When you’re looking for a reliable software for inspections, two highly rated options are SafetyCulture (iAuditor) and Lumiform. Both offer powerful tools for checklists, action management, and reporting, but their approaches are different.
SafetyCulture is a long-standing platform with a diverse operational suite, including inspections. On the other hand, Lumiform is built with inspections and audits at its core, making it a strong SafetyCulture alternative.
In this guide, we’ll look at how they compare across core features, ease of use, pricing, data security, and more so you can decide which inspection software fits your team’s needs better.
What is Lumiform?
Lumiform is an inspection and audit platform that digitizes checklist processes so businesses can have end-to-end visibility. Traditionally, inspections are very time-consuming and error-prone, with limited transparency. Lumiform addresses this by making data collection simpler, even across multiple sites and teams. This gives companies real-time insights that drive continuous improvement.
Founded in Germany in 2019, its focus is on building a robust, intuitive app for keeping track of quality, safety, and operations standards. Currently, it’s used in more than 40 countries, across diverse industries from hospitality to manufacturing.
What is SafetyCulture (iAuditor)?
SafetyCulture is a broad operations platform that covers many areas: inspections, sensors and IoT, employee training, insurance, an equipment marketplace, and more. Founded in Australia in 2004, the company developed iAuditor in 2012 as an early digital inspection tool in the market. Since then, it has expanded to other apps related to workplace safety.
Today, SafetyCulture has a large ecosystem, with customers around the world and inspections only being one of its several modules. Through iAuditor, organizations can manage inspections on desktop or mobile, assign tasks, and generate reports.
Lumiform vs. SafetyCulture (iAuditor) at a glance
To start off, here’s a quick comparison of Lumiform and SafetyCulture (iAuditor) based on their paid plans:
Feature comparison: An in-depth breakdown
Now let’s take a detailed look at the differences between Lumiform and SafetyCulture as inspection platforms, from the user experience to key functionalities and pricing:
Ease of use
For inspections and audits, it’s critical to have tools that are fast to learn and easily understood by everyone on the team.
Among inspection software, Lumiform stands out for its high ease of use. With Lumiform, you can see at a glance how to create a form and set up an inspection, both on desktop and mobile. Actions, approvals, and reports are all neatly laid out in the dashboard, so it’s straightforward for teams to get started.
Users generally described it as “very clear,” and even “so simple that someone who has never used it before understands it immediately.” The lean interface helps reduce training time and speed up adoption, with G2 awarding the app as among the easiest to use.
SafetyCulture is also recognized for its usability, although the broader scope means that more menu options and modules appear right away. Even when only iAuditor is required, other modules for training, lone workers, and more are presented, with some requiring additional purchase to work. There is a rich amount of onboarding resources, but because of the additional layers of navigation, setup may take longer, with a steeper learning curve.
Mobile app
Both platforms provide mobile apps for teams to carry out inspections and checks from anywhere. Data is often collected from here, which can then be reviewed on the desktop version. Because of this, their apps offer offline use, saving information if offline–such as on the field–then syncing once there’s internet access.
Lumiform’s app is focused on guiding its users through inspections. The home screen shows reports in progress, so users can access them easily during the inspection process. Since the layout minimizes distractions from non-essential features, it’s ideal for on-the-go use, with no additional technical expertise needed. Frontline workers can quickly pull up the app, complete their tasks, and document results.
The mobile app for SafetyCulture is more of a mirror of its desktop version. This gives diverse functionality and offers many benefits as users can access training courses or go to an equipment marketplace, for example. However, it can make the mobile experience feel heavy, especially for teams who want to focus on checks and inspections.
Customization and workflow automation
At first glance, Lumiform and SafetyCulture’s iAuditor offer similar inspection features, with core capabilities such as:
- A flexible form builder, with instant templates
- Task management for corrective actions
- Notifications and reminders
- Automatic reporting, with analytics dashboards
From digitizing forms to setting alerts for issues, the two platforms take you through the whole process of conducting checks.
Looking more closely at SafetyCulture’s iAuditor for inspections, it has a solid set of tools, with a massive template library and broad integrations. There’s extensive support for media attachments. Asidee from this, you’ll find options for conditional logic, automated triggers, and workflow connections.
Lumiform’s approach involves extensive customization options through advanced logic settings as well. Workflows can be connected tightly, so that forms, actions, responses, and notifications can trigger each other with more precise settings and hierarchy control. This allows you to standardize your process better and spot inconsistencies faster, while saving time.
The best thing about Lumiform is that the software is incredibly flexible. We can create our own queries for different locations, customize forms exactly how we want them, and ask the questions that are important to each operation.
Customer support
Aside from the product itself, customer support is a major deciding factor when rolling out software across entire teams. Many reviews describe Lumiform’s customer support as personal, hands-on, and responsive. Enterprise clients also have access to dedicated customer success managers, who keep in touch with training sessions and quarterly reviews.
The support was always available whenever I had questions or needed to make adjustments… A support team that cares and proactively reaches out is invaluable to us.
SafetyCulture’s support is praised too for being helpful and knowledgeable, with extensive tutorials and documentation available. But as the company has scaled over the years, some users noted slower responses, such as being put on hold for hours over call, or difficulty reaching the right agent. This is a common trade-off for large providers; compared to Lumiform’s more personal approach, SafetyCulture’s support structure can feel less direct.
Pricing
Here’s how subscription works for Lumiform and SafetyCulture:
- SafetyCulture: Limited free plan with up to 5 active templates, then €21 ($24) per seat for Premium
- Lumiform: Minimum at 100€ for 5 users for Pro, with quantity discount
- Both have custom pricing for enterprise
Both platforms’ most important features are already accessible on Pro/Premium. The rate for Lumiform starts at 100€ for five users per month, or around 20€ per user. However, this per-user rate goes down as team size increases, so scaling is more cost-effective. Given the quantity discount, the price per user would be significantly lower at, say, 50 or 100 users. Enterprise features can also be purchased as add-ons, so companies only pay for the features they need instead of buying into a more expensive bundle.
With SafetyCulture, the rate is at $24 per month, or around €21 depending on exchange rates, from 11 to 150 seats. This subscription includes extra features, like custom integrations, lone worker functionalities, and sensors and IoT modules. The predictability can be appealing, but it becomes more expensive at scale, depending too on whether companies need the additional modules included in the plan.
Data security and hosting
For any inspection platform serving teams globally, strong data protection is a baseline.
SafetyCulture provides robust data security measures, including ISO 27001 and AI guardrails, with plenty of certifications. Its hosting is distributed across AWS centers in the US, Australia, and EU (Ireland). Today, customers can select where to store new data, but data was historically stored in the US before, and migrating older data requires an enterprise plan.
Since Lumiform is based in Germany, it puts emphasis on being GDPR-compliant, with all data hosted in AWS Frankfurt. This makes it more straightforward for European companies that must comply with strict data protection laws–no extra steps to ensure EU residency, with faster data transfers too. At the same time, Lumiform is compliant with international standards like ISO 27017 and 27018 and US privacy laws.
Integrations and reporting
When it comes to reporting, both platforms deliver the essentials: instant and automatic reporting with options for branding, as well as an analytics dashboard.
Lumiform allows you to schedule and generate organized reports that are easy to share, and its analytics are user-friendly and quick to customize, making reporting efficient. It also integrates with core tools like PowerBI and databases, and enterprise customers can request custom integrations if required.
As an operations platform, SafetyCulture has a wider integration ecosystem that extends into areas like telematics, asset management, and sensors. This is a good fit for organizations looking to connect several business functions in one system, but it can make setup more demanding, requiring greater IT involvement. The analytics suite is also extensive, with ready-to-use templates to get you started.
Lumiform vs. SafetyCulture (iAuditor): Choosing the right inspection software
As the breakdown above shows, both Lumiform and SafetyCulture have solid features, and either platform can help organizations digitize inspections across diverse industries.
SafetyCulture’s iAuditor has been around for more than 10 years, with the company’s coverage now expanding to operations beyond inspections. Lumiform is a newer platform based in Europe that’s dedicated to inspections and audits. It’s built to be easy to use for field workers, and it’s adaptable across different organizational structures and sizes. Workflow automation is another major component of the app. All of these make it a focused, more affordable SafetyCulture alternative for inspections, especially as your company grows.
Choose Lumiform if you want:
- A specialized inspection-first platform, without the overhead of extra modules like insurance and sensors
- High clarity and intuitiveness in design, making it efficient to use and faster to setup
- Cheaper pricing, since per-user costs get lower as you scale, with hands-on support
- A European provider with GDPR native, EU-based hosting
Choose SafetyCulture if you want:
- An all-in-one operations suite that also covers training, lone workers, PPE management, insurance, and IoT
- Wide integrations, including tools for asset management, telematics, and payroll
- A free option with restricted features, allowing you to use five active templates
If you’re looking to conduct inspections quickly and on the go, Lumiform offers a user-friendly solution that’s designed around frontline workers’ needs. Easier deployment is especially valuable in high-turnover industries like hospitality and retail, where new staff need to get up to speed fast.
With Lumiform, organizations can standardize processes and gain control and transparency, while reducing unneeded steps. Book a demo and see how it compares with other inspection apps based on your own workflows.