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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cognito Forms

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ACognito Forms, from the company of the same name in South Carolina, is presented by the vendor as an easy-to-use online form builder, allowing anyone to create, publish, and manage forms, with free and paid plans. With it, users can create unlimited forms including registration forms, payment forms, and surveys without coding. Forms can be embedded directly into a website, and form submissions can be viewed from any device, any time.

    $19

    per month 2 users

    Google Sheets

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Sheets is the spreadsheet app available on Google Workspace, or standalone, with a free plan for personal use and accessible via mobile apps for iOS and Android.N/A
    Pricing
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Editions & Modules
    Free
    $0
    1 user
    Pro
    $19
    per month 2 users
    Team
    $39
    per month 5 users
    Enterprise
    $129
    per month 20 users
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Considered Both Products
    Cognito Forms
    No answer on this topic
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    90 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    86 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    89 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    49 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    60 Answers
    Features
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Survey Format & Appearance
    Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Cognito Forms and Google Sheets
    Feature
    Cognito Forms
    8.3
    4 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Google Sheets
    -
    Ratings
    Survey templates8.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themes7.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Custom logo/branding9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Content
    Comparison of Survey Content features of Cognito Forms and Google Sheets
    Feature
    Cognito Forms
    8.7
    4 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Google Sheets
    -
    Ratings
    Changes to live survey8.53 Ratings00 Ratings
    Question design help8.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple question types9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Logic
    Comparison of Survey Logic features of Cognito Forms and Google Sheets
    Feature
    Cognito Forms
    9.5
    4 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Google Sheets
    -
    Ratings
    Survey logic flexibility9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Cognito Forms and Google Sheets
    Feature
    Cognito Forms
    9.5
    4 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Google Sheets
    -
    Ratings
    Response tracking9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data export9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Standard reports10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Custom reports9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Analytics9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Administration & Security
    Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Cognito Forms and Google Sheets
    Feature
    Cognito Forms
    9.8
    4 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Google Sheets
    -
    Ratings
    Access controls9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
    Compliance10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Distribution
    Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Cognito Forms and Google Sheets
    Feature
    Cognito Forms
    9.3
    3 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Google Sheets
    -
    Ratings
    Vendor-offered crowdsourcing9.53 Ratings00 Ratings
    Respondent restrictions9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Small Businesses
    Jotform
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Stackby
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qualaroo
    Score7 out of 10
    Microsoft Excel
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    QuestionPro
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Microsoft Excel
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (6 ratings)
    9.1
    (93 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    8.5
    (5 ratings)
    8.7
    (55 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cognito FormsGoogle Sheets
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cognito Forms
    It's excellent for small sets of forms, from simple to highly complex It's not good at scale. With over 170 forms now, we desperately need some way to manage and maintain shared content once Cognito does not help. Their approach is that you can copy a working form (great) and modify it to create the next one. That's how we've got so many forms...
    Read full review
    Google
    Google Sheets is well suited in two main areas: is free to use and you don't need to buy a license to use it, comparing to the most direct competitors ; collaboration is in my opinion the best advantage, with multiple people working together and seeing others working in real time. It's less appropriate in low connectivity environments (offline capabilities)
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cognito Forms
    • New Hire Form - It announces the new hire and provides direction to several departments on their needs, computer, phone, security level, etc.
    • Terminations - We use it to shut off security, badges, computers, track phone, electronics, etc.
    • Temp Form - It provides an avenue to enter them into our payroll system for tracking hours, also, for the start and end dates.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    • Collaborative planning : In the initial phase of project, Team leads and architects create a permission matrix along with the naming convention simultaneously, seeing who is editing / adding the details in real-time.
    • Cost tracking : We use this tool to track cloud resource usage monthly costs, so that we can analyse it and send out comms for high cost based resources. By storing cost data here, it's easy for use to store data of last couple of years.
    • Flexible documentation : For change logging of different scenarios we would need different / ad-hoc columns to be added on the fly, which makes using this tool much simpler then reputed third party tools.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cognito Forms
    • It isnt the most user friendly if you have someone who isnt experienced
    • Learning curve is pretty high
    • Should be easier to customise the formatting
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    • Ease of use - I collaborate with a lot of folks on these and a lot of them have trouble using it.
    • Would love more live features; for example, being able to have cells react to other inputs (checkboxes, etc) with reactive formatting
    • More cross-usability with other Google products; it's hard to think of drawbacks honestly, this is a pretty seamless software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cognito Forms
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    I am not involved in the purchase/selection process, but my organization is a Google shop, and Sheets meets most of our spreadsheet needs and works seamlessly with our other tools. I don't anticipate our switching anytime soon.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cognito Forms
    We have been using Cognito Forms for over 5 years. We find it very easy use and it is part of the programs we use on a daily basis.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    It can easily handle most uses and functions. It is only for very large datasets or advanced analysis that it either lacks the proper functions or performance begins to slow. Most employees who continue to use competitors' products do so out of preference, familiarity with the user interface, or other surface-level reasons.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cognito Forms
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    Like most Google products, Google Sheets rarely has outages or slowness, and when it does, connection is always momentarily restored. I can't recall a time when I've been unable to access Google Sheets but able to access other sites just fine. That said, errors aren't uncommon when handling large data volume. You know what they say about using spreadsheets as databases, but sometimes it's just the most convenient option, especially for smaller or one-off projects, and not being able to store large amounts of data hampers our ability to move quickly with scrappy prototypes or full solutions. It would be great if we could better integrate our data manipulation (Apps Script) with big data in the sheet.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cognito Forms
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    Again, Google Sheets is no exception to Google's general high speed and reliability, but load times can be slow for larger amounts of data. I've used Sheets with Zapier and have used the Python API, and speed has never been an issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cognito Forms
    Very friendly and helpful, but typically takes at least one day to respond. However, when they do respond they dive right into the specific form I ask about and tell me exactly how to fix what I need help with
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    I have never contacted Google Sheets support, but Google Sheets makes it very easy to report an issue or suggest a feature from Sheets itself (Help > Help Sheets improve), and I've had mostly good experiences with support for other Google products.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cognito Forms
    I have not used any other programs like Cognito Forms. I have been with my company for almost two years. I very much like the ease of this system and its capabilities. I like knowing everyone is using the same thing. I do not foresee us making any changes to our current use of Cognito Forms.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    I have found that I can do almost everything I could have done in Microsoft Excel faster and easier in Google Sheets. We recommend Google Sheets in 99.9% of our use cases and feel it meets the needs of our workers very well. I am sure there are other spreadsheet creation programs out there, but because we are already in the Google environment, adopting Google Sheets in very easy.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Cognito Forms
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    I'm not involved with the purchase, but I assume everything goes smoothly and that the pricing structure is predictable and reasonable. We do not get surprise fees.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cognito Forms
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    Google Sheets works very well with multiple users. It's convenient to see in real-time who is collaborating in a sheet, down to the specific cell that they're viewing/editing. Linking Sheets across departments is convenient with the IMPORTRANGE function.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cognito Forms
    • We've been able to get away from Word and pdf forms and build a functionality that is conditional on form content
    • The speed of getting a good-enough version up and running to meet an immediate business need is outstanding
    • The cost of improving a set of almost good-enough forms or propagating a change in business rules is depressing
    Read full review
    Google
    • Don't need to pay for windows 365 license as it is free
    • Has a positive impact since I am not cursing excel for annoying problems(I don't want the new Pivot table format, I want to use Classic and I don't want to expand/collapse arrows. "x$#%")
    • [Haven't] looked at return on investment on work, but has "simplified" for basic and medium spreadsheets.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots