Resources

Help Centre

Govforms vs. Microsoft Forms

Area Govforms Microsoft Forms
Who it’s for Built for UK government and public sector teams delivering citizen‑facing services. Built for organisations using Microsoft 365 who need quick surveys, quizzes and simple data capture, mainly for internal or light‑touch external use.
Design & UX Native GOV.UK & MOJ Design System journeys (start pages, task lists, check answers) out‑of‑the‑box. Microsoft 365 look‑and‑feel with standard question types and basic branching. GOV.UK and MOJ patterns (start pages, task lists, check answers) must be approximated or recreated elsewhere.
Security & hosting UK‑hosted platform with controls aligned to UK public‑sector expectations and cookie‑free analytics. Hosted within the Microsoft 365 cloud with enterprise‑grade compliance managed at tenant level. Not tailored specifically to GOV.UK service patterns or UK‑government‑specific hosting expectations for citizen services.
Environments & change Prototype → QA → Production with one‑click deploy, rollback and full change history. A single live form per link. Testing is typically managed via duplicated forms, separate links or restricted audiences rather than dedicated prototype/QA environments with controlled promotion and rollback.
Integrations Microsoft‑first: SharePoint libraries & lists, Dataverse, Power Automate, REST APIs and GOV.UK Notify. Strong inside Microsoft 365: responses into Excel or SharePoint, triggers into Power Automate and visibility in Teams. Less control over low‑level payloads, headers and retry logic than a full service builder with configurable backend actions.
Analytics & audit Built‑in, cookie‑free performance analytics and audit trails for every service by default. Summary charts and exports per form, with deeper analysis usually handled through Excel, Power BI or other tools. No native, GOV.UK‑style journey analytics or per‑step service performance dashboards out‑of‑the‑box.
Pricing mindset Free while you design; simple per‑transaction pricing plus predictable UK support fees once live. Included in most Microsoft 365 licences. Costs are tied to tenant‑wide Microsoft 365 and any additional Power Platform licensing rather than per‑service or per‑transaction charges.
Support & expertise UK‑based live‑service support, with optional GDS‑aligned service design, UX and content help. Supported as part of Microsoft 365 with generic product documentation and enterprise support, plus partners focused on wider Microsoft 365 and Power Platform adoption rather than GOV.UK‑specific service design.