Particify alternative: two open-source tools, compared honestly
The usual argument does not apply here — and we are glad to say so. Particify is open source, comes out of Gießen, says it stores data on servers in Germany, and lets participants join a room by number without an account: exactly the position omul exists for. We rate Particify highly. A team in Germany has been building serious software for years, keeping it open, and making it the standard at universities — hats off. Anyone who picks Particify has picked well, and we are fans of that. Choosing between the two is therefore not a privacy decision, and it is not self-host versus SaaS. This comparison puts the hosted services next to each other: how many question formats you need, whether 200 participants is enough, and whether you need SSO, an LMS and moderation — things Particify has and omul does not.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
- Both open source
- Yes — no difference
- Free tier
- 200/room · omul: no cap
- Question formats
- 4 areas · omul: 10
- Based in
- Gießen, servers in DE
The short answer
Is it worth switching from Particify?
Particify is an open-source audience response system from Particify GmbH in Gießen, grown out of ARSnova at Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen; the hosted service says it runs on servers in Germany, and participants join with an eight-digit room number and no account. Against omul, both share open source, EU data residency, self-hosting and account-free joining — so this comparison puts the hosted services next to each other, not self-host against SaaS. Particify Free costs €0 and allows 200 participants per room; Pro costs €12 per account per month for education and €18 for business, billed annually, plus VAT, from five accounts; Campus or Enterprise is on request. omul's hosted Free has no participant cap; Pro is €19 per workspace per month on the pricing page, on a waitlist, because billing is still being built. Particify names four areas (surveys, quizzes, live Q&A, live feedback); omul adds ranking, a 2×2 grid, a 100-point split, number guesses and pin-on-image. In the other direction Particify has an LMS connector, SSO via Shibboleth, CAS and LDAP, moderated Q&A, and a foothold in German higher education that omul does not.
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.
Which one to pick
Particify 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.
Choose Particify when …
- you work at a university. Particify is the ARSnova successor, has an LMS connector and is established in German higher education — omul has none of that.
- SSO via Shibboleth, CAS or LDAP is required. Particify offers it on the Campus plan and as part of its services; omul has no SSO at all yet.
- you want a managed instance but in Germany: Particify installs and maintains one on its own servers, with monitoring and branding.
- your rooms stay under 200 participants and you need moderation. Then Particify costs €0, hosted, with unlimited rooms and question series — omul's hosted Free is also €0, but without moderation. Particify wins that comparison on features, not on price.
- surveys, quizzes, Q&A and live feedback are enough — for many teaching formats they are.
Choose omul when …
- you need formats Particify does not name — ranking, a 2×2 grid, a 100-point split, number guesses with a tolerance, pin-on-image.
- you want to break a tally down by an earlier question; omul does that with no tier attached.
- no participant cap should sit in the hosted plan. Particify caps at 200, 500 and 1,000 per room; omul sets none.
- you would rather pay a flat workspace price than five mandatory accounts: omul Pro is €19 per workspace per month on the pricing page — planned, not yet buyable.
- you need the licence to be unambiguous: omul is AGPLv3 throughout.
Side by side
omul and Particify, criterion by criterion
Each row is a criterion that turns up in a real procurement — Particify's answer first, omul's second. Every Particify figure comes from the pages listed with their dates under "Sources" below.
| Criterion | Particify | omul |
|---|---|---|
| Source code readable | Yes, on GitLab — web client MIT, no licence file GitLab detects on the server | Yes, AGPLv3 throughout |
| Runs on your own infrastructure | Yes, via Docker Compose | Yes, one container |
| Where the data sits | Hosted: servers in Germany, vendor Particify GmbH, Gießen | EU hosting |
| Join without a participant account | Yes, eight-digit room number | Yes, six-digit code, link or QR |
| Participants per room | 200 (Free), 500 (Pro), 1,000 (Campus) — rooms and question series unlimited | No vendor cap |
| Question formats | Surveys (Likert, word cloud among them), quizzes, live Q&A, live feedback | Plus ranking, 2×2 grid, 100-point split, number guesses with a tolerance, pin-on-image |
| Break a tally down by an earlier question | Not advertised as a feature | Included |
| SSO (Shibboleth, CAS, LDAP) | From Campus or Enterprise, price on request | On the roadmap; email and password today |
| LMS integration | Moodle, ILIAS, Stud.IP from Campus; connector in the source project | None |
| Moderate questions | Yes, on the free tier already: poll and Q&A moderation | Collecting and audience rating yes, approval before display no |
| What happens after inactivity | Guest rooms are deleted automatically after six months of inactivity | No automatic window; you delete yourself, instantly and completely |
| Pricing (hosted) | Free €0; Pro €12 (education) or €18 (business) per account/month, annual, from 5 accounts; Campus on request | Free €0, no cap; Pro €19/workspace/month on the waitlist — billing is being built |
| Data export | Advertised as a feature; on the hosted service from Pro, per the pricing page | Spreadsheet and PDF, in every edition |
| Your own logo and colours | From Campus or Enterprise, on request — or customised in the services package | White-label from Pro (waitlist); Free keeps omul branding on the join screen |
In detail
The differences, argued out
Where is the difference at all, if both are open source?
Particify
Nowhere this comparison usually finds one — and that belongs at the top. Particify is open source, Particify GmbH is based in Gießen, the hosted service says it stores data on servers in Germany, and participants join without an account. Anyone looking for an alternative to a US vendor has already found one in Particify. It is the ARSnova successor out of Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen, and German universities adopted it for exactly that reason.
omul
omul shares every one of those properties, so this page does not argue with them. And because this usually goes unsaid, let us say it plainly: we think Particify is good. Open-source software out of Germany, maintained for years, in real use at universities — hats off to that, and anyone who chooses it has our full agreement. What remains is a comparison of two hosted services: the published plans, the question formats, and what Particify can do that omul cannot — SSO, LMS, moderation, the foothold in higher education. Both are below, with their sources. Both tools can be self-hosted; that is not the column omul is scored on here.
particify.de/en/services, checked 08.09.2026
Which question formats does Particify have?
Particify
Particify organises the product into four areas: surveys, quizzes, live Q&A and live feedback. For surveys the surveys sub-page names, verbatim, "question formats such as Likert for evaluations or wordclouds for brainstorming sessions", visualised as bar charts, word clouds or text lists. That covers the core of teaching, and the live-feedback area — a read on the room in seconds — is an idea of its own that other tools do not have in that form.
omul
omul covers the same core and adds five formats Particify does not advertise: ranking, 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. Plus segmentation: breaking a tally down by an earlier question. Whether that matters depends on your format — not for a lecture with comprehension checks, very much for a strategy workshop.
particify.de/en/features/surveys, checked 08.09.2026
What can Particify do that omul cannot?
Particify
Three things, and they carry weight. Particify offers integration with single sign-on systems such as Shibboleth, CAS or LDAP — precisely how universities log in; on the hosted service, SSO and the LMS integration with Moodle, ILIAS and Stud.IP belong to the Campus or Enterprise plan, which is quoted on request, while the LMS connector sits openly in the source project. And its Q&A is presented moderated and prioritised, per the vendor — moderation is included on the free tier already. On top of that is something you cannot build: Particify is the ARSnova successor and is already established in German higher education.
omul
omul has none of these. SSO is on the roadmap and not built, there is no LMS integration, and the Q&A layer collects questions and lets the audience rate them so the most wanted rise to the top — but there is no approval step before they appear. If your course operation depends on Shibboleth or on Moodle, this is not a close comparison — Particify is the right tool.
particify.de/en/services, checked 08.09.2026
What licence is Particify under?
Particify
The answer is less uniform than you would expect. For the web client, GitLab reports the MIT licence. For the server — the repository holding core, authz, comments, websocket and formatting — GitLab detects no licence file, and the README says only that ARSnova is "released under an open-source license", without naming it. That is not an accusation: the source is public, the project is active, and anyone needing a precise statement of their rights will surely get one on request. It is simply one more question you have to ask.
omul
omul is AGPLv3 throughout, in one file at the root. That is a different bargain from MIT: the AGPLv3 requires anyone offering a modified version as a service to publish that version's source. If you want to change the tool and keep the change to yourself, MIT is freer; if you want every hosted derivative to stay open, the AGPLv3 is what you want.
gitlab.com/particify/dev/foss/arsnova-server, checked 08.09.2026
What does the hosted service cost?
Particify
Particify publishes list prices — two lists, in fact: one for education and one for business. Free costs €0 and comes with 200 participants per room, plus unlimited rooms and question series and moderation of polls and Q&A — a free tier that carries a real lecture, and it is buyable today. Pro costs €12 per account per month for education and €18 for business, both billed annually and excluding VAT, raises the room to 500 participants and adds result export, collaborative room editing and the Particify Overlay. Pro starts at five accounts, though: the smallest Pro invoice is €720 a year in education and €1,080 in business, even if only one person presents. Campus (education) and Enterprise (from ten accounts) raise the room to 1,000 and add branding, SSO and the LMS integration — price on request. One rule from the terms matters more to an occasional user than any price: a guest account, together with every room it created, is deleted automatically after six months of inactivity, and registered accounts may also be deleted after six months — with two weeks' notice.
omul
omul's hosted Free costs €0 and sets no participant cap; Pro is €19 per workspace per month on the pricing page — flat, unlimited presenters — and it is a waitlist, because billing is still being built. While that is true the cloud is entirely free: that is a gap, not a price, and anyone who wants to buy a paid plan today can do so at Particify and not at omul. Under 200 participants per room both hosted free tiers are €0; that comparison is not decided on price but on the moderation Particify includes and omul does not. Above that the list prices for five teaching staff are €720 a year against €228 planned for one omul workspace — and no amount of money buys you SSO or an LMS integration from omul, because neither exists.
particify.de/de/preise, education and business, checked 08.09.2026
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
What it costs
A worked example: omul against Particify
Both columns are SaaS. Particify's education list prices read on 08.09.2026, excluding VAT; omul's planned workspace prices from its own pricing page. Self-hosting does not appear in this calculation.
ScenarioAn institute with five teaching staff who each run their own sessions. Rooms regularly go past 200 participants. Both sides are the hosted service.
| Scenario | Particify | omul |
|---|---|---|
| Presenting staff | 5 accounts | 1 workspace |
| Plan needed | Pro (€12/account/month) | Pro (€19/workspace/month) |
| Minimum purchase | 5 accounts | none |
| List price | €720/year | €228/year planned |
| Participants per room | 500 (Free: 200) | no plan cap |
| Result export | included from Pro | included |
| SSO and LMS | Campus only, on request | not available |
| Buyable today | yes | no — waitlist |
| Per year | €720 | €228 planned |
Particify prices exclude VAT, per particify.de/de/preise on 08.09.2026: Pro is €12 per account per month, billed annually, from five accounts — business buyers use the second pricing page at €18, so €1,080 a year. omul Pro at €19 per workspace per month is on /pricing; €228 is twelve months of that list price, and the billing for it is still being built — the pricing page carries a waitlist, not a buy button. The cloud is therefore free today; that is a gap, not a price, and so it is not the total. If your rooms stay under 200 participants, both hosted free tiers cost €0, and Particify then wins on moderation. The SSO-and-LMS row decides the comparison for a university: Particify has both — on the Campus plan, priced on request — and omul has neither at any price.
Switching
How much work is moving off Particify?
Between two open-source tools with a hosted service, switching is the easiest thing to do technically and the most honest thing to answer: there is no importer, and there is no reason to hurry.
Rebuild the questions
omul does not read Particify rooms. A twenty-question deck is about an hour's work. A file importer is not what we're building next; a skill that connects omul to your own LLM is in progress and has not shipped.
Use both in parallel
Both have a hosted free tier. Running them side by side costs no second licence and no server of your own. For a university with Particify in course delivery, that is more sensible than a migration.
Joining stays familiar
Instead of an eight-digit room number your audience types a six-digit code — or scans the QR. No account, no app, nothing to explain.
Check SSO and LMS first
This is where a switch fails, not the formats. If your login runs through Shibboleth, CAS or LDAP, or you write results back into Moodle, omul cannot replace that today.
Staying fair
Where Particify is (still) ahead
Particify is the strongest peer in this comparison because it shares the same position — and we say that without gritted teeth: we are fans of anyone who chooses Particify. Five things it does that omul does not:
A finished free tier with moderation
200 participants per room, unlimited rooms and question series, moderation included — for €0, hosted in Germany, usable today. omul's hosted Free is also €0 and has no participant cap, but no moderation; Pro sits on a waitlist. Anyone who wants to buy a paid plan can do so at Particify.
SSO for universities
Shibboleth, CAS and LDAP are offered on the Campus plan and as part of Particify's services. omul has no SSO at all; it is on the roadmap. At a university that is often the first question rather than the last.
LMS integration
Particify names Moodle, ILIAS and Stud.IP from the Campus plan, and the connector sits openly in the source project. omul has no integration with Moodle, Canvas or ILIAS — results leave omul as a spreadsheet or a PDF.
Moderated Q&A
Particify presents audience questions moderated and prioritised, on the free tier already. omul collects questions and lets the audience rate them but does not gate them before display; the requirement is logged in the product and not built.
A foothold in university teaching
Particify is the ARSnova successor out of Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen and is established across German higher education. That foothold cannot be built, only earned — omul is younger and does not have it.
Frequently asked questions about the comparison
What is the difference between omul and Particify?
Both are open source, self-hostable, EU-based, and let participants join without an account — there is no difference there. This comparison puts the hosted services next to each other. Particify Free costs €0 with 200 participants per room and moderation; omul's hosted Free costs €0 with no participant cap and no moderation. Particify names four areas — surveys, quizzes, live Q&A, live feedback — where omul additionally ships ranking, a 2×2 grid, a 100-point split, number guesses and pin-on-image. In the other direction Particify has SSO, an LMS connector and moderated Q&A, which omul lacks, and a paid plan you can buy today.
Is Particify GDPR-compliant?
Particify GmbH is based in Gießen and is therefore directly subject to the GDPR; its product page says all data is stored safely on servers located in Germany. Unlike the US and third-country vendors in this comparison, the question is not a point of contention here. omul's hosted edition sits in the EU.
Is Particify really open source?
The source is public on GitLab and the project is actively developed. GitLab reports the MIT licence for the web client; for the server repository it detects no licence file, and the README says only "an open-source license" without naming it. Anyone who needs legal certainty about their rights before self-hosting should ask. omul is AGPLv3 throughout.
What does the hosted service cost against omul?
Particify publishes list prices, separately for education (particify.de/de/preise) and business (/de/preise/business). Free costs €0 and allows 200 participants per room with unlimited rooms and question series, moderation included. Pro costs €12 per account per month in education and €18 in business, billed annually and excluding VAT, and starts at five accounts — so at least €720 or €1,080 a year — raising the room to 500 participants. Campus and Enterprise are on request. omul's hosted Free costs €0 with no participant cap; Pro is €19 per workspace per month on the pricing page and is a waitlist. Under 200 participants both free tiers are €0; above that the list prices for five teaching staff are €720 against €228 planned — and Particify Pro can be bought today, omul Pro cannot.
What does Particify cost?
Particify publishes list prices, separately for education (particify.de/de/preise) and business (/de/preise/business). Free costs €0 and allows 200 participants per room with unlimited rooms and question series, moderation included. Pro costs €12 per account per month in education and €18 in business, billed annually and excluding VAT, and starts at five accounts — so at least €720 or €1,080 a year — raising the room to 500 participants. Campus and Enterprise are on request, with 1,000 participants, branding, SSO and LMS integration. One clause from the terms also matters to occasional users: guest accounts, and every room they created, are deleted automatically after six months of inactivity.
How many participants does Particify allow?
200 per room on the free tier, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Campus or Enterprise; the number of rooms and question series is unlimited on all three. With omul no plan sets a limit. For most teaching sessions 200 participants is enough, and at that size both hosted free tiers cost nothing — Particify then brings moderation, omul does not.
Does Particify have SSO?
Yes. Particify offers integration with Shibboleth, CAS and LDAP — the mechanisms German universities log in with. On the hosted service SSO belongs to the Campus or Enterprise plan, which is quoted on request; in the services package Particify sets it up on a dedicated instance. omul has no SSO today; it is on the roadmap. Participants need no account with either tool in any case.
Should you switch from Particify to omul?
Not without a reason. If Particify is running for you, your login goes through Shibboleth, results land in Moodle, or the free tier serves you well, then no — we are genuinely fans of anyone who chooses Particify. A switch is worth it if you need formats Particify does not have — ranking, a 2×2 grid, a 100-point split, number guesses, pin-on-image — or if no participant cap should sit in the plan. Because both have a hosted free tier, running them in parallel costs no second licence.
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.
- Particify — education pricing (Free, Pro, Campus)checked 08.09.2026
- Particify — business pricing (Free, Pro, Enterprise)checked 08.09.2026
- Particify — services (hosted instance, SSO, branding)checked 08.09.2026
- Particify — features overview (surveys, quizzes, live Q&A, live feedback)checked 08.09.2026
- ARSnova Server — source and production Compose filechecked 08.09.2026
- Particify — surveys in detail (the quoted question formats)checked 08.09.2026
- Particify — Free terms of use (deletion after six months of inactivity)checked 08.09.2026
- Particify — terms index (Free, Enterprise SaaS, Enterprise On-Premise)checked 08.09.2026
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See for yourself
Try the open-source Particify alternative
Create your first live poll in under a minute — no setup, no credit card.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)