that they're hanging out if I want to change so Sorry to outcome teaching performance These things look pretty good Materials looks okay This is maybe Just repeating some of this material and then I think Kind of lacks some questions that I think you'd

1:24 often want in here and things about if the professor included folks, if the assignments of some of these things were properly designed to help you understand if things were on time, if they handled difficulties, if the instructor or handled feedback, some of those types of things I think are missing

1:49 in this default one. But let's just say that we were, you know, perfectly OK with this starter template. You know, the other thing that I'm curious about here and I tried to do with Google is to use AI to improve this.

2:09 And I don't see an immediate way to do that. So maybe that's because I don't have the proper upgrade for Microsoft Forms, but I guess this is all I get at this level.

2:26 I assume that most folks would use this in a free basis or whatever comes with their Office 365, and I know I do have Office 365 on this login, so it's interesting that I'm not getting anything more than this.

2:39 I'll copy that and I'm not going to send it out look okay right so I can just pop this over here and we will take a look at our survey try to get ourselves some responses going Okay, I've got to load it up here.

3:11 I'm going to be a variety of things in this grid, and another grid, some of these questions so we can take a look at the reporting.

3:27 That submission was about what I expected. There's some advertising on the page as I responded, but okay, so I can review responses and that pops up.

3:37 That's nice. That's something that Google didn't do. Okay, so we've got our tour. So we get some timing stats. I like the donuts.

3:47 I think that presents better to me than the bar charts that Google chose. Though I think both work. This is maybe And that you also have the bar showing you the frequency of different places that helps for comparison and this is a good average Yeah, similarly, I think the colors and the mapping like

4:17 I just kind of show you the The grid flow. I think this is an interesting visualization I'd say that I like the Microsoft reporting here a little bit better than what we saw on the Google form Can take this direct to Excel as you'd expect This is a way to look at the individual results.

4:37 Yeah, so I think about what you'd expect, of course, there's no AI here. Now we get a detailed view, that's nice.

4:48 Okay, so similarly, I think if you were running a nonprofit course, there could be a continuing education, something that you had, you know, less access to software, something that you wanted to use, something for free.

5:02 I think this would absolutely serve the purpose. There's some great websites about, you know, the best ways to make course evaluation survey questions and you could use those.

5:13 I looked at one from Berkeley and I think that one's really great. And that's where I noted some of those things about the questions here.

5:23 Yeah, I think this Microsoft soft one. It's free. I'm sure it scales well. Yeah, we get the job done in a lot of cases.

5:32 Similar to the Google one, it didn't solve for some things. Like if I'm back at the questions and I'm filling this out, you know, it didn't know who I was.

5:42 It didn't have that connection to like a student ID system or an employee ID system and that would be nice.

5:52 And I don't No, you know, if I wanted to, I don't see an obvious way to have this branch or do some other, you know, more advanced things.

6:06 I mean, we can do the suggestions that we did with Google, but yeah, it's in like some of those advanced features might not be available here, or if they are, I would have to dig deeper.

6:18 So yeah, I think that's going to do it for Microsoft Forms and I'll see you in the next one. Oh, I did want to add very quickly on the Microsoft Forms.

6:33 I closed that video a little too hastily. I double checked and they do have branching so I needed to click into the question and go here for adding branching.

6:41 It is specific to some options here so you can go to different questions or to the end of the form But it is choice specific.

6:51 So that's how works here and you can do that for any of these questions, so That's how branching here works.

7:00 So you do have some limited branching available on both Microsoft and Google Forms for free. Thanks


Pricing and limits

 

Survey Everywhere:

Campus-wide deployments are priced better than other survey platforms, with greater savings when bundled with Poll Everywhere. Everything in the Pricing & Licensing table above is included in the campus license. 

 

Microsoft Forms:

Microsoft Forms is included with every Microsoft 365 Education plan, including the free A1 plan. Forms are limited to 200 questions each. Copilot features require a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and file-upload questions only accept responses from people inside your organization.

 

What usually triggers a procurement conversation:

Procurement typically enters when a team outgrows Forms: research that needs advanced logic or SPSS, course evaluations that need anonymous roll-ups, or leadership that wants reporting across departments. Because Forms is already paid for, the comparison usually centers on the cost of the gaps: staff time, workarounds, and separate point tools.


Switching between Survey Everywhere and Microsoft Forms

 

Moving from Microsoft Forms to Survey Everywhere:

Survey Everywhere can import surveys from other tools and uses AI to keep logic and page breaks intact as you move. Forms surveys are usually short, so the rebuild is fast. Export past responses to Excel before retiring a form.

 

Moving from Survey Everywhere to Microsoft Forms:

Survey Everywhere content does not export to Microsoft Forms, so surveys would be rebuilt. Results export cleanly to SPSS and Excel. If your use case is shifting toward short internal forms, the tradeoff is losing advanced logic, anonymous roll-ups, and role-based reporting in exchange for a tool you already have.

What changes when the
caps come off

∞
unlimited surveys and responses on campus licences
4
native LMS integrations included, not sold separately
0
overage fees, implementation fees, or training costs

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