A Google Forms alternative hosted in the EU
FormVault is a Google Forms alternative for European teams: responses encrypted at rest on servers in Germany, a DPA on every plan, no cookies on form pages. Free plan.
Google Forms is free, quick and good enough for a lot of things. It gets harder when the form collects other people's personal data for your organisation: client intake, patient questionnaires, job applications, investor details. Then you need a processor contract, you need to know where the answers are stored, and you need to be able to answer a respondent who asks what you hold about them.
FormVault is built for that case. It runs on Hetzner servers in Nuremberg, Germany, every response is encrypted at rest, a data processing agreement comes with every plan including the free one, and respondents get a portal to see or delete what they sent.
FormVault vs Google Forms at a glance
| FormVault | Google Forms | |
|---|---|---|
| Company | polarmake, Norway (EEA) | Google, United States |
| Where responses are stored | Hetzner, Nuremberg, Germany | Google's infrastructure; a data region can be chosen on supported Workspace editions, not on free accounts |
| Data processing agreement | Included on every plan, including free | Workspace accounts only; free consumer accounts are governed by Google's consumer terms |
| Encryption at rest | AES-256-GCM per response; keys held by FormVault | Encrypted at rest by Google; keys held by Google |
| Respondent access and erasure requests | Built-in respondent portal | Handled by you, by hand |
| Cookies on the form page | None | Form pages run on Google's domain and terms |
| Price | Free plan: 3 active forms, 100 responses a month. Paid plans are not on sale yet | Free with a Google account; Workspace is a paid per-user subscription |
When Google Forms is the better choice
Be honest with yourself about the data. For a lunch order, a team poll or a quiz with no personal details, Google Forms is hard to beat: unlimited forms and responses, Sheets built in, quizzes, collaboration and every integration you can think of. FormVault's free plan is smaller (3 active forms, 100 responses a month) and it has fewer integrations.
If your organisation already runs on Google Workspace, has accepted Google's data processing terms and has set a data region, Google Forms can also be used lawfully for many kinds of personal data. Our article Is Google Forms GDPR compliant? goes through what to check.
When FormVault fits better
- You use a free Google account, so there is no processor contract for the data you collect.
- The data is sensitive: health, finances, HR, legal matters, or anything under professional secrecy.
- Your clients or your data protection officer ask where the data is stored and who can reach it, and "a US provider with EU options" is not the answer they want.
- You want respondents to be able to see or delete their own answers without emailing you.
What you get with FormVault
- A drag-and-drop builder with text, email, number, date, choice, checkbox, rating and file-upload fields.
- Shareable links that work without a respondent account, and no cookies or third-party scripts on the form page.
- Email notifications, CSV export, webhooks and Slack notifications.
- A data processing agreement, a published list of subprocessors (all in the EU or EEA) and a security page that says what we do and do not do.
- An API and an MCP server, so you can create forms and read responses from your own tools or an AI assistant.
Moving from Google Forms
- List the forms you still use and which of them collect personal data. Move those first.
- Recreate each form in FormVault. There is no importer yet; most forms take a few minutes, and you can describe a form and let the AI draft it.
- Export the old responses you still need from Google Sheets, store them where they belong, and delete the rest.
- Replace the old links and embeds with the new FormVault links.
- Update your privacy notice to name FormVault as your processor, and keep the DPA with your records.
Questions people ask before switching
Is FormVault free?
Yes. The free plan has 3 active forms and 100 responses a month, with the same encryption, EU hosting and DPA as the paid plans will have. Paid plans are not on sale yet.
Does using FormVault make my forms GDPR compliant?
No tool can do that on its own. GDPR is about how you collect and use the data. FormVault gives you the parts a processor should: EU hosting, encryption at rest, a data processing agreement and a way to handle respondents' requests. You still decide what to ask, why, and for how long you keep it.
Can I import my Google Forms?
Not yet. You recreate the form in FormVault, which usually takes a few minutes per form.
Who can read the responses?
You and the people you invite to your organisation. Responses are encrypted at rest and FormVault holds the keys, as every hosted form tool does, so FormVault's operator can technically access them. If you need end-to-end encryption that only you can unlock, choose a tool built for that, such as CryptPad Forms.
Last checked: 2026-11-12