Open source. Self-hosted. No subscriptions. No player accounts. Unlimited questions.
QuizLive is a free, open-source, real-time multiplayer quiz and trivia platform built with React and Firebase. Run it on your laptop for a classroom, deploy it on a server for a public event, or self-host it however you want. You own the code, you own the data, you keep the players.
Looking for an open source Kahoot alternative? A free Slido alternative? A self-hosted Mentimeter for classrooms, conferences, town halls, or trivia nights? A live polling tool without a paywall? This is it.
Use it for: classroom quizzes · school trivia · corporate town halls · conference Q&A · pub trivia · live polling · audience response · community quiz nights · onboarding games · workshop icebreakers.
| QuizLive | Kahoot | Slido | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open source | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Self-hostable | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| No monthly subscription | ✅ Free up to ~100 players¹ | ❌ $17+/mo | ❌ $15+/mo |
| No player accounts | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| No vendor lock-in | ✅ Your data | ❌ Their servers | ❌ Their servers |
| Database cost at scale | Included | Included | |
| Works on local network | ✅ Offline-capable | ❌ Requires internet | ❌ Requires internet |
| Unlimited questions | ✅ Yes |
¹ Firebase free tier (Spark) covers ~80–100 concurrent players at $0/month. Larger events need the pay-as-you-go plan — see FIREBASE-COSTS.md. ² Firebase Firestore is billed per read/write at scale. QuizLive itself will always be free; the database cost is yours, going directly to your own Firebase project.
- 📱 Players join from their phones — scan a QR or visit a URL, no account needed
- 🖥️ Host screen runs on the projector — live answer chart, timer, leaderboard podium
- 🎛️ Admin panel controls everything — questions, game flow, QR toggle, session history
- ⚡ Scores are time-weighted — faster correct answers earn more, computed from answers so they can't be tampered with (how scoring & ranking work →)
- 📋 Full session history saved automatically — download any past leaderboard as CSV
- 🌐 Works offline on a local network — no internet required
Admin panel (left) + host projector screen with QR join code (right)
Player question screen — tap to answer, faster = more points
Live gameplay — player phones, admin controls, host answer chart
Leaderboard phase — player rank cards + host podium
Session history — past results with CSV export
Click the button → Vercel clones the repo to your GitHub and walks you through the env vars. You only need to set up Firebase first (5 minutes) — full guide here.
📖 Docs: Scoring & Ranking · Security & Threat Model · Firebase Costs
| Method | Best for | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| 🔥 Firebase + Vercel ⭐ | Cloud, no server to manage | Vercel CDN (global) |
| 🏠 Local + Private Network | Classroom, office, same Wi-Fi | Your laptop |
| ☁️ AWS EC2 | Full control, your own server | AWS instance |
| 🐳 Docker | Self-hosted, clean environment | Any container host |
⭐ Firebase + Vercel is the only setup tested end-to-end. Local / AWS / Docker should work (same code, different host) but aren't officially verified.
All options use Firebase Firestore for the real-time database. Free tier covers ~80–100 concurrent players. For larger events → FIREBASE-COSTS.md.
git clone https://github.com/sivasooryagiri/quizlive.git
cd quizlive
npm install
cp .env.example .env
# fill in your Firebase config
npm run devOpen http://localhost:5173
⚠️ Two steps in Firebase Console required before login + security work:
- Authentication → add user with email
admin@quizlive.internal+ your chosen password- Firestore → Rules tab → paste contents of
firestore.rules→ PublishFull guide → docs/deploy-local.md
| Path | Access | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
/ |
Open — no login needed | Join and answer on their phones |
/host |
Open — meant for the projector/big screen | Live question display, timer, leaderboard |
/admin |
Admin password required | Questions, game control, history, QR toggle |
/about |
Open — no login needed | About the project and builder |
QuizLive itself is $0 — always. No license, no subscription, no per-player fee. Code is yours, free forever.
The only moving part with a meter on it is Firebase Firestore (the real-time database). Google runs Firebase, not QuizLive — so any database cost goes directly to your own Firebase project, not to us.
- ✅ Firebase free tier (Spark) handles ~80–100 concurrent players at $0/month — fits classrooms, small offices, community quizzes, most events.
- 📈 If you outgrow that (hundreds of players, dozens of sessions/day), you'd switch your Firebase project to the pay-as-you-go plan.
Heavy usage? Hosting hundreds of players or running this for a big organization? Read FIREBASE-COSTS.md for the full breakdown — free-tier sessions per day by player count × question count, paid pricing bands, and how to set a budget cap so you never get a surprise bill.
- Frontend — React 18, Vite, Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion
- Database — Firebase Firestore (real-time listeners)
- Auth — Firebase Authentication (admin), no player accounts
- Hosting — Vercel (or self-hosted)
- Charts — Recharts (answer bar chart)
- QR — qrcode.react
Open source. Free to use, modify, and self-host.
Not for commercial or monetary use. Do not sell access, charge players, bundle into a paid product, or use as a revenue-generating service. Built to make quizzes free and accessible — keep it that way.
Personal use, education, internal events, community quizzes — all fine.
Things planned or worth building next:
🎨 Presentation themes Multiple visual themes for the host/projector screen — dark, light, high-contrast, branded. Selectable per session from the admin panel.
💬 Room mood / word cloud Players type any word during a session. Words appear as floating bubbles on the host screen — the more a word is typed, the bigger its bubble. A lightweight way to feel the room before or between questions.
More ideas worth adding
- 🖼️ Image questions — attach an image to a question
- 👥 Team mode — group players into teams, score aggregated
- 🔢 Custom scoring — let admin set points per question
- ⏱️ Timed lobby — auto-start after countdown
- 📥 Question import — paste a JSON or CSV to bulk-add questions
- 🔔 Webhook on session end — post results to Slack, Discord, or a URL
- 🏫 Teachers — run classroom quizzes, no Kahoot subscription needed
- 🏢 Teams — replace Slido for internal events and town halls
- 🎉 Events — trivia nights, conferences, community meetups
- 🖥️ Self-hosters — full control, runs on your own hardware
- 🌐 Offline use — works on a local network with no internet
Built by SivaSoorya G.R — ML/DL creator, co-founder of Soluto. Opened this up so anyone can run a quiz without a paywall or a vendor in the way.
→ deadtechguy.fun · GitHub · 📧 dtg@soluto.in
This release was built with Claude Code using Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Claude Opus 4.7.
Topics: quiz · trivia · kahoot-alternative · slido-alternative · mentimeter-alternative · open-source-quiz · self-hosted · real-time · multiplayer · classroom · live-polling · audience-response · firebase · react · vite · tailwindcss · free-quiz-app · no-subscription