KoboToolbox
Free, open-source field data collection built for humanitarian crises and offline work.
About
KoboToolbox is the most widely used open-source data collection platform in the humanitarian sector. It originated at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, was first created in 2009, and was adapted for humanitarian use in a joint effort with UNOCHA and the International Rescue Committee. The software is free and open source, with its component repositories under copyleft licenses (the KPI component is AGPL-3.0), and it is used by organizations including UNHCR, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization. Teams build forms in a drag-and-drop web builder or in the XLSForm standard, collect responses offline on Android devices with GPS and media capture, and analyze results through built-in visualization or export them to other tools. It is fully interchangeable with Open Data Kit, and free hosted servers are available for humanitarian use alongside self-hosting.
What it can do
- Offline-first mobile data collection
- XLSForm and XForm compatible, ODK-interchangeable
- Complex skip logic, GPS, and media capture
- Multilingual surveys
- Built-in visualization and multi-format export
Setup
Create a free account at kobotoolbox.org and build forms in the web builder, or self-host the stack.
Prerequisites
None for the free humanitarian servers; an Android device or browser for collection.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Harvard Humanitarian Initiative origin, 2009 start, and the OCHA/HHI/IRC joint effort documented by the UN's own knowledge base and UNHCR guides; 186 stars on the KPI repo read from the GitHub API. Strengths: the de facto standard for humanitarian field data, genuinely free, offline-first, and interchangeable with ODK. Docked for: (1) built for field research, not polished marketing surveys; (2) GitHub activity is split across component repos, understating the project's scale; (3) free hosted servers are aimed at humanitarian use, not commercial. License: open source (components under copyleft licenses, e.g. AGPL-3.0).
★ 186 GitHub stars
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 8.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 9.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · 186 stars on kobotoolbox/kpi; pushed 2026-10-16 (verified via GitHub API)
- · Originated at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative; first created 2009; adapted with UNOCHA and the International Rescue Committee (per UN knowledge base)
- · Used by UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO; XLSForm/XForm compatible, ODK-interchangeable
- · Offline-first Android collection with GPS and media capture
- · manual review: built for field research, not polished marketing surveys
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.