- What each free feedback plan counts, as of Nov 2026
- Why the biggest free allowance can be the wrong one
- Feedback boards, widgets and forms compared
- The eight feedback tools, in no particular order
- Advice on picking a feedback meter you won't outgrow
- Setting up feedback collection in an afternoon
- Frequently asked questions
The right free customer feedback tool is the one whose free-plan meter matches how you collect feedback. Some count the people who leave it, some count the items, some only keep data for days, and some limit seats, boards or branding. Work out how many people, posts and admins you'll have in a normal month, then pick the meter you won't outgrow.
Choosing a free feedback tool comes down to one decision most people skip: what are you willing to have counted? Every free plan on this list meters something, and each one meters something different. The headline allowance on a vendor's page tells you very little until you know which meter it runs on.
Five of the eight are feedback boards or widgets built for feature requests and bug reports. Only three are for form, survey or behaviour feedback, so if you mainly want a short survey, look at those first.
What each free feedback plan counts, as of Nov 2026
People tracked
Canny's free plan tracks only a small fixed number of users, and it counts anyone linked to a piece of feedback as one of them. Managers are capped too, and advanced reporting and product management integrations sit on the upgrade.
Items stored
Fider says the only limit on its free hosted board is a fair-use ceiling of 250 feedback requests. Content moderation and unlimited feedback items need the upgrade.
Days kept
Userback captures unlimited feedback on free, but keeps it visible in your account for 7 days, across up to 2 sites and 2 seats; unlimited retention and Zapier automation are on the upgrade. Hotjar keeps free data for a month, on one project, and its free surveys are labelled basic.
Seats and boards
Sleekplan's free plan, which it calls Indie, is a single-admin workspace, with CSAT and NPS pulse checks, API access, webhooks and SSO on higher plans. Featurebase's free plan includes one feedback board, one roadmap and one seat, with AI duplicate detection, tagging and surveys on the upgrade.
Branding and uploads
Tally's free forms keep its branding, and file uploads are capped at 10MB per file. Partial submissions, custom domains and drop-off analytics are on its Pro plan.
Who hosts it
Formbricks offers a Community Edition that's free forever under the AGPLv3 licence, but it runs on your own servers rather than as a hosted free tier, with community support only. Unified AI analysis, SSO and audit logs sit in its commercial suite.
Why the biggest free allowance can be the wrong one
The trap with free feedback plans is the meter, not the size of the number. A board that counts every user who touches feedback burns through a small cap fast the moment you make it public. A widget that captures unlimited feedback but only shows it for a week is fine if you triage daily and useless if you check monthly. A board with a ceiling on requests suits a small product and fills up on a busy one. Analytics that keep a month of data won't help you compare this quarter with the last.
So don't pick the tool with the biggest headline. Pick the one whose meter matches how you collect. If you mostly ask customers questions rather than gathering feature requests, our list of free survey builders covers more form tools.
Feedback boards, widgets and forms compared
| Tool | Kind of tool | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Canny | Feedback boards and AI capture | Feature requests gathered from support and sales chats |
| Featurebase | Feedback boards plus help desk | Feedback, roadmap and help centre in one product |
| Fider | Feature request board | A public ideas board where customers vote |
| Formbricks | Open source survey and feedback | In-product and link surveys on your own servers |
| Hotjar | Behaviour analytics and surveys | Replays, heatmaps and basic on-page surveys |
| Sleekplan | Feedback board and changelog | Board, roadmap and changelog run by one admin |
| Tally | Feedback forms | Unlimited feedback forms and submissions, with its branding |
| Userback | Visual feedback widget | Screenshots and bug reports straight from your site |
The eight feedback tools, in no particular order
Canny
Best for: Product teams pulling feature requests out of support and sales conversations, where the vendor's claim is that AI captures, deduplicates and triages them.
Featurebase
Best for: Support teams wanting a feedback board, a public roadmap and a help centre in one place, with AI agent features on the vendor's list.
Fider
Best for: Small products that want a public board where customers post ideas and vote, with the vendor's claim of feedback from as many users as you like.
Formbricks
Best for: Teams with a developer who can self-host in-product and link surveys, keeping response data on their own servers under the open source Community Edition.
Hotjar
Best for: Seeing what visitors do before asking them anything: session replays, heatmaps and funnels, with basic on-page surveys for the reasons behind it.
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Sleekplan
Best for: Solo founders running a feedback board, roadmap and changelog alone, with the vendor's claim that AI sorts incoming feedback into themes.
Tally
Best for: Simple feedback forms with unlimited forms and submissions, which the vendor says sit within fair usage guidelines, where its branding on the form is fine.
Userback
Best for: Agencies and product teams collecting visual feedback and bug reports on a site or app through a widget or browser extension.
Advice on picking a feedback meter you won't outgrow
If you've got a small customer base and want to see which features they ask for most, a public voting board is the simplest start, and a ceiling on requests is easier to live with than a cap on people. If you're a team of several people who all need to reply to feedback, check the seat and admin limits first, because that's the wall you'll hit before any other.
If you're trying to fix a website rather than a product roadmap, behaviour analytics or a visual widget will tell you more than a board will. And if your data must stay on your own servers, the open source route is worth the setup time, as long as someone on your team will keep it updated. When you're ready to look beyond free plans, our guide to customer feedback tools for growing teams goes wider.
Setting up feedback collection in an afternoon
- Write down the one question you most want customers to answer, and the place they'll be when you ask it.
- Choose the kind of tool that fits that place: a board for feature ideas, a widget for website issues, a form for a short survey.
- Check the free-plan meter against a normal month, counting people, posts, admins and how long you need to keep the data.
- Set it up with one board or one form only, and link it from your app, your help pages or your email footer.
- Book a weekly slot to read and reply, so customers see their feedback goes somewhere.
- Export what you've collected regularly, in case the free plan's limits change.
Do you make a customer feedback tool with a free plan? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
Want your tool on this list? Featured spots and reviews here are paid partnerships. Here's how to partner with me.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a feedback board and a survey tool?
A feedback board lets customers post ideas and vote on each other's, so you see demand build over time. A survey tool asks set questions at a moment you choose. Many businesses use one of each.
Can I collect customer feedback for free?
Yes. Every tool on this list has a free plan or a free open source edition. The difference is what each free plan counts, such as people, items, days of data, seats or branding.
Should my feedback board be public or private?
A public board shows customers you're listening and saves duplicate requests, but on some free plans every visitor who posts or votes counts towards a user cap. A private board keeps things quieter and closer to your team.
How often should I check customer feedback?
Weekly is a good rhythm for most small teams. If your tool only keeps feedback visible for a short window on its free plan, check more often or export it.
Do I need a developer to add a feedback widget to my site?
Usually not. Most widgets install with a small snippet of code you paste into your site, or through a plugin. Self-hosted open source tools are the exception, because someone has to run the server.
What should I do with feedback once I've collected it?
Group it into themes, reply to the people who sent it, and tell them when something changes because of it. Closing the loop is what keeps customers sending feedback.
