Raise your hand if you’ve ever gotten an email with a “quick survey” attached, only to open it and find a long list of essay questions. Is that a survey or a questionnaire? In everyday speech, people use the two words for the same thing. In research, they mean different things.
Short answer: a questionnaire is the set of questions you ask. A survey is the whole process of choosing who to ask, collecting their answers (often with a questionnaire), and analyzing the results. Both can use open-ended and closed-ended questions.
In this blog, we’ll explore:
Survey vs Questionnaire: The Difference
What is a questionnaire?
A questionnaire is a set of written questions, with instructions and answer options, that people fill in to give you information. It can be on paper, in an online form, or read out by an interviewer. A questionnaire can mix closed-ended questions, such as multiple choice and rating scales, with open-ended questions that people answer in their own words.
What is a survey?
A survey is a research method: you decide what you want to learn, choose who to ask (often a sample of a larger group), collect their answers, and analyze them to draw conclusions about the whole group. The questionnaire is usually the tool a survey uses to collect those answers. As a U.S. Census Bureau paper on survey questionnaire construction puts it, questionnaires are what sample surveys and censuses use to collect people’s reports of facts and attitudes.
An example: your company runs an annual employee engagement survey. The survey covers who is invited, when it runs, and how the results are analyzed and reported. The 20 questions each employee answers in the form are the questionnaire.
Key Differences at a Glance
| Survey | Questionnaire | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A research process | A set of questions |
| What it includes | Planning, choosing respondents, collecting answers, analysis | Questions, answer options, instructions |
| Question types | Uses whatever the questionnaire contains | Closed-ended, open-ended, or both |
| What you get | Findings about a group, such as “68% of customers are satisfied” | Each person’s individual answers |
| Example | An annual employee engagement survey | The form each employee fills in |
Are Surveys and Questionnaires the Same Thing?
Not quite, but the overlap explains the confusion. Every survey that asks people questions needs a questionnaire, so in everyday use “survey” often means the questionnaire itself, as in “fill in this survey.” A questionnaire can also be used without a survey: a patient intake form or a job application is a questionnaire, but nobody analyzes the answers across a group.
Closed-Ended vs Open-Ended Questions: When to Use Each
The real choice when you write a questionnaire is not “survey or questionnaire” but which kind of question to ask. As Pew Research Center explains, survey questionnaires use both open-ended and closed-ended questions, and each has strengths.
Closed-ended questions give people a fixed set of answers, such as multiple choice, star ratings, or yes/no. They are quick to answer and easy to count, so they suit measurements like customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), feature preferences, and employee engagement. Use them when you need to know how many.
Open-ended questions let people answer in their own words. They take longer to answer and to analyze, but they capture context that fixed options miss, which is why they are common in exploratory research and UI/UX user testing. Use them when you need to know why.
Many questionnaires combine both: closed-ended questions to measure, followed by an open-ended “Why did you choose this rating?” to explain the numbers.
| Closed-ended questions | Open-ended questions | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers | Chosen from fixed options | Written in the person’s own words |
| Best for | Measuring and comparing | Understanding reasons and context |
| Examples | Multiple choice, rating scales, yes/no | “What could we improve?” |
| Analysis | Counts, percentages, charts | Grouping answers into themes |
Why Not Just Use Google Forms?
When most people think of creating a survey, Google Forms is often the first tool that comes to mind, and for good reason. It’s free, easy to set up, and works well for simple data collection. But when your needs go beyond the basics, its limitations start to show.
| Google Forms | PlatoForms | |
|---|---|---|
| Start from a PDF | Gemini can draft a new form from a PDF (eligible plans) | Adds fillable fields to the PDF itself, or builds a web form from it |
| Conditional logic | Limited | Advanced |
| Custom branding & design | Limited | Fully customizable |
| Response analysis | Summary charts; Gemini summaries and themes (eligible plans) | Insights reports with filters and PDF or CSV export; cross-tabs on paid plans |
| Zapier / Make integration | ✅ | ✅ |
Conditional logic in Google Forms works at the section level only: you can’t show or hide individual questions on the same page, and branching is limited to multiple-choice and dropdown types with no AND/OR conditions or answer piping. Google Forms shows auto-generated summary charts, and on eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plans, Gemini can summarize text answers in Google Forms and group them into themes in Google Sheets. Gemini can also draft a form from a PDF, but as a new Google Form, not as fillable fields on your PDF.
If you’re collecting simple responses with no formatting requirements, Google Forms gets the job done. But if you need to convert existing PDFs, apply advanced logic, or analyze the answers in depth, PlatoForms is built for those workflows.
How to Create a Survey Questionnaire with PlatoForms
You can start from scratch, from a survey template, or from a questionnaire you already have as a PDF. With a PDF, upload it and use AI field detection to add its fields, then review and edit them before you publish.
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Create a new form: Log in to your PlatoForms account and follow these instructions to create your online form.
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Add questions: Use the form builder to add questions and choose question types such as text fields, dropdowns, choices, and ratings.
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Set conditional logic: Use conditional logic to show or hide questions based on earlier answers. For example, if the respondent selects “Yes,” show follow-up questions; if “No,” hide them.
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Add structure: Use titles, paragraphs, and separators to make the form easier to read.
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Design the form: Choose colors, fonts, and layouts. For details, see Design web PDF form.
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Share the form: Embed it on a website or send the link by email.
Read more: Embed Forms With a Simple Copy-Paste URL
PlatoForms also integrates with Make and Zapier if you want answers sent to other tools automatically.
Analyzing the Results
Collecting answers is only half of a survey. The other half is turning them into findings: see how to analyze survey data for a step-by-step method.
Every PlatoForms form has a default Insights report with a submission trend and charts for its reportable fields. On the Free plan, the default report covers the first five fields. From there you can:
- Count closed-ended answers: choice questions get answer charts, and rating questions show a median and spread.
- Compare groups: on a paid plan, break a question down by another, such as satisfaction by plan, and view it as a cross-tab. When there is enough data, a chip shows whether the difference is meaningful or there is no clear difference.
- Group open-ended answers: a word cloud shows recurring words, and AI can propose themes for written answers. You review and approve the themes before every answer is classified.
- Share the findings: export the report as a PDF or its chart totals as a CSV.
For step-by-step instructions, see the Insights guide.
In Conclusion
A questionnaire is the set of questions; a survey is the whole process of asking a group of people and analyzing what they say. Most surveys collect answers with a questionnaire, and many questionnaires pair closed-ended questions that measure with open-ended questions that explain.
