omul — the open-source Mentimeter alternative 2026
Looking for a Mentimeter alternative in 2026? Then omul is the open-source (AGPLv3) Mentimeter alternative: unlimited participants, no sign-up, GDPR-compliant and self-hostable. Live polls, word clouds, quizzes and Q&A — no participant limit, full data ownership and no vendor lock-in.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
- Free cap
- 50 participants/month
- Price
- €168 – €336/presenter/yr
- Self-hosting
- Mentimeter: no · omul: yes
- Based in
- Stockholm, data in the EU
The short answer
Is it worth switching from Mentimeter?
Mentimeter is closed SaaS from Sweden's Mentimeter AB; its own privacy policy says customer data at rest is hosted in the EU by default, there is no self-hosted edition, and the source is not public. The free tier allows 50 participants a month across all your presentations; above that Mentimeter costs €14 (Basic) or €28 (Pro) per presenting person per month, billed annually only, with SSO on the Enterprise plan alone. omul covers the same live formats, is open source under AGPLv3, runs self-hosted or EU-hosted, and caps neither participants nor questions — but it has no PowerPoint import, no moderated Q&A and no SSO today.
Running in production at HyHyve events
As part of the HyHyve ecosystem, omul runs live at real events — used by teams from companies like these.
Why switch
Four reasons to switch from Mentimeter to omul
GDPR without compromise
Data in the EU or on your servers, a DPA included, no third-party trackers. Built so data protection officers and works councils can sign off.
Self-hosted & open source
Run omul on your own infrastructure — the open-source alternative to Mentimeter, licensed under AGPLv3. Full control, no vendor lock-in.
No participant limits
No paywall after the first dozen votes. Whether 20 or 2,000 participants — everyone takes part, at no extra cost.
Fair, predictable pricing
A transparent pricing model instead of per-presenter licenses that get pricier with every speaker.
Which one to pick
Mentimeter or omul — which fits you?
Both tools put the same audience on screen. The choice comes down to four things: where the data is allowed to live, how many people present, how big the rooms are, and which software you are already standing in.
Stay on Mentimeter when …
- you want to import existing PowerPoint or Keynote decks and add questions to them — omul has no importer.
- moderated Q&A is part of the run of show: Mentimeter gates questions from Pro, omul cannot do it at all today.
- one person presents, and rarely. For a single licence, €168 a year is not an argument against a finished product.
- IT requires SSO, SCIM and an LMS integration — Mentimeter has those on Enterprise and omul has none of them.
Switch to omul when …
- several people present. Twelve presenters cost €2,016 a year on Mentimeter Basic and nothing extra on omul.
- your participants' answers should stay on your own machine rather than at a vendor — whatever country that vendor sits in.
- 50 participants a month is gone by the second week.
- you want to read, audit or adapt the source rather than trust an assurance about it.
Side by side
omul and Mentimeter, criterion by criterion
Each row is a criterion that turns up in a real procurement — Mentimeter's answer first, omul's second. Every Mentimeter figure comes from the pages listed with their dates under "Sources" below.
| Criterion | Mentimeter | omul |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on your own infrastructure | Vendor-hosted SaaS only | Docker image, your server |
| Source code readable | Closed source | AGPLv3 |
| Where the data sits | In the EU by default; the vendor is Sweden's Mentimeter AB | Your servers — or EU hosting |
| Free tier | 50 participants a month across all presentations | Self-hosting, uncapped |
| Participant ceiling on paid plans | None | No limit in the code |
| Price per presenting person | €14 (Basic) or €28 (Pro) a month, billed annually | No per-person charge |
| Billing | Annual only; conference plans exist for one-off events | Self-hosting is free; hosted billing is being built |
| Import PowerPoint, Keynote or PDF | From Basic | No import — questions are rebuilt |
| Live formats | 23 slide types on the free tier, unlimited above it | Every core format plus 2×2 grid, 100-point split, number guesses, pin-on-image |
| Break a tally down by an earlier question | From Pro (€336/presenter/year) | Included in every edition |
| Approve questions before they show | From Pro | Not built — logged as an open product requirement |
| Your own logo and colours | From Pro | Included |
| SSO / OIDC and SCIM | Enterprise only, price on request | On the roadmap; email and password today |
| Set your own retention period | From Enterprise | Not built — you delete yourself, instantly and completely |
| Join without a participant account | Yes, by code or link | Yes, six-digit code, link or QR |
| Data export | Excel and PDF from Basic; not on the free tier | Spreadsheet and PDF, in every edition |
Price comparison
Mentimeter pricing in detail — dated and sourced
Mentimeter bills per presenting person and annually only — there is no monthly payment for Basic or Pro. For comparison: omul prices the workspace, not the person, and self-hosting stays free.
| Plan | Price | Free cap / scope | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mentimeter Free | €0 | 50 participants / month | — |
| Mentimeter Basic | €168 / year per person | Unlimited participants | Per presenter · annual only |
| Mentimeter Pro | €336 / year per person | + branding removal, export | Per presenter · annual only |
| Mentimeter Enterprise | custom | + SSO/SAML | Per presenter · annual |
| omul | €0 self-hosted · €19/mo planned | Unlimited participants & presenters | Per workspace · billing being built |
Cost calculator
What does Mentimeter cost your team?
Mentimeter bills per presenting person: €168 a year for Basic, €336 for Pro — the same for every person, with no published volume discount. omul Pro is flat per workspace, with any number of presenters. Drag the slider and see the difference.
- Mentimeter Basic
- €1,680 / year
- omul Pro
- €228 / year
flat · unlimited presenters
Savings per year
€1,452
With self-hosting (AGPLv3) you pay €0 — for any number of presenters.
Mentimeter prices for Germany, excluding tax, as of 05.09.2026, source: mentimeter.com/de-DE/plans
Sovereignty
Data ownership — but precise
A blanket “US cloud” accusation against Mentimeter would be wrong: Mentimeter AB is based in Stockholm and its own privacy policy says customer data at rest is hosted in the EU by default. The honest difference is not the country but the control — with omul everything runs on your own infrastructure rather than at a vendor whose assurance you have to take on trust.
Your own infrastructure, not someone's cloud
No us-east-1, no parallel-region setup: omul runs where you put it — in your own data center or the EU cloud of your choice.
Open source, not a black box
The code is open source under AGPLv3 and auditable. You don't have to trust a vendor — you can check, including what happens to questions and answers.
No “inspiration” clause
Unlike some cloud terms, omul does not reserve the right to reuse your questions for “inspiration” or product improvement. Your content is yours.
In detail
The differences, argued out
What does Mentimeter cost — and what drives the price?
Mentimeter
The number of people who present. Basic is €14 per presenting person per month, Pro is €28, both excluding tax and billed annually only — Mentimeter offers no monthly payment for Basic or Pro. Enterprise, the only package with SSO, has no list price. Participants are unlimited from Basic upwards; the bill grows with your own staff, not with your audience.
omul
omul's price does not attach to people. Self-hosting carries no licence fee, only the server; the hosted edition is planned as a flat per-workspace price regardless of how many people present. That billing is still being built — the pricing page carries a waiting list rather than a buy button today, and says so.
mentimeter.com/de-DE/plans, checked 05.09.2026
How many participants does Mentimeter allow for free?
Mentimeter
Fifty a month — not per presentation but across all of them, resetting on the day of the month you signed up. Mentimeter will not interrupt a session in progress and gives you eight hours' grace afterwards; after that you cannot set another presentation live. For two workshops a month that is tight; for a lecture series it is nothing.
omul
There is no ceiling in omul's code — not on participants, not on questions, not on presentations. What a self-hosted instance can carry is decided by your server. To be straight about it: the live tally is not yet optimised for very large rooms, and that is logged as an open requirement in the product.
mentimeter.com/de-DE/plans, checked 05.09.2026
Is Mentimeter GDPR-compliant?
Mentimeter
Undramatically: yes, as far as anyone outside can judge. Mentimeter AB (publ) is a Swedish company based in Stockholm and therefore directly subject to the GDPR, and its privacy policy states that customer data at rest is hosted in the EU by default. If you read a comparison page describing it as a "US cloud", check the rest of that page too. That is not the whole statement, though: the same policy mentions "multi-regional hosting" and reserves the right to transfer limited data to countries outside the EU/EEA.
omul
The difference is not the country, it is the control. With Mentimeter a vendor's assurance is the basis; with a self-hosted omul there is no vendor to obtain an assurance from — the database is yours, no processor agreement is needed, and the source can be read. If you would rather not run it, the EU-hosted edition with a DPA is there, and then the gap to Mentimeter really is small.
mentimeter.com/trust/legal/privacy-policy, checked 06.09.2026
Can you self-host Mentimeter?
Mentimeter
No, and it is not announced. Mentimeter runs only as the vendor's service, the source is closed, and what the software does with your audience's answers is a question for the documentation rather than for the code.
omul
omul is open source under AGPLv3 and built to be self-hosted: one container, your database, your domain. You can check what happens, you decide when updates land, and if we disappear tomorrow your instance keeps running. The price of that is work — somebody has to operate the server.
Can I bring my Mentis over to omul?
Mentimeter
Out of Mentimeter: partly. It exports results to Excel and PDF from Basic upwards, so past analyses survive. The questions themselves live in Mentimeter's own format.
omul
There is no file import from Mentimeter. What we are building is a skill that connects omul to your own LLM — the key stays with you, existing questions arrive through the model rather than copy-paste. Results you can take out of Mentimeter to Excel and PDF from Basic upwards.
Which question formats do both have?
Mentimeter
Mentimeter gives you 23 slide types on the free tier and no limit above it — polls, word clouds, quizzes, open text, scales, ranking, plus a full slide editor with a template library. That editor is why Mentimeter *is* the presentation for many teams rather than the interaction inside it.
omul
omul covers the same interactive canon and adds four formats Mentimeter does not have: a 2×2 grid with freely labelled axes, a split of 100 points across options, number guesses with a reference value and a tolerance, and dropping a pin on an image. What omul does not try to be is a slide designer — the deck stays in the tool you already use.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
Switching
From Mentimeter to omul in three steps
- 1
Add your questions
Today you create the questions in omul — the formats are the ones you know. Next up is a skill that connects omul to your own LLM, so existing decks don't have to be retyped.
- 2
Share the code
Your audience joins with a 6-digit code. No account, no app, no onboarding.
- 3
Present live
Results appear in real time on the screen.
Your LLM, your questions — without retyping
A file importer for Mentimeter decks is not what we're building next. We're working on a skill that lets omul talk to your own LLM. The key stays with you; existing questions then land in omul through the model, not through copy-paste.
Staying fair
Where Mentimeter is (still) ahead
Four things Mentimeter does today that omul does not. They are here because a comparison that hides them falls apart in the first procurement round:
Import from PowerPoint, Keynote and PDF
From Basic you upload an existing deck and add questions to it. omul has no importer — the questions are built fresh. For a team with a hundred existing decks, that is the most expensive difference on this page.
Moderated Q&A
Mentimeter releases audience questions only after review, from Pro. omul collects and upvotes but does not gate; the requirement is logged in the product and not built.
The slide editor and the templates
23 slide types on the free tier, a template library, and a mature editor. omul concentrates on the live interaction and leaves slide design to the tool you already use — a drawback if that is exactly what you did not want.
SSO, SCIM, LMS and retention windows
Mentimeter's Enterprise plan brings single sign-on, automated user management, LMS integration and self-set deletion windows. omul has none of these; SSO is on the roadmap, and deleting in omul is manual today — but immediate and complete.
Frequently asked questions about the Mentimeter alternative
Is omul a free Mentimeter alternative?
You can try omul for free. As a self-hosted, open-source tool (AGPLv3), it runs on your own infrastructure with no license fees; the hosted option comes with transparent pricing.
Is omul GDPR-compliant and where is data stored?
Yes. You run omul self-hosted or EU-hosted — data stays in the EU or on your own servers. There are no third-party trackers, and a DPA is standard.
Can I self-host omul?
Yes — omul is built for self-hosting and licensed under AGPLv3. You keep full control over data and infrastructure, with no vendor lock-in.
Do participants need an account?
No. Your audience joins with a 6-digit code on any device — no sign-up, no app, no email address. Whether personal data arises is decided by the questions you ask: names are off by default.
Is there a participant limit?
No: omul does not cap the number of participants per event — from a small workshop group to a large town-hall audience.
Does omul support the same formats as Mentimeter?
Yes. Live polls, word clouds, quizzes, Q&A and scales are all included — the interactive formats you know from Mentimeter.
What does Mentimeter cost per year?
In Germany, €14 (Basic) or €28 (Pro) per presenting person per month, excluding tax and billed annually only — so €168 or €336 per person per year. Mentimeter prices by country: the same page shows $11.99 and $24.99 in the United States. Enterprise, the only package with SSO, has no list price. As of 05.09.2026, per mentimeter.com/de-DE/plans.
How many participants does Mentimeter's free tier allow?
Fifty a month, counted across all your presentations and resetting on your signup date. A session in progress is never interrupted, and there is eight hours' grace afterwards. Paid plans have no participant limit but bill per presenting person. omul caps none of it.
Is Mentimeter GDPR-compliant?
Mentimeter AB (publ) is a Swedish company based in Stockholm and therefore directly subject to the GDPR, and its own privacy policy says customer data at rest is hosted in the EU by default, so a GDPR-compliant deployment with a DPA is possible. The difference with omul is not the storage location but that self-hosting removes the processor relationship entirely and lets you read the source.
Can you self-host Mentimeter?
No. Mentimeter is available only as the vendor's service and its source is not public. omul is open source under AGPLv3 and built to run on your own infrastructure.
Does Mentimeter offer SSO?
Yes, but on the Enterprise plan only — together with SCIM, LMS integration and participant verification; there is no list price for it. omul does not have SSO today; it is on the roadmap. omul participants need no account in any case.
Can I import my Mentimeter presentations into omul?
Not as a file. Instead of a Mentimeter importer we are building a skill that connects omul to your own LLM. Until that ships, you create the questions in omul. Results export from Mentimeter to Excel and PDF from Basic upwards.
Is omul cheaper than Mentimeter?
Markedly, as soon as more than one person presents. Twelve presenters cost €2,016 a year on Mentimeter Basic and €4,032 on Pro (excluding tax, as of 05.09.2026); a self-hosted omul costs no licence, only a server. For a single licence used rarely, the difference is small.
Is omul a full replacement for Mentimeter?
For the live interaction, yes — polls, word clouds, quizzes, Q&A, scales, ranking, plus 2×2 grids, 100-point splits, number guesses and pin-on-image. As a slide editor, no: omul has no import, no template library and no moderated Q&A. If you use Mentimeter mainly as a presentation tool, you are swapping more than the polling.
Evidence
Sources
Every number on this page comes from a publicly available vendor page. Here is which one — and when we last opened it. Vendors change their prices; if something here is out of date, tell us.
- Mentimeter — plans, limits and feature matrix (German pricing page)checked 05.09.2026
- Mentimeter — privacy policy (company seat, EU hosting)checked 06.09.2026
Keep comparing
omul against the other tools
Mentimeter isn't the only live-polling tool. See how omul stacks up against the other providers — or dig into why data ownership makes the decisive difference.
GDPR & self-hosting in detailMore alternatives
See all comparisons- Slido alternativeMature Q&A, deep in Webex and Teams — but closed, annual-only, and capped hard on the free tier.
- AhaSlides alternativeThe cheapest vendor in the field — but a Singaporean operator, AWS regions in the EU and the US, and no self-hosting.
- Wooclap alternativeThe strongest vendor here on data protection — Belgian, Paris, ISO 27001. But five questions a month for free and the highest Pro price in the field.
Ready to switch?
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No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)