Updated October 2026. Forsta is the enterprise research platform behind Decipher surveys, Digital Diaries and InterVu focus groups, and on 18 May 2026 it became part of Qualtrics, which bought Press Ganey Forsta for $6.75 billion. The main alternatives in 2026 are Yazi, Qualtrics itself, Discuss and Voxco, Alida, QuestionPro, Toluna Start, Recollective, QualBoard, FlexMR and Alchemer.

Forsta covers a lot of ground, so the right alternative depends on which part of it you use. This guide sorts the options by the job: complex quant surveys, live focus groups, diaries and communities, or research with people who won't sit at a computer for it.

What Forsta Does Well

Forsta was formed in 2021 when Confirmit and FocusVision merged, bringing together Decipher for heavily scripted surveys, the Revelation diary platform that FocusVision bought in 2014, and InterVu for online focus groups. Decipher handles XML and Python scripting, 85+ question types and 80+ languages, with a built-in sample marketplace. Digital Diaries runs studies of up to 2,000 participants with video, audio, photo and text entries, and InterVu runs browser-based groups with a client backroom, live translation and a dedicated technician on each session.

It has added AI steadily: AI help writing and importing surveys and summarising open ends (January 2025), AI summaries of diary video and audio in 25+ languages (August 2025), and research agents that build PowerPoint reports (March 2026). Customers on its homepage include Walmart, Verizon, GM and Allianz.

Why Teams Look for a Forsta Alternative

• Ownership. Qualtrics completed the Press Ganey Forsta purchase in May 2026, and in August cut roles, citing duplication between the two organisations. It hasn't published a roadmap for Decipher, Digital Diaries or InterVu, and Forrester has said it expects the two platforms to be brought together over time. Teams renewing a contract want to know what they're signing up for.
• Cost and set-up. Pricing is quote only, and G2 reviewers rate the cost at the top of the scale. Reviewers also mention slow set-up, a steep learning curve without programming skills and a dated interface.
• AI moderation. Forsta's AI summarises and reports. We didn't find AI-moderated interviews, which many teams now want for depth at scale.
• Participants who won't log in. Survey links, a diary app or web portal and browser focus groups work well with recruited panels. They work less well with a client's own customers or mobile-first audiences.

Forsta Alternatives Compared

The table below shows what each platform is best for, how participants take part and where participants come from. Most of these platforms price on a custom quote, so we've focused on how each one works.

1. Yazi: AI Interviews, Diaries and Surveys Inside WhatsApp

Forsta and the other platforms in this list send participants to a survey link, a website or an app. Yazi runs the whole study inside WhatsApp, the app people already open dozens of times a day. There's no link to open, no portal to log into and no app to download, and participants answer the way they'd reply to a friend: a quick text, a voice note on the way home, or a photo or video of what's in front of them.

Qual and quant in one study: Surveys with skip logic, piping and randomisation, AI interviews, multi-day diaries and WhatsApp group discussions run from one platform, so a study can screen with a survey, go deep with an AI interview and then follow people for days or weeks, with reminders in the same thread.

AI moderation with a human in the loop: The AI moderator follows your discussion guide and follows up on every answer. A researcher can take over any conversation live and hand it back, and group discussions can be run by a human moderator or the AI.

Reporting: Answers are grouped into themes as they arrive, with an AI-written executive summary you can edit and export to PDF or PowerPoint, cross-tabs, transcripts that read like the original chat, and a media library where you tag clips and build highlight reels from participants' own voice notes and videos.

Panel and reach: A 1.8M+ panel with reach in 25+ countries, or your own customer list. Yazi moderates natively in English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Setswana, Sesotho, Swahili, French, Portuguese and others, with AI translation across 100+ languages. Studies hold a 90% completion rate.

Quality and compliance: Automated checks flag inconsistent answers and responses that look AI-generated. Yazi is POPIA, GDPR and CCPA compliant, with research data hosted on AWS in the UK and Ireland.

Where it fits less well: Participants need WhatsApp. Yazi isn't built for heavily scripted trackers with hundreds of questions, or for live video focus groups with clients in a backroom; Discuss and Voxco, or Qualtrics, fit those better.

Best for: Diaries and studies that run over days; research with a client's own customers or a general population; studies that mix quant and qual; teams who want AI scale with a researcher able to step in; and mobile-first audiences in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and anywhere WhatsApp is the default way people talk. For a direct side-by-side, see Yazi vs Forsta.

2. Qualtrics: The Platform Forsta Now Belongs To

Qualtrics, based in Provo and Seattle and owned by Silver Lake and CPP Investments since 2023, is Forsta's new parent. Its Strategy & Research product covers surveys with quotas, weighting, crosstabs and stats, plus video and audio feedback, video diaries, focus groups and IDIs.

AI: Conversational Feedback adds AI follow-up questions to surveys (generally available since March 2025), Edge Audiences offers synthetic respondents, with US synthetic panels launched in March 2026, and Research Hub lets you search past studies conversationally.

How participants take part: Through a browser link, QR code or website intercept. Qualtrics doesn't own a panel; it gives access to 200M+ third-party respondents, with PureSpectrum as its in-platform panel partner.

Worth knowing: There's a free plan, and the Strategic Research plan is listed at $420 a month on its free-account page; enterprise tiers are quote only. G2 rates it 4.4 from about 3,000 reviews, with pricing and the learning curve the common complaints. Compliance is extensive, including SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and FedRAMP.

Best for: Enterprises that want one vendor for quant research, CX and synthetic panels, and Forsta customers who'd rather move early than wait for a migration.

3. Discuss and Voxco: Multimode Quant and Live Qual from One Company

In November 2025 Terminus Capital, which owned Voxco, bought Discuss and combined the two under the Discuss name, with about 900 customers and 200+ staff in 16 countries. It's the closest like-for-like replacement for Forsta's breadth: Voxco's quant, Ascribe's text analytics and Discuss's live video qual.

What it does: Voxco runs multimode surveys (web, phone interviewing with a dialer, offline mobile and face-to-face), panel portals and analytics, in the cloud or on your own servers. Discuss runs live focus groups and IDIs in 100+ markets with a client backroom and live translation, plus AI interviews in 50+ languages.

AI: Ascribe Theme Extractor codes open ends automatically, Discuss Now runs async AI interviews (May 2025), and Discuss Intelligence (July 2026) lets you query every past study.

Worth knowing: Pricing is quote only. Discuss is rated 4.7 on G2 and was named a Leader in Forrester's Experience Research Wave in 2026; Voxco reviewers mention a learning curve and thin documentation. Voxco holds SOC 2 and Discuss holds ISO 27001.

Best for: Agencies and fieldwork houses that need phone and offline survey modes alongside live qual. See Yazi vs Discuss.

4. Alida: Insight Communities and Experience Research

Alida, formerly Vision Critical, is a privately held Canadian company that runs always-on insight communities for brands, alongside surveys, video discussions, UX and prototype testing, and CX measurement.

AI: An AI assistant for user research (August 2025), AI summaries of open ends, AI follow-up probing, sentiment and topics, translation and video analysis.

How participants take part: As members of a brand's own community, with a login. Alida doesn't run a panel; it says its communities see 25 to 60% response rates.

Worth knowing: Pricing is quote only. G2 rates it 4.4, and it was named a Leader in G2's Spring 2026 User Research report and a Strong Performer in Forrester's Experience Research Wave. Reviewers mention complexity and manual reporting work.

Best for: Brands that want to own a large customer community and run research with it all year.

5. QuestionPro: A Research Suite at Mid-Market Prices

Austin-based QuestionPro, founded in 2006, has been adding to its research suite: it agreed to merge with UX testing platform Trymata in February 2026 and bought Fathom, an open-ended text analytics company, in April 2026.

What it does: Advanced quant (conjoint, MaxDiff, TURF), branded communities, a research repository, BI dashboards, UX testing, an in-house research services team and Audience, a panel QuestionPro puts at 22M people.

AI: A survey agent, synthetic data and digital twins, data quality checks for bots and AI-written answers, text and video AI, and, in September 2026, a Research Agent and incidence-rate prediction before launch.

Worth knowing: Plans are published: a free tier, Advanced at $99 per user per month billed annually, and the Research Suite on a quote. G2 rates it 4.5 from 1,100+ reviews. It holds ISO 27001 and ISO 42001.

Best for: Insights teams and agencies who want quant, communities, panel and services from one vendor without an enterprise price.

6. Toluna Start: DIY Research with a Large Owned Panel

Toluna Start is the self-serve platform from London-based Toluna, which owns one of the largest research panels, at about 79M members in 70+ countries. Amy Fenton became CEO in October 2026.

What it does: A DIY survey builder, automated solutions such as ad pre-tests and claims tests, analytics and dashboards, and Start Qual for async diaries and discussions in 38 languages. We didn't find live focus groups.

AI: HarmonAIze synthetic respondents and personas, QProbe AI follow-up probing, AI coding and sentiment, translation and fraud checks.

Worth knowing: Prices aren't published. Toluna Start's production environment is ISO 27001 certified, and its quality programme is ISO 20252 certified. Recent independent reviews are few.

Best for: Brand and insights teams who want fast DIY quant with a large owned panel built in.

7. Recollective: Browser-Based Communities, Diaries and Live Video

Ottawa-based Recollective is the closest match to Forsta's Digital Diaries. It runs activity-based async studies with a deep question library, journals and diaries, discussion forums, and live video IDIs and groups, plus Recollective Connect for communities of 1,000 to 50,000+ members.

AI: Conversation Task runs AI-moderated interviews inside a study and can use a participant's earlier answers. Ask AI answers questions across projects with source verbatims, and since September 2026 you can upload Zoom, Teams or in-person recordings for AI transcription and analysis.

How participants take part: Through a branded website in the browser, with a login, on desktop or mobile.

Worth knowing: Recollective publishes starting prices: from $475 a month for live-only, $750 a month for live and async, and $1,250 a month for Connect communities, on annual licences.

Best for: Teams moving off Digital Diaries who want diaries, communities and live video in one browser platform. See Yazi vs Recollective.

8. QualBoard by Sago: Boards and Diaries with a Fieldwork Partner

QualBoard is the digital qual platform from Sago, the research and recruitment company formerly known as Schlesinger Group. It runs async bulletin boards, diaries and lean communities, with QualMeeting for live video groups and IDIs, concept markup and translation into 30+ languages.

AI: AI Moderation for async discussions in text, audio or video (February 2026), AI summaries, and a highlight reel editor added in June 2026.

How participants take part: In any browser on desktop or mobile, with no app, usually with a login.

Best for: Agencies and brands, especially in the US, who want the platform, recruitment and project support from one fieldwork partner. See Yazi vs QualBoard.

9. FlexMR: A Managed Insight Community from the UK

FlexMR, based in Cumbria in the UK, sells InsightHub, a branded community site with tools for surveys, bulletin boards, diary tasks and interviews, plus crosstabs, text and video analysis. Clients include The Home Depot, Specsavers and Unilever.

AI: TextMR codes and summarises open text with generative AI, PromptAI adds AI follow-up probes to survey questions, and InterviewMR (September 2025) brings AI-assisted interview analysis.

How participants take part: Through the InsightHub site in a browser, or a native app for an extra £2,500 a year.

Worth knowing: FlexMR publishes a starting price of £10,000 a year and has a free demo platform. It sells 12-week onboarding, consulting and fully managed projects, and holds ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus.

Best for: UK and European teams who want a long-running community and a partner to help run it. See Yazi vs FlexMR.

10. Alchemer: Flexible Surveys Moving into CX

Alchemer, formerly SurveyGizmo, is based in Colorado and backed by KKR. Its strength is flexible quant surveys with logic, scripting and an API, and since 2025 it has been building out a customer feedback platform, with in-app feedback from Apptentive and reviews from Chatmeter.

AI: Pulse open-text analysis with an ask-the-data chat (December 2025), and Iris, an AI-native CX platform with an AI survey builder (September 2026).

Panel: No own panel; Alchemer's panel services buy sample from partners, from about $2 per complete for consumers.

Worth knowing: There are no communities, diaries or live focus groups. Per-user plans are listed on review sites, from about $55 a month, and Capterra reviewers often mention high and unpredictable pricing. It holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2.

Best for: Teams who used Decipher mainly for flexible surveys and want something lighter and self-serve.

How to Choose

Start with the part of Forsta you actually use, then with your participants.

• Heavily scripted trackers and multimode fieldwork: Discuss and Voxco, or Qualtrics.
• Staying close to the Qualtrics roadmap: Qualtrics.
• Live focus groups with clients in a backroom: Discuss, or QualBoard with QualMeeting.
• Diaries and communities in the browser: Recollective, QualBoard, Alida or FlexMR.
• DIY quant with a big owned panel: Toluna Start or QuestionPro.
• Flexible surveys without the enterprise contract: Alchemer or QuestionPro.
• Participants who won't log in or download anything, AI interviews with a researcher able to step in, or a mobile-first audience: Yazi.

For multi-day qual specifically, see the best tools for diary studies in 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who owns Forsta?

Qualtrics. It completed its $6.75 billion purchase of Press Ganey Forsta on 18 May 2026. Forsta had been part of Press Ganey since 2022 and was formed in 2021 when Confirmit and FocusVision merged.

Will Forsta be discontinued?

Qualtrics hasn't announced a plan for Forsta's market research products, which are still sold under the Forsta name. In August 2026 Qualtrics cut roles, citing duplication between the two companies, and Forrester has said it expects the platforms to be brought together over time. If you're renewing, ask for the roadmap in writing.

What is the best alternative to Forsta?

For complex quant and live groups, Discuss and Voxco or Qualtrics. For diaries and communities, Recollective or QualBoard. For DIY quant with a panel, Toluna Start or QuestionPro. For diaries, AI interviews and surveys where people answer in WhatsApp, Yazi.

What happened to Revelation and FocusVision?

FocusVision bought Revelation in 2014 and merged with Confirmit to form Forsta in 2021. Revelation's diary and community product now sits in Forsta's line as Digital Diaries, and the old Revelation and FocusVision websites redirect to forsta.com.

Does Forsta have AI moderation?

We didn't find any. Forsta's AI covers survey writing, open-end and video summaries, and reporting agents. Qualtrics adds AI follow-up questions to surveys, and Yazi, Recollective, QualBoard and Discuss all run AI-moderated interviews.

Competitor details come from each vendor's website, release notes, help centre and review listings, and from acquisition news, checked in October 2026. Products change quickly, so confirm current features and prices with the vendor. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@askyazi.com.