The managed alternative to SurveyJS
Flows is the SurveyJS alternative for product teams who want a complete adoption platform with surveys built in - no self-hosting, no custom backend, no glue code.
No credit card required. No commitment. Quick setup.
TL;DR comparison summary
SurveyJS is an open-source JavaScript survey library that gives developers full control over survey creation, rendering, and data storage. It is highly flexible and self-hostable, but it is a raw building block, not a product. Using SurveyJS means building and maintaining your own backend, admin interface, analytics layer, and hosting infrastructure. Teams looking to run surveys without this overhead often look for alternatives.
Flows is a managed product adoption platform with surveys built in. Where SurveyJS provides a library you have to build around, Flows gives you a complete platform: survey creation, targeting, triggering, results, and integration into broader adoption workflows - all managed and ready to use. You get the full flexibility of building with your own components without having to maintain the infrastructure.
Flows vs SurveyJS: Key differences
Key features | SurveyJS | Flows |
|---|---|---|
SurveysBoth support surveys. SurveyJS is a powerful library for rendering custom surveys, while Flows provides a fully managed survey platform integrated with adoption workflows. | ||
Managed serviceFlows is a fully managed platform - no backend, hosting, or infrastructure to maintain. SurveyJS requires you to build and host your own stack. | ||
Product toursFlows supports product tours, tooltips, and step-by-step in-app guidance. SurveyJS is a survey library and does not offer these features. | ||
Onboarding checklistsFlows includes onboarding checklists. SurveyJS does not have this feature. | ||
No-code builderFlows includes a no-code visual builder for creating and managing surveys and adoption flows. SurveyJS requires code to create and manage surveys. | ||
Custom componentsBoth allow full customization of survey UI. SurveyJS gives you a library to build on, while Flows lets you plug in your own components from your design system. | ||
Targeting and triggeringFlows includes built-in targeting and event-based triggering. With SurveyJS, you build and maintain your own targeting logic. | ||
Free planSurveyJS is free and open source. Flows offers a free plan with 250 monthly tracked users. | Free for open source | |
Developer experienceBoth are developer-friendly. SurveyJS gives you a powerful library, while Flows adds versioning, environments, APIs, and a managed platform so you can focus on your product. |
Other differences
Library vs platform
SurveyJS is a library. It solves the rendering problem - you get a highly capable survey engine - but you still need to build everything around it: the backend to store responses, the admin interface to manage surveys, the analytics to understand results, and the targeting logic to show the right survey to the right user.
Flows is a complete platform. Every piece you would have to build with SurveyJS is already there: survey creation, targeting, event triggers, response analytics, and integration into onboarding workflows. You integrate once and focus on building your product.
Surveys inside the adoption lifecycle
SurveyJS renders surveys wherever you choose to display them. But it has no concept of the user journey - it does not know when a user first logged in, which features they have used, or whether they are at risk of churning. You have to build all of that context yourself.
Flows knows where your users are in their journey. You can trigger a PMF survey after a user completes onboarding, surface an NPS survey at a milestone, or follow up a poor score with targeted guidance - all based on user behavior and properties, without custom code.
Built for product teams
SurveyJS is a developer tool. Product managers and customer success teams need engineering help to create and manage surveys, which slows iteration and creates bottlenecks.
Flows is built for both developers and product teams. A developer integrates the SDK once, and then the whole team can create, launch, and iterate on surveys and adoption flows through the visual interface - no engineering required for most changes.
Pricing
SurveyJS is free and open source. However, you pay the ongoing cost of hosting and maintaining your own backend infrastructure.
Flows offers transparent usage-based pricing with no hidden fees. You can start for free with 250 monthly tracked users and upgrade only when you need to. No sales calls, no hidden fees, just a clear pricing model that scales with your usage.
Switch from SurveyJS to Flows today
Get a fully managed adoption platform with surveys built in - no infrastructure, no glue code. Start building with Flows.
No credit card required. Free forever.