Slido alternative: omul, compared in the open
Slido is a good product and a closed one. It runs in Cisco's AWS estate in Ireland and Germany rather than on your servers, and its free tier stops at 100 participants and three polls. omul covers the same live formats, is open source under AGPLv3, and runs wherever you put it. This page sets the two side by side — using Slido's own figures, and naming the four things Slido does better today.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
- Self-hosting
- Slido: no · omul: yes
- Free cap
- 100 participants, 3 polls
- Slido price
- €180 – €1,800/year
- Billing
- Annual only
The short answer
Is it worth switching from Slido?
Slido is closed SaaS owned by Cisco: it says its infrastructure sits in AWS data centres in Ireland and Germany, the company behind it is US-based Cisco Systems, Inc., and there is no self-hosted edition. The free tier allows 100 participants and three polls per slido; above that Slido costs €180 to €1,800 a year, billed annually only. omul is the open counterposition: AGPLv3, on your own infrastructure or EU-hosted, with no participant or question cap and the same core formats. If you need Slido's moderated Q&A, its Webex and Teams integrations, or a vendor with ISO 27001, Slido is the better fit 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.
Which one to pick
Slido 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 Slido when …
- your company already runs on Webex or Microsoft Teams and the interaction should stay inside the meeting window.
- you need moderated Q&A — approving a question before the wall shows it. Slido does that from Professional; omul cannot do it at all today.
- procurement wants a certificate from the vendor: Slido holds ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, 27701 and SOC 2.
- you have one event coming up and nobody wants to sign an annual contract — Slido's one-time plans cover seven days, from €60.
Choose omul when …
- your participants' answers must not leave the building — omul runs on your own machine, not at a vendor with a US parent company.
- more than 100 people take part regularly and you would rather not jump a tier for it.
- several people present: on Slido each extra person costs €15 to €40 a month, on omul nobody does.
- you want to read, audit or change the code — AGPLv3 rather than a black box.
Side by side
omul and Slido, criterion by criterion
Each row is a criterion that turns up in a real procurement — Slido's answer first, omul's second. Every Slido figure comes from the pages listed with their dates under "Sources" below.
| Criterion | Slido | omul |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on your own infrastructure | Cisco-hosted SaaS only | Docker image, your server |
| Source code readable | Closed source | AGPLv3 |
| Where the data sits | AWS Ireland and Germany; parent company Cisco Systems, Inc. (US) | Your servers — or EU hosting if you would rather not run it |
| Vendor certifications | ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, 27701, 22301, 9001, SOC 2 | None — self-hosting means you certify your own operation |
| Free tier | 100 participants, 3 polls, 1 quiz per slido | Self-hosting, uncapped; no feature behind a counter |
| Participant ceiling | 200 / 1,000 / 5,000 by plan | No limit in the code |
| Additional presenters | €15 – €40 per person per month by plan | Cost nothing extra |
| Billing | Annual, or a one-time plan for a single event | Self-hosting is free; hosted billing is being built |
| Live formats | Polls, word cloud, quiz, Q&A, self-paced surveys | Plus 2×2 grid, 100-point split, number guesses and pin-on-image |
| Approve questions before they show | From Professional (€720/year) | Not built — logged as an open product requirement |
| SSO / OIDC | From Enterprise (€1,800/year), members and participants | On the roadmap; email and password today |
| Teams, Webex, PowerPoint, Zoom | All four, plus Google Slides | None — joining is by code, link or QR in the browser |
| Join without a participant account | Yes, by code or link | Yes, six-digit code, link or QR |
| Data export | From Engage (€180/year) | Spreadsheet and PDF, in every edition |
In detail
The differences, argued out
Is Slido GDPR-compliant?
Slido
On the facts, there is less against it than most comparison pages claim. Slido says its infrastructure runs on AWS in Ireland and Germany, it holds ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, 27701, 22301 and 9001 as well as SOC 2, and it offers a DPA. What remains is not a question of storage location but of corporate structure: Slido belongs to Cisco Systems, Inc., a US company. At group level that means a different legal regime from a purely European vendor, regardless of which data centre the bits are in.
omul
With omul the question changes shape, because there is no vendor for anyone to serve an order on: you run the instance. Your participants' answers sit in your database, your operation falls under your own jurisdiction, and if you would rather not run it yourself there is an EU-hosted edition with a DPA. omul itself is not certified — self-hosting means the operation an auditor examines is yours.
slido.com/security, checked 05.09.2026
How many participants does Slido allow for free?
Slido
A hundred — and not concurrently but in total: Slido counts every device that joins over the course of the meeting. Add three polls and one quiz per slido. That covers a team stand-up; for a lecture or an all-hands it is the point where the trial ends and procurement begins.
omul
There is no ceiling in omul's code, for participants or for questions. What a self-hosted omul can carry is decided by your server, not by a plan. To be straight about it: the live tally is not yet optimised for very large rooms — that is logged as an open requirement in the product — and for an audience of that size we would rather talk about sizing first.
slido.com/pricing, checked 05.09.2026
What does Slido actually cost?
Slido
Four tiers, all annual: Engage €15/month (€180/year, 200 participants), Professional €60/month (€720/year, 1,000 participants, Q&A moderation), Enterprise €150/month (€1,800/year, 5,000 participants, SSO). Each additional presenting member costs a further €15, €30 or €40 a month. Paying monthly is not an option — Slido says so itself: "Currently, we don't accept monthly payments." For a single event of up to seven days there are one-time plans from €60.
omul
Self-hosting omul costs nothing but the server it runs on — the licence is AGPLv3. The hosted edition is planned as a flat per-workspace price regardless of how many people present; the billing behind it is still being built, so today the pricing page carries a waiting list rather than a buy button. What already holds: an additional presenter costs nothing.
slido.com/pricing, checked 05.09.2026
Can you approve questions before they appear?
Slido
Yes, and it is Slido's strongest card. From Professional every audience question passes through a moderation view first, can be answered, labelled and sorted, and the audience upvotes what rises to the top. For an all-hands with uncomfortable questions, that is precisely the difference between a tool and a risk.
omul
omul cannot do it. The Q&A layer collects questions, the audience can upvote them and the presenter can mark them answered — but approval before display does not exist today; it is logged as an open product requirement. If moderated Q&A is your core scenario, Slido is currently the right tool for it.
Does omul run inside Teams, Webex and PowerPoint?
Slido
Slido does, and that is the second reason it sits in large organisations: add-ins for PowerPoint and Google Slides, apps for Webex, Microsoft Teams and Zoom, plus embedding a slido in a page. Paid Webex packages include it already.
omul
omul has none of that. It runs in the browser, and the audience arrives through a six-digit code, a link or a QR code — which works the same in a shared screen as in a lecture hall, but not as a panel inside your meeting window. There is no PowerPoint import either.
Which question formats do both have?
Slido
Slido covers polls, word clouds, quizzes, open text, rating scales, ranking and self-paced surveys — the category's canon, cleanly built.
omul
The same canon, plus four formats Slido 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. Add segmentation — breaking one tally down by an earlier question, which on Mentimeter for instance sits behind the Pro tier.
No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)
What it costs
A worked example: omul against Slido
Comparing tier against tier says little until you know how many people present. Slido bills per member and omul does not — so here is the same case costed on both sides, using list prices read on 05.09.2026.
ScenarioA monthly all-hands with 400 participants. Three people take turns presenting, and questions are to be moderated.
| Scenario | Slido | omul |
|---|---|---|
| Plan needed for 400 participants | Professional (up to 1,000) | Self-hosted |
| Base price | €720/year | €0 |
| Presenters included | 2 | all of them |
| 3rd presenter | + €360/year | €0 |
| Server | included | your bill |
| Per year | €1,080 | €0 + server |
All Slido prices exclude VAT, per slido.com/pricing on 05.09.2026; Professional is the lowest tier that covers 400 participants and Q&A moderation, and a third member costs €30/month there. There is deliberately no price on omul's side for the hosted edition: its billing is still being built and the page carries a waiting list today. A self-hosted omul costs no licence but does cost a server and the time to run it — and it cannot do the Q&A moderation in the first row.
Switching
How much work is moving off Slido?
Short version: you rebuild the deck, your audience learns nothing. There is no importer from Slido, and we are not going to pretend there is — that is the one evening of work a switch costs.
Retype the questions, don't import them
omul reads neither Slido exports nor PowerPoint files. A twenty-question deck is therefore about an hour's work. An importer is logged as a requirement, not built.
Take your Slido results with you
Slido exports to Excel from Engage upwards. Your past results survive even though they will not land in omul — they belong in an archive, not in the new tool.
Joining works exactly as before
Anyone who used to type slido.com plus a code now types your address plus a six-digit code — or scans the QR on the screen. No account, no app, no announcement needed.
Leaving the meeting window
This is the real adjustment: Slido lives as a panel inside Webex or Teams, omul in a second browser window you share. If your run of show depends on that integration, plan for it — or stay on Slido.
Staying fair
Where Slido is (still) ahead
Four things Slido does today that omul does not. They are here because a comparison that hides them falls apart in the first procurement round:
Moderated Q&A
Approving, labelling, answering and sorting questions before they appear — Slido from Professional. omul collects and upvotes but does not gate. For an all-hands on a sensitive topic, that is the difference.
Webex, Teams, PowerPoint, Zoom
Slido ships as an add-in and an app in all four, and paid Webex plans include it. omul runs in the browser, with no integration into your meeting tool.
Certificates for procurement
ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, 27701, 22301, 9001 and SOC 2 — Slido brings the folder a purchasing department wants to see. omul brings source code; self-hosting means you certify your own operation.
SSO for members and participants
Slido offers both from Enterprise, with SCIM provisioning. omul has neither; SSO is on the roadmap.
Frequently asked questions about the comparison
What does Slido cost per year?
Slido costs €180 (Engage, up to 200 participants), €720 (Professional, up to 1,000) or €1,800 (Enterprise, up to 5,000) a year, all excluding VAT and billed annually only; each additional presenting member costs €15, €30 or €40 a month. For a single event of up to seven days there are one-time plans from €60. As of 05.09.2026, per slido.com/pricing.
How many participants does Slido's free tier allow?
A hundred per slido, counted as the total of all devices that join over the course of the meeting rather than as concurrent connections, plus three polls and one quiz. omul has no participant cap and no question cap.
Is Slido GDPR-compliant?
Slido says its infrastructure runs on AWS in Ireland and Germany and it holds ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, 27701 and SOC 2, so a GDPR-compliant deployment with a DPA is possible. What remains open is corporate structure: Slido belongs to Cisco Systems, Inc. in the US. Ruling that out means self-hosting.
Can you self-host Slido?
No. Slido is SaaS only and its source is not public. omul is open source under AGPLv3 and built to run on your own infrastructure.
Does Slido offer SSO?
Yes, from the Enterprise tier (€1,800/year) — for members and for participants, with SCIM provisioning. omul does not have SSO today; it is on the roadmap. omul participants need no account in any case.
Can omul moderate questions the way Slido does?
No. omul collects audience questions, lets the room upvote them and lets the presenter mark them answered, but there is no approval step before display. Slido has one from Professional. If moderated Q&A is your core scenario, Slido is the better tool for it today.
Can I move my Slido questions into omul?
Not automatically — there is no importer, from Slido or from PowerPoint. Rebuilding a twenty-question deck takes about an hour. Your existing results can be exported from Slido to Excel from the Engage plan upwards and archived.
Is omul cheaper than Slido?
Self-hosting carries no licence fee, only a server. For an all-hands with 400 participants and three presenters, Slido comes to €1,080 a year (Professional plus one member, excluding VAT, as of 05.09.2026). omul's hosted edition has no buy button yet — its billing is still being built.
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.
- Slido — pricing, annual plans and feature matrixchecked 05.09.2026
- Slido — one-time plans for a single event of up to seven dayschecked 05.09.2026
- Slido — security, hosting locations and certificationschecked 05.09.2026
More alternatives
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- 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.
- Poll Everywhere alternativeA mature US vendor with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 — but data exclusively in the US, 40 people free, and your own logo only from $999.
See for yourself
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No credit card · Free self-hosting · Open source (AGPLv3)