Looking for a Slido alternative? Compare the moment the room joins
Last updated: October 15, 2026
Slido pairs a Q&A stack with live polls — you launch a session, the room types a code into sli.do, and questions rise up on the presenter screen. That shape is right when the audience is willing to open a browser and enter a code in front of a projector. A different query asks: what if the room is 200 people who arrived five minutes before start, half of them on hotel Wi-Fi, none of them wanting to type anything? That is the moment a printed QR Card is built for.
Side by side, as of October 2026
| Slido | A plain QR code | QRCard AI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the object is | A session with a join code and a moderated Q&A / poll queue | An image that opens one link | A printed card that collects one action, projected live |
| How attendees join | Open sli.do, type a code, optionally sign in | Nothing to join — just opens a link | Point the phone camera at the printed card or the screen — that's the join step |
| Q&A with upvotes | Its strong suit — a moderated upvote queue | Not its job | Deliberately out of scope; the multi-topic queue lives in FormLM |
| Live polls & word clouds | On higher plans | Not its job | Not this product's shape — the story wall and progress ring are |
| Seat & room cost model | Free tier caps question types and audience size; higher plans unlock more | Not sold as a room tool | Free up to 10 cards; the screen and CSV are the same price as the card |
| Data after the room | Export shape depends on the plan | Nothing to take out | CSV on every card, 14-day trend and full record list, no paid gate on your own data |
Competitor capabilities and pricing change — the table describes product shapes as we see them; verify current plans on the vendor's own site.
Where Slido is the better pick
THEIR STRENGTH
Moderated Q&A with upvotes
For all-hands meetings where the CEO answers the top-voted questions, the queue-and-vote shape is Slido's home turf. A card does not build a voting queue.
THEIR STRENGTH
Slides integration
PowerPoint, Google Slides and Teams add-ins let a poll rise mid-slide. That's a genuine workflow win when the deck is the delivery.
THEIR STRENGTH
Enterprise admin & SSO
SSO, retention policies and admin roles at the higher tiers — that's their territory, not ours.
Where a QR Card pulls ahead
CHECKLIST
No code to type
The scan is the whole join step. If a phone cannot focus, the presenter presses Q and the short URL fills the screen so the back row can read it out.
CHECKLIST
Printed before the room arrives
Badges, table tents, ticket stubs, poster walls — the paper is already in the room. The code never needs to be re-launched mid-session.
CHECKLIST
No plan gate on the screen or the CSV
Every free card carries the same projection screen as a paid one — 11 scene templates, presenter keyboard, milestone confetti, room-wide pause, PIN lock, wake-lock, session stages, CSV export with a 14-day trend.
Questions people actually ask when leaving a Q&A tool
Is a QR Card a Slido replacement?
For the moment the room reacts to one thing on screen, yes: check-in counts, feedback walls, one open question answered live. Not for a whole Q&A upvote stack or a moderated multi-topic discussion — that terrain is FormLM, our own multi-question product.
Do attendees need a join code?
No. They scan the printed card or the on-screen QR — the code is the join step. If a phone cannot focus, press Q on the presenter keyboard and the short URL fills the screen so the back row can read it out.
What does it cost?
The free plan is the whole product up to 10 live cards. Slido's poll-and-Q&A shapes live behind plan tiers; ours does not gate the screen or the CSV export behind a pay wall.