Question 1

What is LimeSurvey?

Accepted Answer

LimeSurvey is a powerful, open-source, self-hosted survey platform — comparable to SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics but running entirely on your own server. It offers dozens of question types, conditional logic, quotas, multilingual surveys, tracked or anonymous responses, and exports to tools like SPSS and Excel, which makes it a standard choice for academic and market research. This install runs it on port 8306 with a MariaDB database.

Question 2

Which port does it use and how do I log in?

Accepted Answer

LimeSurvey is published on host port 8306, mapped from the container's internal port 8080. The installer creates an admin account with the username admin and a generated password that it prints at the end of setup. Open the admin panel at /index.php/admin, sign in with those credentials, and change the password immediately. Front the site with a reverse proxy and TLS rather than exposing 8306 directly.

Question 3

How is it different from Formbricks?

Accepted Answer

Both are self-hosted survey tools, but they aim at different jobs. Formbricks is modern, lightweight, and designed for product and in-app surveys and website feedback. LimeSurvey is a heavier, research-grade platform with far deeper survey features — quotas, complex branching, matrix questions, multilingual surveys, and tracked invitations. Choose Formbricks for slick modern feedback, and LimeSurvey when methodological depth and rigour matter.

Question 4

Can I keep responses private and compliant?

Accepted Answer

Yes — that is a core reason to self-host it. Because LimeSurvey and its MariaDB database run entirely on your server, respondents' answers never touch a third-party cloud, so you control exactly where the data lives and who can reach it. That is important for academic ethics approval, clinical data, and GDPR or institutional data-governance rules. Serve it over HTTPS and restrict access so that privacy holds end to end.

Question 5

Do I need to know statistics to use it?

Accepted Answer

Not to build and run a survey — creating questions, adding logic, and collecting responses is done through the admin interface without any coding or statistics. Where statistics come in is analysis: LimeSurvey gives you built-in basic result summaries, and for anything deeper it exports cleanly to CSV, Excel, SPSS, and R, so you can analyse the data in whatever tool you prefer. You only need statistical skills if your analysis goals require them.

Port	Purpose
8306	LimeSurvey web app and admin panel (mapped from container port 8080)
3306	MariaDB — internal to the Docker network, not exposed to the host

🟢 Setup LimeSurvey — Full-Featured Self-Hosted Survey Platform

📦 Resources & Setup Scripts

Quick Install:

Tutorial Steps

1 Download the Script

2 Make it Executable

3 Run the Installer

4 Log Into the Admin Panel

Ports Used

Overview

Why Use It

When You Need It

Who Should Use It

Real Use Cases

Main Features

How to Use After Installation

Security Best Practices

Ports and Firewall Notes

Backup and Maintenance

Common Mistakes

Troubleshooting

Alternatives

When Not to Use It

PrismaTechWork Professional Help

Frequently Asked Questions