omul features: five formats for interactive presentations
Live polls, word clouds, quizzes, Q&A and scales — in one open-source tool, in real time, on any device. Your audience joins with a 6-digit code, with no account and no app. This page covers what each format does, what is built into all of them, and what omul cannot do today.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
What slows you down most at work?
- Too many meetings46% · 132
- Not enough focus time34% · 96
- Unclear priorities20% · 56
Multiple choice — counts, share or both, switchable mid-presentation.
Which word describes your working week?
- Focus7
- Meetings6
- Handovers5
- Deadlines4
- Coffee3
- Calm3
- Noise2
- Travel1
Free text weighted by frequency — one to five terms per person, or unlimited.
In which year was the AGPLv3 published?
- 1lachs-072,800 points
- 2otter-31shared place2,400 points
- 2falke-12shared place2,400 points
Points and a time limit per question, leaderboard across the whole deck.
Questions from the audience
- 34votes
What happens to the Nord site?
Open - 27votes
Is the training budget staying?
Open - 26votes
Will there be a summer party again?
Open
A layer over the whole presentation, not a single slide.
Retrospective · 3 statements
2 × skipped — its own outcome, excluded from the mean.
1 × skipped — its own outcome, excluded from the mean.
4 × skipped — its own outcome, excluded from the mean.
Several statements on one scale, distribution and mean per statement.
Sample session · not real data
The five formats
Pick the format that fits your question
Each has its own page covering what it does — and what it doesn't.
Live polls
Ask a question and watch results appear instantly as animated bars. Multiple choice, images and several questions per session included.
Learn moreWord clouds
Capture the mood in real time. Frequent words visibly grow — perfect for ice-breakers, brainstorms and sentiment checks.
Learn moreQuizzes
Points, leaderboard and countdown for playful learning. Ideal for training, onboarding and conferences with a competitive edge.
Learn moreQ&A & open text
Your audience asks questions, others upvote them. The most important topics rise to the top — show the list to the room, or keep it to yourself at first.
Learn moreScales & ratings
Measure agreement, mood or priorities on a scale. Results as a clear distribution instead of vague gut feelings.
Learn more
How a session runs
From question to result in three steps
The flow is the same in every format — you build the slides, the audience joins, and you decide when the results appear.
- 1
Build the deck
Interactive slides and plain text, image and video slides live in the same deck. Text takes Markdown and links; every slide has notes only you can see.
- 2
Share the code
A join slide shows the 6-digit code, the link and a QR code. Participants need no account, no app and no email address.
- 3
Present live
From the presenter view you control when a slide opens, closes and reveals — the bars grow on the shared screen as answers land.
Built into every format
What holds across all five
None of this depends on the format: it applies to every slide you build. Unlimited participants and joining by code belong to every plan — the free tier and self-hosting included.
Unlimited participants
No participant cap per event and none per month. The number of questions isn't capped either.
Join by code, link or QR
Six digits to read out, a direct link to share, a QR code for the screen. No participant account, nothing to install.
You decide when results appear
Let them grow live, reveal on your cue, or collect quietly with nothing on the screen — per slide or as the default for the whole deck. Participation can be opened and closed slide by slide, and the shared screen can be blanked.
Export the results
Every session exports as a spreadsheet and as a PDF; a results link shares the outcome with people who weren't in the room. On the hosted cloud, export is planned for the Pro plan — self-hosting has it, and while billing is still being built the cloud is completely free.
Themes and branding
Built-in themes on every plan. Your own logo, colours and fonts are white-label: planned for Pro, complete when you self-host. The free tier keeps omul branding on the join screen.
In the room or at their own pace
You drive the deck, or participants work through it themselves — same slides, two modes. For surveys that have to work without a stage.
And beyond that
More slide types than the five core formats
The five formats above cover the everyday. When a question has to be asked differently, there's a slide type for it:
- Ranking: participants put the options in their own order, and the tally folds the individual orderings into one ranking.
- 2×2 grid: each item is placed in a field with two axes — effort against impact, urgency against importance. The tally reports the average position per item.
- 100 points: a fixed point budget spread across several options and summed per option — which prioritises more honestly than a row of separate questions.
- Guess the number: an estimate with a range, a reference value and a tolerance — usable as a quiz question too.
- Pin on image: participants drop a marker on a picture, a floor plan or a diagram.
- Form: several fields on one slide, when you want details collected together rather than one at a time.
- Leaderboard, reactions and live chat as their own layers over the presentation.
- PowerPoint, Google Slides and Miro content can be embedded. Note what that means: an embedded slide or board connects a participant's device straight to that provider.
Outlines
What those six slides look like
The same six types as above, as a shape rather than a sentence — an outline, not a demonstration: they have no page of their own, so they have no claim to a demo of their own.
Ranking
2×2 grid
100 points
Guess the number
Pin on image
Form
Staying honest
What omul cannot do today
omul imports no PowerPoint, Keynote or Mentimeter files — existing questions are moved across by hand. Questions in the Q&A cannot be approved in advance: you can keep the list to yourself and remove individual entries, but there is no approval step before a question is shown. SSO/OIDC, add-ins for Teams, Zoom or PowerPoint and a configurable retention window aren't built either — deletion, by contrast, is immediate and complete. The comparison puts all of this side by side, vendor by vendor.
Frequently asked questions about the features
Which formats does omul offer?
Five core formats: live polls (multiple choice), word clouds, quizzes with points and a leaderboard, Q&A with open text, and scales. On top of those: ranking, 2×2 grid, 100-point allocation, guess-the-number, pin-on-image and forms, plus plain text, image and video slides in the same deck.
Do participants have to sign up?
No. The audience joins with a 6-digit code, a direct link or a QR code — no account, no app, no email address. A name is optional and only asked for when you need it.
How many participants are possible?
There is no participant cap — not per event, not per month, and not on the free plan. The number of questions isn't capped either.
Can I export the results?
Yes, as a spreadsheet and as a PDF. There's also a shareable results link, and a session's results can be reset when you want to run the same presentation again.
Do participants see the results immediately?
Only if you want them to. Per slide — or as the default for the whole deck — you decide whether the tally grows live, appears on your cue, or never goes to the audience at all. You can also open and close participation on a slide deliberately.
Can I self-host omul?
Yes. omul is licensed under the AGPLv3 and runs on your own infrastructure with docker compose — same feature set, unlimited participants, no licence fees.
Try it
Build your first interactive slide in a minute
No setup, no credit card. Pick a format, ask the question, share the code — the rest you watch happen live.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)