liqd.net

What It Is

Liquid Democracy is a Berlin-based nonprofit organization in Germany whose goal is to make democratic decision-making more participatory, transparent, and equal through the internet. It develops the free participation software Adhocracy and operates or supports projects such as adhocracy+, meinBerlin, and Zukunft D. Strictly speaking, it is more of a public-interest digital participation platform and consulting provider than a traditional enterprise SaaS vendor.

Core Features and Deployment

adhocracy+ is designed for NGOs, communities, citizens’ councils, and political organizations to quickly set up digital participation processes. Publicly listed modules include brainstorming, map-based brainstorming, idea competitions, text discussions, surveys, participatory budgeting, prioritization, interactive events, and debates. meinBerlin is a platform for Berlin residents to take part in urban decision-making and planning. It supports a single registration for participation in multiple projects, while administrative staff can configure processes through a management interface. adhocracy+ is described as a self-hosted participation platform, with code released under the AGPLv3 open-source license, and it can also be used by registering at adhocracy.plus.

Pricing and Support

The website clearly states that adhocracy+ is simple and free, and that it aims to finance itself through donations. It also offers free workshops and provides consulting and process implementation experience for organizations, initiatives, and public administrations. We did not find per-seat, per-project, or enterprise pricing, nor common commercial SaaS information such as SLA, paid support, or payment methods.

Pros and Cons

Its strengths are that it is open source and free, covers the core scenarios of public participation, and has a long-running government-level reference case in meinBerlin: around 45,000 users, nearly 2,300 projects, and more than 100,000 ideas, comments, and survey responses. It also emphasizes combining online tools with offline events and training, making it suitable for real public participation workflows. The drawbacks are limited disclosure around third-party integrations, APIs, permission details, security, and compliance certifications. Its case studies are mainly rooted in the German public-sector context, with limited information on suitability for internal enterprise collaboration or local government projects in China.

Who It’s For and Access from China

It is suitable for governments, urban planning departments, NGOs, community organizations, and public policy research institutions for use cases such as opinion collection, participatory budgeting, planning announcements, public discussions, and event interaction. There is no information in the main content about access from China, so its status is unknown; payment information is also not disclosed. If deployed in China, factors such as network accessibility, Chinese localization, data compliance, and self-hosting capability may need to be assessed. Alternatives to consider include Decidim, Consul Democracy, Pol.is, CitizenLab, as well as lighter-weight domestic tools such as Wenjuanxing, Jindata, and Tencent Questionnaire.