Formbricks vs Google Forms
Formbricks is a European alternative to Google Forms: same surveys & forms use case, headquartered in Germany and governed by EU GDPR, while Google Forms (Google) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Open source experience management platform for gathering user feedback on websites and apps. GDPR-compliant cloud or self-hosted options available.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- Yes
- Free tier
- Yes
Google Forms is a free form and survey builder tied to a Google account, with responses landing straight in Sheets, which is why it spread through schools and small teams. There is no paid tier and no real branding control. Responses are stored on Google's US infrastructure.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Formbricks vs Google Forms at a glance
| Formbricks | Google Forms | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Germany | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | United States |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need surveys & forms built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Google ecosystem |
Choose Formbricks if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You want to start free and scale up later
- Open-source code and self-hosting matter to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Google Forms if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Google ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Formbricks
Formbricks is a privacy-first experience management platform that gathers customer and product feedback across websites, apps, and email, combining event-triggered in-product surveys with granular user segmentation. Teams capture insights at the right moment in the user journey, feeding churn signals, NPS, and onboarding research into a single analytics dashboard used by Siemens, IKEA, and the Ethereum Foundation.
The platform is open source and available as either managed cloud or self-hosted deployment, installable via a single script tag or NPM package. Custom attributes, past actions, and cohort rules drive targeting, while pre-built templates cover the most common survey flows out of the box.
Key benefits:
- Event-triggered surveys ask users at the exact moment behaviour matters
- Granular segmentation targets cohorts by custom attributes and actions
- Open source core allows full self-hosting for maximum data control
- Multi-channel delivery covers web, in-app, link, and email surveys
- Pre-built templates for NPS, onboarding, churn, and product research
- Unified analytics consolidates individual trails and aggregated trends
Formbricks GmbH is headquartered in Kiel, Germany, founded in 2022 by Matti Nannt and Johannes Dancker. The managed cloud runs on EU infrastructure, with the company holding ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certifications and operating under full GDPR and CCPA compliance.
Why choose Formbricks over Google Forms?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Google Forms is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Formbricks removes that overhead. As a Germany-based provider, it operates under EU GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.