Ballotis vs the rest.
Honest comparison — we mark ourselves "no" on rows where competitors are stronger. Where we say "yes" you can verify it in our codebase or live on /verify. As of May 2026.
| Feature | Ballotis | ElectionBuddy | SimplyVoting | OpaVote | Helios |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single / multi / approval / yes-no | |||||
| Ranked-choice (single-winner IRV) | |||||
| Star rating | |||||
| Multi-winner STV (proportional) | |||||
| Schulze / Condorcet | |||||
| Borda count | |||||
| Score / range voting | |||||
| Cumulative voting | |||||
| Weighted member classes | |||||
| Proxy voting | |||||
| Multi-round / multi-question | |||||
| Per-voter receipts | |||||
| Public verification page (re-walkable) | |||||
| Tamper-evident hash chain | |||||
| Threshold-encrypted ballots (Helios-style) | |||||
| ML fraud detection | |||||
| TOR / VPN block, headless detect, honeypot | |||||
| 4 anti-fraud presets (one-click config) | |||||
| AI features for voting (any) | |||||
| Custom domain (white-label, on Studio) | |||||
| Embeddable ballot widget | |||||
| Live tally widget | |||||
| Email magic-link auth | |||||
| SMS OTP auth | |||||
| SAML SSO + SCIM (where shipped) | |||||
| IVR / phone voting fallback | |||||
| Observer / auditor accounts | |||||
| Signed PDF official report | |||||
| Webhooks + REST API + OpenAPI 3.1 spec | |||||
| AMS connectors (Salesforce / iMIS / etc.) | |||||
| Multi-region active deployments | |||||
| On-prem option | |||||
| Open-source counting code | |||||
| Free tier | |||||
| Transparent published pricing | |||||
| Built-in awards / nominations (via Aclamos) |
Ballotis Live vs Slido, Mentimeter, Kahoot!
The Jackbox-style room-code layer competes with the live-polling SaaS players directly. Same QR-and-code UX they ship — plus the ability to run an audit-defensible vote in the same session, which none of them can.
| Feature | Ballotis Live | Slido | Mentimeter | Kahoot! |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4-digit room code + QR join | ||||
| No-signup audience entry | ||||
| Big-screen presenter view | ||||
| Word cloud | ||||
| 1–10 scale / rating slider | ||||
| Open Q&A submissions | ||||
| Quiz mode with speed bonus | ||||
| Live leaderboard between questions | ||||
| OBS browser-source / iframe embed | ||||
| Same session does election-grade vote | ||||
| Per-voter cryptographic receipts | ||||
| Tamper-evident hash chain | ||||
| Session data queryable forever | ||||
| Ranked-choice (IRV) on the same poll | ||||
| Audience-choice cue inside an awards ceremony | ||||
| Free tier |
ElectionBuddy
Mid-market association elections, established 2008.
Steady track record, multi-winner STV, accessible voter UI, US/CA market presence, signed PDF reports.
Ballotis ships end-to-end verifiable receipts + a public verification chain + ML fraud detection — none of which ElectionBuddy has at any tier. We're missing weighted classes, proxy, and multi-winner STV; those are roadmap.
SimplyVoting
White-glove managed elections, Canadian.
Hands-on managed-service ops, strong accessibility, IVR phone voting, AMS connectors, multi-region.
Ballotis is self-serve at a fraction of the price and ships verifiable receipts they don't. We don't yet match their managed-service depth or IVR; if you need either today, SimplyVoting is the right pick.
OpaVote
STV/IRV calculation specialists.
Open-source counting code, supports many tally methods (STV, Schulze, Borda, Condorcet), low cost per election.
OpaVote is the math; Ballotis is the platform — voter auth, anti-fraud presets, branding, embeddable widget, REST API, free tier. If you only need a tally on ranked ballots you've already collected, OpaVote is fine.
Helios Voting
Open-source, end-to-end verifiable, academic.
Cryptographic gold standard for E2E-V (threshold encryption + trustees); auditable; trusted by universities.
Ballotis ships hash-chain verifiability that's much easier to operate, plus production polish (white-label, REST API, anti-fraud presets, SLA). For threshold-encrypted ballots specifically, Helios is still the academic-grade choice.
Slido
Cisco-owned live audience polling for corporate events.
Polished live polling UI, Q&A workflow, deep Webex/Teams/PowerPoint embeds, large enterprise sales motion.
Ballotis Live ships the same 4-digit-code + presenter + quiz mode in the SAME product as election-grade voting — Slido sessions vanish; Ballotis sessions stay queryable forever with a verifiable receipt chain. Slido has no equivalent to an audit-defensible vote.
Mentimeter
Live audience polling for conferences and classrooms.
Beautiful slide-based presenter UI, word-cloud and 1-10 scale built in, large education customer base, integrated slide editor.
Mentimeter is presentation-first; Ballotis Live is voting-first that happens to render beautifully. We ship the same word-cloud + scale + Q&A on the same platform that runs your union election. No second SaaS, no second seat-license, no second exported data set.
Kahoot!
Game-show-style quiz platform, gaming-grade UX.
Best-in-class quiz scoring + game-show UX, massive K-12 + corporate-training installed base, energetic music + visuals.
Ballotis Live ships Kahoot-style speed-bonus scoring (100 base + 100-point scaled bonus) inside a voting platform — so a company all-hands can do the icebreaker quiz AND ratify the new comp-bands proposal in one session. Kahoot has no chain-of-custody for the formal vote.
Try a verifiable ballot in 10 minutes.
Starter is free. CSV voter list import; per-voter receipts; public chain audit.
Comparison reflects publicly published features as of May 2026. We update quarterly. Notice an inaccuracy? Tell us — we'll fix it within 7 days. Trademarks belong to their respective owners; this page is editorial commentary.