head to head · open source
LimeSurvey vs moonshine
LimeSurvey has 3,727 GitHub stars, 1,122 forks, 101 open issues and last shipped yesterday. moonshine has 1,300 stars, 148 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LimeSurvey leads on adoption by 187% (3,727 vs 1,300 stars). LimeSurvey is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; moonshine is written in PHP under MIT. LimeSurvey has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, moonshine 11%. LimeSurvey was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (php), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| LimeSurvey | moonshine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.7K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 148 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LimeSurvey if
- You weight community size — 3.7K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick moonshine if
- You want the moonshine feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and moonshine fits your workflow better
About LimeSurvey
LimeSurvey is a free and open source online survey platform written primarily in PHP with a JavaScript and React front end. It lives in the web forms and survey ecosystem, and it positions itself as a self hostable alternative to hosted services such as SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Qualtrics, and Google Forms. The project has been developed since 2006 and is used by businesses, academic institutions, teachers, students, governments, and financial institutes across more than 80 countries.
read the full LimeSurvey overview →
About moonshine
MoonShine is MIT licensed PHP project listed under Business Software / Forms & Surveys. It is Laravel admin panel and builder for dashboards, tables, forms, CMS, and CRM work. It uses Blade, Alpine.js, and Tailwind CSS. It lives in Laravel ecosystem, but README says CRUD module is separated from Laravel and Eloquent, so it can also work with Symfony, Yii, or other frameworks. Repo is 4 years old, has 1301 stars, 148 forks, 2 open issues, and last push 2026 09 11.
read the full moonshine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LimeSurvey or moonshine more popular?
LimeSurvey has 3,727 GitHub stars and moonshine has 1,300. LimeSurvey has the larger community by that measure.
Are LimeSurvey and moonshine free?
Both are open source. LimeSurvey has no licence declared in this registry, and moonshine is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LimeSurvey and moonshine?
LimeSurvey is written in JavaScript and moonshine in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, LimeSurvey or moonshine?
Choose LimeSurvey if you want the larger community (3,727 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose moonshine if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.