Two products that share the word "form" and answer different needs. Here are the criteria that separate them, and the cases where switching brings nothing.
The question comes up when a form stops being a questionnaire. As long as you are gathering answers and exporting them, an online form tool is plenty. The shift happens the day an answer must trigger something — a job to schedule, a finding to correct, a report to send the client, stock to decrement — and the person filling it is standing on a site, sometimes with no signal. From there, the CSV export becomes the start of the work rather than the end.
The questions to ask any tool, ours included. The answer given here is Thingsform's.
In Thingsform, the answer feeds the other modules in the account: an assigned task with its due date, a PDF report in your own template, a stock line, a dashboard metric. Nothing to wire up: the modules are already connected.
Offline capture works from the free plan, photos included, and syncs when the connection returns. The native mobile app starts at the Essential plan: the distinction matters if your teams work in basements or dead zones.
Timestamped photo, position, a point placed on an imported floor plan, the client's signature on site. These stay attached to the submission and can be found six months later, which is the only moment you truly need them.
Thingsform brings around fifty modules into one account — forms, tasks, reports, documents, stock, dashboards, client portal. The point is not the count: it is that no data travels through an intermediate export.
The free plan lets you build a complete form and test it offline in the field, with no card. That is the only serious way to decide: a comparison read at a desk says nothing about what happens ten feet underground.
Often, no. Here are both cases, in the honest order.
Yes, by file import, provided the original export is usable. Our advice is to bring across only what still serves a purpose: full history costs formatting time for a benefit that is often theoretical. Open cases, on the other hand, are worth the effort.
No, and it is rarely advisable. Many organisations keep their survey tool for questionnaires and marketing, and use Thingsform for operational forms. The two uses only resemble each other from a distance.
By rebuilding your hardest form, not your simplest, and having it filled in the field by the person who will actually use it. The free plan is enough for that. A comparison table is a starting point; a real site visit is a decision.
We make no claims about another vendor's features or pricing: they change, and a frozen page would become misleading. What we describe here are the criteria to examine and what Thingsform does. For the other tool, refer to its current terms.
Typeform is a trademark of its publisher, cited here for reference. This page does not describe its features or pricing, which change over time: refer to its current terms.
The right way to decide
Rebuild your hardest form on the free plan, and have it filled in the field. Half a day is enough, and the answer stops being a matter of opinion.