People looking for Slido alternatives are rarely unhappy with Q&A itself. Usually something else is going on: the event is bigger than one room, the budget changed, or the audience needs to take part outside the sessions. So comparing tools by feature list is the slow way. The fast way is to work out which category your problem belongs to.
The 4 categories of Slido alternatives
- Live Q&A and polls. The audience sends questions, votes on the best ones and answers polls during a session. This is Slido territory, along with similar tools such as Mentimeter or Pigeonhole Live.
- Competitive quizzes. Timed questions with scores and an instant leaderboard. Kahoot is the reference, especially in classrooms and team building.
- Gamification of the whole event. Challenges attendees complete throughout the day (visit a booth, scan a QR code, network, answer a quiz), with points and a leaderboard. This is where Questa fits.
- Full event apps. Agenda, map, attendee list and notifications in one product. They tend to be heavier and more expensive, and make sense at large conferences.
How to choose in 4 questions
- Where does participation happen? Only inside the room during a session (Q&A)? Or across the whole event, including hallways and booths (gamification)?
- Who should see the result? A moderator on a screen, or every attendee on their own phone?
- How often will you use it? For a one-off event, paying per event usually beats a monthly subscription.
- Does branding matter? If you want an app with your own name and colours, look for white-label.
When to keep Slido
If what you need is to moderate audience questions on a panel or keynote, Slido does exactly that and there is no reason to switch. An alternative only makes sense if the problem is something else.
When an alternative makes more sense
- The event is more than sessions. If there is an expo, networking or several spaces, Q&A covers only part of the day.
- You want data about the event, not just the session. How many people completed challenges, which activities got the most traction, who took part.
- You need check-in and ticketing. Putting everything in one place avoids juggling three tools.
Where Questa fits
Questa is not Slido under another name. It has no live Q&A with voting. It was built to keep the audience engaged across the whole event: challenges with points, quizzes, QR check-in and networking, an event feed and an app with your brand, plus analytics so you can show results to the client afterwards.
Using both is common: Slido for Q&A in panels and Questa for the journey and participation outside the room. There is a free tier for up to 5 attendees, so you can try it with no commitment.
A practical example
Picture a two-day conference with 300 people, three rooms and a small sponsor expo. In the rooms, Q&A with voting handles questions to speakers. But outside them, in the hallways and at the booths, people need a reason to move around, talk to each other and visit the sponsors who help pay for the event.
That is where a gamification tool comes in: challenges such as visiting three booths, swapping contacts with another attendee or answering a quiz earn points, and the leaderboard keeps people taking part until the end. Sponsors get real visits and the organiser gets numbers to show in the report.
Final checklist before you decide
- I defined the main problem (Q&A, quiz or participation across the whole event).
- I checked the attendee limit and price for my event size.
- I tested the attendee experience on a phone, with no install or a simple one.
- I checked languages, GDPR and where the data is stored.
