<p>For an open source JavaScript/HTML/CSS solution, check out <a href="https://www.jspsych.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">jsPsych</a>. It  can be used for reaction time measurement and interactive designs. An <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0458-y" rel="nofollow noreferrer">article describing the library</a> was recently published in Behavior Research Methods.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-015-0567-2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">subsequent article</a> investigated the properties of reaction time distributions collected with JavaScript compared to those collected with MATLAB and Psychtoolbox. The main result is that JavaScript was 10-40ms slower, but had equivalent variance across different experimental conditions and equal sensitivity to the experimental manipulation of set size in a visual search task.</p>
<p>There are several good answers to <a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/9584/how-valid-are-reaction-times-collected-from-online-studies">this related question</a> about the validity and accuracy of response time measurements online. Many of those answers discuss findings that are relevant to JavaScript libraries like jsPsych.</p>
<p>de Leeuw, J. R. (2015). jsPsych: A JavaScript library for creating behavioral experiments in a Web browser. <em>Behavior Research Methods</em>, <em>47</em>(1), 1-12.</p>
<p>de Leeuw, J. R., &amp; Motz, B. A. (2015). Psychophysics in a Web browser? Comparing response times collected with JavaScript and Psychophysics Toolbox in a visual search task. <em>Behavior Research Methods</em>, advance online publication.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-05T14:36:12.040Z
thanks - this look really promising and also very current - last update on github https://github.com/jodeleeuw/jsPsych was only 2 weeks ago
jacanterbury
CC BY-SA 4.0
2014-04-27T02:29:24.623Z
2022-01-02T05:56:46.337Z
2022-01-02T05:56:46.337Z
Josh
<p>We just released a beta version of Tatool Web based on JavaScript and HTML 5 which allows for running web experiments in the browser and measuring reaction times. You can check it out on www.tatool-web.com and of course it's open source.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.tatool-web.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.tatool-web.com</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-03T22:38:51.617Z
2015-01-05T03:16:05.757Z
2015-01-05T03:16:05.757Z
Tatool
<p>I'm not sure if it can measure reaction times but Tatool, developed at the University of Zurich, is an open source experiment platform that can be run from the web:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.tatool.ch/" rel="nofollow">http://www.tatool.ch/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-05-22T13:31:52.063Z
More recently, [they posted themselves here](http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/8974/21), stating it does support reaction times. :)
Steven Jeuris
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-01T06:25:12.110Z
2012-03-02T05:33:43.730Z
2012-03-02T05:33:43.730Z
mob
<p>This is in development within PsychoPy. Porting has begun on the Python lib underlying PsychoPy into a JavaScript lib (PsychoJS) and the Builder graphical interface can now generate the necessary html/js code for that.</p>

<p>The technology on the backend is using WebGL where available (nearly everywhere, including our phone) and this should give good timing in that it synchronises to the screen refresh. </p>

<p>It's early days and there aren't data on RT precision yet but expectations are high. And all this is open-source, of course.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.psychopy.org/online/online.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.psychopy.org/online/online.html</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-09T09:46:02.963Z
2017-02-09T09:46:02.963Z
Jon
<p><a href="http://www.webexp.info/" rel="nofollow">WebExp</a> is a free framework for developing web-based experiments, and the source code is freely available. The client side is a Java applet, so subjects must have Java installed on their computers. Perhaps this causes fewer drop-outs than having to install the executable generated by Inquisit Web. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19182118" rel="nofollow">This paper</a> discusses the timing accuracy of WebExp-based experiments.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-05T14:33:39.043Z
from a quick look at their website it doesn't look like this product has been worked on since 2009 :(
jacanterbury
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-14T16:24:33.063Z
2012-05-14T16:24:33.063Z
Peter Helfer
<p>To complement the answers, there's also <a href="http://www.jatos.org/" rel="nofollow">Just Another Tool for Online Studies:  JATOS</a> (disclaimer: I'm one of the authors). It's an open source tool that focusses on the server side. It will provide:</p>

<ul>
<li>a secure server</li>
<li>a database (MySQL or H2)</li>
<li>participant management (optionally prevents repeated access)</li>
<li>a graphical user interface to access results</li>
<li>run group studies in real-time</li>
<li>a few etceteras. </li>
</ul>

<p>Because JATOS focusses on the server side, it doesn't restrict in -almost- any way what you run in the browser (i.e., what you do in the client side). That means that it's actually complementary to a few of the tools that other answers suggested, that will mostly give you client-side solutions to present stimuli and measure reaction times in the browser. 
For the latter,  I use the <code>performance.now</code> method in JavaScript that runs in most browsers and works pretty well. Probably not for careful priming or multisensory integration-type experiments, though.   </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-05-21T19:08:26.977Z
2016-05-21T19:08:26.977Z
elisa
<p><a href="http://www.limesurvey.org/" rel="nofollow">Limesurvey</a> is worth checking out (more suitable for questionnaire style tasks, but very flexible and with some coding it should be possible to, eg. record RTs)</p>

<p><a href="http://wextor.org/wextor/en/" rel="nofollow">Wextor</a> could be another possibility - it allows building more complicated designs, has not been developed for a bit, though...</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-03-07T21:24:11.063Z
2012-03-07T21:24:11.063Z
schultem
<p>I am one of the core developers of <strong><a href="https://www.labvanced.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.labvanced.com</a></strong>, a very new and probably the most advanced online platform for creating, sharing, and conducting professional behavioral experiments. <br>
There is a complete visual interface, so no need to program a single line of code, but still you can still write if statements, while loops, and asynchronous loadings etc. In fact any arbitrary logic, presenting video, audio, text and many more elements is possible, at the same time ensuring spatially and temporally very precise presentation in fullscreen mode.<br>
From a data-recording perspective we allow, recording of any mouse and keyboard events, voice recording via microphone and eye and face tracking via webcam. We also offer automated text translations to over 50 languages, and have integrated crowdsourcing capabilities (mTurk etc.) to millions of participants worldwide. <br>
Finally all experiments can run online in the browser or locally on your computer / in your lab, and you can simple start by using one of our over 50 experimental templates on <strong><a href="https://www.labvanced.com/expLibrary.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.labvanced.com/expLibrary.html</a></strong> <br>
Most importantly there is a <strong>free version</strong> of our software and we are currently working to <strong>open source the source code on github</strong>.
Just check it out at <strong><a href="https://www.labvanced.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.labvanced.com</a></strong>.</p>

<p>If you have any more quesiton, feel free to write me message.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-08T07:58:51.050Z
2018-01-08T07:58:51.050Z
user18095
<p>I would highly recommend looking at  <a href="http://www.qualtrics.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.qualtrics.com/</a>. You can take a look at free trial accounts and see how its easy to use interface is still extremely sophisticated – e.g. automatic option to record response time – and can be augmented with javascript when you want to.</p>

<p>I'm not sure of pricing because many universities often buy a site license. But Qualtrics has revolutionized the way we do experiments.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-27T13:10:13.447Z
Hi Joseph. Welcome to the site. It's great to have someone with your background and expertise involved on the site. I guess Qualtrics isn't open source. Is Qualtrics mainly for surveys or can you do experiments involving multimedia, reaction time, randomisation of stimuli, etc?
Jeromy Anglim
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-05T14:27:41.597Z
The questions clearly asks (in bold) for Open Source Options and Qualtrics is a commercial package. Also, although I don't think the builtin timing features will have the precision of psychology response time type experiments without writin gyour own Javscript.
jacanterbury
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-27T09:42:46.317Z
2012-04-27T09:42:46.317Z
Joseph
<p>You should have a look at <a href="http://www.otree.org/" rel="nofollow">otree</a>, "a Django-based framework for implementing multiplayer decision strategy games".</p>

<p>It is manly designed for experimental economics, but it is a very neat and versatile piece of software, and I am sure you could actually run most psychological experiment with it.</p>

<p>Once the experiment is coded, it only requires internet access and a browser on the part of the participant.</p>

<p><strong>Big plus</strong> : otree comprises functionalities to connect with Amazon Mechanical Turk.</p>

<p><strong>Caveat</strong> : I don't know if collecting reaction time data is a baseline option, but it should not be too hard to code into the framework.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-09T16:00:05.240Z
2016-05-21T22:06:17.987Z
2016-05-21T22:06:17.987Z
Martin Van der Linden
<p><a href="https://gorilla.sc/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Gorilla</a> is cloud based software specifically designed for running reaction time behavioural science experiments online. It's not free, but it is affordable (£0.75 per respondent) and interfaces with popular recruitment services like mTurk and Prolific Academic.</p>

<p>There is a GUI questionnaire builder, task builder and experiment tree builder. So you don't need to do any coding. The vast majority of cognitive science tasks can be created in it very easily.</p>

<p>You can also add snippets of JavaScript to add custom functionality or use the built in code editor tool to create a completely bespoke task.</p>

<p>Disclosure: I built the Gorilla platform.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-04T11:11:20.597Z
2017-12-04T11:59:34.627Z
2017-12-04T11:59:34.627Z
Jo Evershed
<p>I've often used <a href="http://www.millisecond.com/">Inquisit</a> to run psychological experiments online. The software enables delivery of stimuli (e.g., text, images, etc.) and collection of reaction times. </p>

<p>Obviously general purpose programming languages provide one avenue for delivery of online experiments. There's also a good listing of software for psychological experiments <a href="http://www.psychology.org/links/Resources/Software/">here</a>. I've also seen <a href="http://volition.leeds.ac.uk/psytoolkit/">PsyToolkit</a> which is GNU licensed software for programming psychological experiments, but I'm not aware of any online option.</p>

<p><strong>Are there any open source options for online delivery of psychological experiments, particularly ones that enable reaction time measurement?</strong></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-09T12:28:02.197Z
I think the question (or answers?) might need a bit refinement in that response time measurements are easy in terms of accuracies in the order of seconds, but it becomes exceedingly difficult if tens-of-milliseconds-accuracy is necessary.
AliceD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-07T21:40:07.170Z
@Christiaan that's not accurate. Many web technologies are accurate on the scale of tens-of-milliseconds.
Josh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-07T21:42:00.770Z
@Josh - then why did I have to work for months to get my laptop running within the millisecond-range accuracy? Many applications may claim they do well, but it needs thorough validation. For example, a USB port imposes an 8-ms delay on anything you throw in there due to polling. At least on a Windows machine that is.
AliceD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-07T21:43:22.873Z
Validation exists. There are several published papers showing accuracy on the order of 50ms. See answers here: http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/9584/how-valid-are-reaction-times-collected-from-online-studies
Josh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-08T09:41:47.743Z
Reaction time measurement can be iffy even without a network in between as someone found out here recently:  https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/18084/accuracy-of-psychopy-keystroke-duration-measurement I'm even more doubtful on the accuracy of things measured in a web browser (which is a massive piece of software)... although given that games and such can be done in some, perhaps they are good enough (on average). But are they predictable enough?
got trolled too much this week
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-02-20T08:43:36.560Z
HTML5 is really capable and could be used to construct reaction time experiments. While I have no data on response registration latency, I can't imagine that it is that bad. A plus with using HTML is that you can run pilots (or studies) on Amazon Mechanical turk, which is a very convenient way of rallying participants. See for example:  Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data? _Perspectives on Psychological Science_, 6(1), 3-5. doi:10.1177/1745691610393980
Rasmus Bååth
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-02-06T22:27:47.167Z
I'm curious about this too. I use Adobe Flash to write psychological experiments -- the opposite of open source!
Andy DeSoto
<methodology><software><internet>
Open source software for running Internet psychological experiments that collect reaction time data
Jeromy Anglim
# Open source software for running Internet psychological experiments that collect reaction time data

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-01-21)

I've often used [Inquisit](http://www.millisecond.com/) to run psychological experiments online. The software enables delivery of stimuli (e.g., text, images, etc.) and collection of reaction times.

Obviously general purpose programming languages provide one avenue for delivery of online experiments. There's also a good listing of software for psychological experiments [here](http://www.psychology.org/links/Resources/Software/). I've also seen [PsyToolkit](http://volition.leeds.ac.uk/psytoolkit/) which is GNU licensed software for programming psychological experiments, but I'm not aware of any online option.

**Are there any open source options for online delivery of psychological experiments, particularly ones that enable reaction time measurement?**

**Tags:** methodology, software, internet

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: I'm curious about this too. I use Adobe Flash to write psychological experiments -- the opposite of open source!  
> **username_4**: HTML5 is really capable and could be used to construct reaction time experiments. While I have no data on response registration latency, I can't imagine that it is that bad. A plus with using HTML is that you can run pilots (or studies) on Amazon Mechanical turk, which is a very convenient way of rallying participants. See for example:  Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data? _Perspectives on Psychological Science_, 6(1), 3-5. doi:10.1177/1745691610393980  
> **username_1**: I think the question (or answers?) might need a bit refinement in that response time measurements are easy in terms of accuracies in the order of seconds, but it becomes exceedingly difficult if tens-of-milliseconds-accuracy is necessary.  
> **username_2**: @Christiaan that's not accurate. Many web technologies are accurate on the scale of tens-of-milliseconds.  
> **username_1**: @username_2 - then why did I have to work for months to get my laptop running within the millisecond-range accuracy? Many applications may claim they do well, but it needs thorough validation. For example, a USB port imposes an 8-ms delay on anything you throw in there due to polling. At least on a Windows machine that is.  
> **username_2**: Validation exists. There are several published papers showing accuracy on the order of 50ms. See answers here: http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/9584/how-valid-are-reaction-times-collected-from-online-studies  
> **username_3**: Reaction time measurement can be iffy even without a network in between as someone found out here recently:  https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/18084/accuracy-of-psychopy-keystroke-duration-measurement I'm even more doubtful on the accuracy of things measured in a web browser (which is a massive piece of software)... although given that games and such can be done in some, perhaps they are good enough (on average). But are they predictable enough?  

---

## 11 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-04-27. Score: 13

For an open source JavaScript/HTML/CSS solution, check out [jsPsych](https://www.jspsych.org/). It can be used for reaction time measurement and interactive designs. An [article describing the library](http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0458-y) was recently published in Behavior Research Methods.

A [subsequent article](http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-015-0567-2) investigated the properties of reaction time distributions collected with JavaScript compared to those collected with MATLAB and Psychtoolbox. The main result is that JavaScript was 10-40ms slower, but had equivalent variance across different experimental conditions and equal sensitivity to the experimental manipulation of set size in a visual search task.

There are several good answers to [this related question](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/9584/how-valid-are-reaction-times-collected-from-online-studies) about the validity and accuracy of response time measurements online. Many of those answers discuss findings that are relevant to JavaScript libraries like jsPsych.

de Leeuw, J. R. (2015). jsPsych: A JavaScript library for creating behavioral experiments in a Web browser. *Behavior Research Methods*, *47*(1), 1-12.

de Leeuw, J. R., & Motz, B. A. (2015). Psychophysics in a Web browser? Comparing response times collected with JavaScript and Psychophysics Toolbox in a visual search task. *Behavior Research Methods*, advance online publication.

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: thanks - this look really promising and also very current - last update on github https://github.com/jodeleeuw/jsPsych was only 2 weeks ago  

---

### Answer by username_7 on 2015-01-03. Score: 5

We just released a beta version of username_7 Web based on JavaScript and HTML 5 which allows for running web experiments in the browser and measuring reaction times. You can check it out on www.tatool-web.com and of course it's open source.

<http://www.tatool-web.com>


---

### Answer by username_8 on 2012-03-01. Score: 4

I'm not sure if it can measure reaction times but username_7, developed at the University of Zurich, is an open source experiment platform that can be run from the web:

<http://www.tatool.ch/>

> **Comments:**
> **username_9**: More recently, [they posted themselves here](http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/8974/21), stating it does support reaction times. :)  

---

### Answer by username_10 on 2017-02-09. Score: 4

This is in development within PsychoPy. Porting has begun on the Python lib underlying PsychoPy into a JavaScript lib (PsychoJS) and the Builder graphical interface can now generate the necessary html/js code for that.

The technology on the backend is using WebGL where available (nearly everywhere, including our phone) and this should give good timing in that it synchronises to the screen refresh.

It's early days and there aren't data on RT precision yet but expectations are high. And all this is open-source, of course.

<http://www.psychopy.org/online/online.html>


---

### Answer by username_13 on 2012-03-07. Score: 4

[Limesurvey](http://www.limesurvey.org/) is worth checking out (more suitable for questionnaire style tasks, but very flexible and with some coding it should be possible to, eg. record RTs)

[Wextor](http://wextor.org/wextor/en/) could be another possibility - it allows building more complicated designs, has not been developed for a bit, though...


---

### Answer by username_11 on 2012-05-14. Score: 3

[WebExp](http://www.webexp.info/) is a free framework for developing web-based experiments, and the source code is freely available. The client side is a Java applet, so subjects must have Java installed on their computers. Perhaps this causes fewer drop-outs than having to install the executable generated by Inquisit Web. [This paper](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19182118) discusses the timing accuracy of WebExp-based experiments.

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: from a quick look at their website it doesn't look like this product has been worked on since 2009 :(  

---

### Answer by username_12 on 2016-05-21. Score: 3

To complement the answers, there's also [Just Another Tool for Online Studies: JATOS](http://www.jatos.org/) (disclaimer: I'm one of the authors). It's an open source tool that focusses on the server side. It will provide:

* a secure server
* a database (MySQL or H2)
* participant management (optionally prevents repeated access)
* a graphical user interface to access results
* run group studies in real-time
* a few etceteras.

Because JATOS focusses on the server side, it doesn't restrict in -almost- any way what you run in the browser (i.e., what you do in the client side). That means that it's actually complementary to a few of the tools that other answers suggested, that will mostly give you client-side solutions to present stimuli and measure reaction times in the browser.
For the latter, I use the `performance.now` method in JavaScript that runs in most browsers and works pretty well. Probably not for careful priming or multisensory integration-type experiments, though.


---

### Answer by username_14 on 2018-01-08. Score: 1

I am one of the core developers of **<https://www.labvanced.com>**, a very new and probably the most advanced online platform for creating, sharing, and conducting professional behavioral experiments.   
There is a complete visual interface, so no need to program a single line of code, but still you can still write if statements, while loops, and asynchronous loadings etc. In fact any arbitrary logic, presenting video, audio, text and many more elements is possible, at the same time ensuring spatially and temporally very precise presentation in fullscreen mode.  
From a data-recording perspective we allow, recording of any mouse and keyboard events, voice recording via microphone and eye and face tracking via webcam. We also offer automated text translations to over 50 languages, and have integrated crowdsourcing capabilities (mTurk etc.) to millions of participants worldwide.   
Finally all experiments can run online in the browser or locally on your computer / in your lab, and you can simple start by using one of our over 50 experimental templates on **<https://www.labvanced.com/expLibrary.html>**   
Most importantly there is a **free version** of our software and we are currently working to **open source the source code on github**.
Just check it out at **<https://www.labvanced.com>**.

If you have any more quesiton, feel free to write me message.


---

### Answer by username_15 on 2012-04-27. Score: 1

I would highly recommend looking at <http://www.qualtrics.com/>. You can take a look at free trial accounts and see how its easy to use interface is still extremely sophisticated – e.g. automatic option to record response time – and can be augmented with javascript when you want to.

I'm not sure of pricing because many universities often buy a site license. But Qualtrics has revolutionized the way we do experiments.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Hi username_15. Welcome to the site. It's great to have someone with your background and expertise involved on the site. I guess Qualtrics isn't open source. Is Qualtrics mainly for surveys or can you do experiments involving multimedia, reaction time, randomisation of stimuli, etc?  
> **username_6**: The questions clearly asks (in bold) for Open Source Options and Qualtrics is a commercial package. Also, although I don't think the builtin timing features will have the precision of psychology response time type experiments without writin gyour own Javscript.  

---

### Answer by username_16 on 2015-09-09. Score: 1

You should have a look at [otree](http://www.otree.org/), "a Django-based framework for implementing multiplayer decision strategy games".

It is manly designed for experimental economics, but it is a very neat and versatile piece of software, and I am sure you could actually run most psychological experiment with it.

Once the experiment is coded, it only requires internet access and a browser on the part of the participant.

**Big plus** : otree comprises functionalities to connect with Amazon Mechanical Turk.

**Caveat** : I don't know if collecting reaction time data is a baseline option, but it should not be too hard to code into the framework.


---

### Answer by username_17 on 2017-12-04. Score: 1

[Gorilla](https://gorilla.sc/) is cloud based software specifically designed for running reaction time behavioural science experiments online. It's not free, but it is affordable (£0.75 per respondent) and interfaces with popular recruitment services like mTurk and Prolific Academic.

There is a GUI questionnaire builder, task builder and experiment tree builder. So you don't need to do any coding. The vast majority of cognitive science tasks can be created in it very easily.

You can also add snippets of JavaScript to add custom functionality or use the built in code editor tool to create a completely bespoke task.

Disclosure: I built the Gorilla platform.


---

