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Comparison · Support
Hiver vs Formbricks
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Hiver and Formbricks — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Hiver vs Formbricks: at a glance
What is Hiver?
Gmail-based support tooling wiring internal docs into its AI and unifying search across channels
Hiver's April releases center on grounding its AI in a company's own material. Confluence pages, Google Docs and Google Sheets can be added as knowledge sources, and Ask AI can query an uploaded Sheet directly — answering questions like top customers by revenue without manual analysis. Alongside that, Omnichannel Search spans email, chat and Slack with unified results and channel attribution, and automations gained a trigger for conversations moved into a shared inbox. Each release appears twice in the feed.
What is Formbricks?
Formbricks is spending its release candidates on tenancy isolation, not new survey features.
Formbricks ships almost exclusively release candidates across three live branches — 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 — with the same fixes backported into each. Recent work is dominated by multi-tenant scoping (API keys, surveys, quotas, integrations), auth correctness (Better Auth credential accounts, 2FA tables, Azure SSO), and self-host reliability (Helm ordering, Docker environment validation). New user-facing capability is rare, and when it appears it is narrow: chart tweaks, an MCP scope correction.
Hiver vs Formbricks: editorial side-by-side
Hiver
0.0SUPPORT
Gmail-based support tooling wiring internal docs into its AI and unifying search across channels
◆ Current state
Hiver's April releases center on grounding its AI in a company's own material. Confluence pages, Google Docs and Google Sheets can be added as knowledge sources, and Ask AI can query an uploaded Sheet directly — answering questions like top customers by revenue without manual analysis. Alongside that, Omnichannel Search spans email, chat and Slack with unified results and channel attribution, and automations gained a trigger for conversations moved into a shared inbox. Each release appears twice in the feed.
◆ Where it's heading
The product is extending past the shared-inbox job into being the place a support agent finds any answer. Knowledge sources make the AI useful on internal SOPs rather than generic replies; omnichannel search makes prior context findable regardless of where the conversation happened. Both reduce the reasons an agent leaves Gmail, which is the whole premise Hiver sells on.
◆ Prediction
Expect more knowledge source connectors on the pattern set by Drive and Confluence, since the Sheets query capability shows the ingestion path already handles structured as well as prose content.
Formbricks
6.3SUPPORT
Formbricks is spending its release candidates on tenancy isolation, not new survey features.
◆ Current state
Formbricks ships almost exclusively release candidates across three live branches — 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 — with the same fixes backported into each. Recent work is dominated by multi-tenant scoping (API keys, surveys, quotas, integrations), auth correctness (Better Auth credential accounts, 2FA tables, Azure SSO), and self-host reliability (Helm ordering, Docker environment validation). New user-facing capability is rare, and when it appears it is narrow: chart tweaks, an MCP scope correction.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern points at a product hardening for paid, self-hosted, multi-workspace deployments rather than expanding what a survey can do. Nearly every entry is a fix carrying a backport tag, which means the team is maintaining several supported lines at once — a maintenance load that usually arrives with enterprise customers who cannot upgrade on the project's schedule. The one forward-looking thread is the MCP surface: OAuth consent handling and a surveys:write scope suggest agents are being treated as a real client rather than a demo.
◆ Prediction
Expect the 5.3 line to stabilize into a general release carrying the workspace-scoping and auth fixes already landed, with MCP scope work continuing alongside it. Whether MCP becomes a headline capability or stays plumbing is not something these entries settle.
Alternatives to Hiver and Formbricks
Other Support products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Hiver or Formbricks.
Twilio
Twilio is selling trust: branded calls, scoped keys, and stricter sender vetting.
Comm100
Comm100 publishes buyer-guide content, not releases — and the guides now lead with AI volume.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Cloud
The cloud edition's log is mostly repair work, much of it inherited from its on-prem twin.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
AI assist is spreading edition by edition and region by region, one data center at a time.
Desk365
A Teams-native helpdesk whose changelog is mostly a marketing blog.
See all Hiver alternatives → · See all Formbricks alternatives →
Recent activity from Hiver and Formbricks
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoFormbricksMCP clients gain surveys:write; Helm volume hooks in 5.3.0-rc.1
- 3d agoFormbricks5.2.2-rc.1 patches trial escalation and cross-workspace import
- 10d agoFormbricks5.2.1-rc.2 bumps tar to patch a decompression DoS
- 11d agoFormbricks5.1.5-rc.1 enforces workspace scoping on API keys and surveys
- 11d agoFormbricks5.2.1-rc.1 backports workspace scoping to the 5.2 branch
- 12d agoFormbricks5.2.0-rc.7 fixes Helm release image validation
- 3mo agoHiverRun queries on Google Sheets with Ask AI
- 3mo agoHiverGoogle Drive and Confluence as AI Knowledge Sources
- 3mo agoHiverNew Automation trigger and condition
- 3mo agoHiverGoogle Drive and Confluence as AI Knowledge Sources
- 3mo agoHiverRun queries on Google Sheets with Ask AI
- 3mo agoHiverIntroducing Omnichannel Search
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Hiver and Formbricks?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Formbricks is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Hiver better than Formbricks?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Formbricks is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Support products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Hiver?
Top Hiver alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Hiver alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hiver for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Formbricks?
Top Formbricks alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Formbricks alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/formbricks for the full list with editorial commentary on each.