Google Forms vs. Google Sheets

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Forms
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Google Forms is an app for creating forms and surveys, and is part of Google Apps for Work. The product focuses on ease of use; the interface is similar to a document editor, with drop down lists of options and drag and drop question re-ordering. Users can embed images and video into surveys. Users can also program the question flow with custom logic. Google sends users basic summaries of the survey results automatically, or users can export the raw survey results data and analyze it via…N/A
Google Sheets
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Google 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
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Considered Both Products
Google Forms
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is the low cost, easy to use option. In reality, this positions Google Forms as truly a unique product. The only instance where Google Forms doesn’t apply is when you need to source respondents or need to conduct live interviews. But, Google Forms is the best for …
Chose Google Forms
Even though Google Forms doesn't offer much customization, its survey logic options are more comprehensive than HubSpot's, so we chose Google Forms even though we already had HubSpot messaging integrated into our customer communication workflows. It also helped that all …
Chose Google Forms
I think that the Google version of forms is easier to use for both those making the forms and those filling them in than it's Microsoft equivalent. Google's products are more widely used and understood by the public, and they function at a higher level.
Google Sheets
Chose Google Sheets
We initially used OpenOffice Calc as it is open source & free. However sending the files back and forth was a nightmare. We switched to Google Sheets purely for the real-time collaboration, where we can see live activities, get the required inputs instantly. It also has version …
Chose Google Sheets
I prefer to use Google Sheets for most of my projects compared to Excel. It is a free service you can use just by having a gmail, and you can access your projects online from your phone as well. The only time I choose Excel is when I need to make multiple / complex tables per …
Chose Google Sheets
I started using Google Sheets years ago and have never looked back! I made the switch because I was able to share my documents and make changes with anyone that had access to it.
Features
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Survey Format & Appearance
Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
6.6
122 Ratings
19% below category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Survey templates7.7113 Ratings00 Ratings
Themes6.0111 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom logo/branding6.199 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Content
Comparison of Survey Content features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.1
120 Ratings
5% below category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Changes to live survey9.0114 Ratings00 Ratings
Question design help7.297 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple question types7.9119 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Logic
Comparison of Survey Logic features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.0
109 Ratings
17% below category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Survey logic flexibility7.0109 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.4
121 Ratings
4% above category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Response tracking8.2119 Ratings00 Ratings
Data export8.1115 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports7.9112 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports9.285 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics8.493 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Administration & Security
Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.1
115 Ratings
6% below category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Access controls8.0112 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance8.289 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Distribution
Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.7
89 Ratings
5% below category average
Google Sheets
-
Ratings
Vendor-offered crowdsourcing7.941 Ratings00 Ratings
Respondent restrictions7.687 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Small Businesses
Square 9 Softworks
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Score 9.7 out of 10
Stackby
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Qualaroo
Qualaroo
Score 6.1 out of 10
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
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Verint Voice of the Customer
Score 9.3 out of 10
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(116 ratings)
9.0
(40 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(56 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(48 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
3.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google FormsGoogle Sheets
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Google Forms is great for simple surveys, such as quick polls, but any logic beyond conditional pages is not supported. Google Forms is best used when the survey participants have and are permitted to use a Google Account to fill out the form; we ran into issues with hospital IT departments. I don't believe there's a better free tool out there than Google Forms, though.
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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)
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Pros
Google
  • Live results: When a user completes the form the results are added instantly.
  • Easy to create: Google Forms has a simple interface that allows for a wide range of question types. Google will even try to guess the question type based on the question (but this can be overridden).
  • Answers export to Google Sheets: It is easy to have each response to your form add a row to a Google Sheet, allowing for further analysis or processing.
  • Ability to automatically collect email addresses within a domain: If you have a form that has been shared with users in your domain, you can set it to automatically collect the users' email addresses without them needing to type it in. Makes checking whether all students have completed the form easy.
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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.
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Cons
Google
  • Sometimes finding the output -- a Google Sheet with all responses-- is a little difficult. It's also sometimes confusing to figure out how to get back into the Google Form Survey itself.
  • As always, sharing among an institutional Google account and your personal Google account can be frustrating. You have to make a copy and can't share across the two different accounts very easily.
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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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
I will definitely renew my use of Google Forms because I really like the ease of use and the number of tools that Google forms provide. I also love that I can administer a test in real-time and get results in a timely manner
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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.
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Usability
Google
Overall ease of use for staff, volunteers, and adult learners, and easy to get reports and to share reports via Sheets. As a free tool, it does more than expected. Easy to change the look and brand it to your organization, or just make it more fun, depending on what you want to use it for.
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
In the years I've used GoogleForms I've never ran into any issues with the reliability or availability. Google is a gigantic company with essentially limitless resources which makes it very easy to trust that I will continue to be able to enjoy the same reliability I've come to know and expect from GoogleForms
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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.
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Performance
Google
One of the things that comes as a benefit of the lack to create complex logic branching and truly custom design is that there isn't lot of room to bog down the software. GoogleForms has always loaded just as fast as my internet service and device would allow it. I'm not sure about front end integrations or integrations into the form itself, as I've never explored it, but on the backend, I've never had any issues with integrations channeling from GoogleForms from the GoogleForms's end of things.
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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.
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Support Rating
Google
We haven't used much official support for Google Forms. However, because it is so widely used, there are a ton of articles and guides available online to help administrators of varying technical abilities to work through problems that arise. Additionally, Google provides an official support forum where there are discussions with other users as well as Google developers that can help address issues if needed.
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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.
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Implementation Rating
Google
Google Forms doesn't really require "implementation": simply log into GDrive and create a survey! You can configure settings per survey to, for example, automatically write responses to a GSheet.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google
Although both platforms offer similar functionalities, Google Form has a personal advantage and it is the impeccable integration with the different applications of the Google suite, this allows to make use of all of them in a transparent way, which in the work environment allows to perform work efficiently and without affecting the quality of it.
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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.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
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.
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Scalability
Google
GoogleForms lacks the ability for complex logic branching and the ability to truly design it in a custom manner. It's pretty obvious when you land on a GoogleForm that it is in fact a GoogleForm. This rating solely reflects the lack of flexibility which in turn makes it something that wouldn't usually be scaled. That being said, if needing to scale a simple solution, GoogleForms would be up for the job.
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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.
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Return on Investment
Google
  • High positive impact and return of investment; easy to use and seamlessly integrated with current Google Drive and Suite
  • Ability to create surveys on demand and quickly, saving time and energy
  • Easy to train others in using Google Forms so that there is not a bottleneck of knowledge
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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.
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ScreenShots