GravityBoard Voting vs. Ratings & Reviews

Quick Comparison #

When to Use GravityBoard Voting #

GravityBoard Voting is best when you want users to prioritize or rank items within a visual Kanban workflow. Common use cases:

• Feature request boards — users vote on which features matter most, with a limited budget that forces them to choose
• Project prioritization — teams distribute votes across tasks to surface what’s most important
• Idea boards — collect quick yes/no signals on proposals without requiring detailed reviews
• Sprint planning — let team members vote on backlog items to decide what to work on next

Key advantages:

• The vote budget prevents any single user from dominating results — everyone gets the same number of votes to distribute
• Voting is fast — one click per card, no forms to fill out
• Cards can optionally sort by vote count, so the most popular items rise to the top of each lane
• Integrated into the Kanban workflow — vote on cards as you move them through stages
• Lane restrictions — limit voting to specific lanes (e.g., allow voting in “Ideas” but not “Done”)
• GravityView integration — display vote counts and interactive vote widgets in GravityView layouts, with sorting and “Voted By” filtering

When to Use Ratings & Reviews #

Ratings & Reviews is best when you want detailed, qualitative feedback displayed alongside entries in a GravityView. It offers two review types you choose per View: Vote (up/down) or 5-Star Rating. Common use cases:

• Business directories — visitors rate and review listed businesses with stars and written feedback
• Product catalogs — customers leave star ratings and written reviews
• Course evaluations — students rate and comment on classes
• Community polls — quick up/down voting on entries displayed in a GravityView table or list

Key advantages:

• Two review modes — choose between up/down voting or 5-star ratings per View
• Written reviews with titles, review text, and threaded replies
• 5-star scale provides more nuanced feedback than binary up/down
• No login required — anonymous visitors can leave ratings (since v2.3)
• Built on WordPress’s comment moderation system for review management
• Reviewer avatars can be displayed next to reviews
• Editable reviews with a configurable time window

Can I Use Both? #

Yes. If you have a form connected to both a GravityBoard feed and a GravityView, you can enable voting on the board and ratings/votes in the View. They operate independently — votes on the board don’t affect ratings in the View, and vice versa.

This can be useful when different audiences interact with the same data in different ways. For example:

• An internal team uses the Kanban board to vote on and prioritize feature requests
• Customers use a public GravityView to browse and leave star ratings or votes on the same entries

Feature Details #

Voting Modes

GravityBoard: Up/down arrows on each card. Enable “Upvote Only” to hide the downvote button. Users can put multiple budget points on a single card.

Ratings & Reviews: Choose per View between two modes:

• Vote (up/down) — similar to GravityBoard but without a budget. Downvoting can be disabled.
• 5-Star Rating — users select 1-5 stars. Reviews can optionally include a title and written text.

Vote Budget

GravityBoard’s budget system is unique. Each user gets a fixed number of votes to spread across all cards. This forces prioritization — you can’t just upvote everything. Budgets can reset daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or never.

Ratings & Reviews has no equivalent budget system. Users can rate or vote on every entry without restriction (though you can limit to one review per person per entry).

Lane Restrictions

GravityBoard Voting can be restricted to specific lanes using the “Lanes with Voting” setting. Cards in non-voting lanes show a disabled widget with the vote count still visible. This is useful for allowing voting only in early-stage lanes.

Ratings & Reviews has no equivalent — reviews are available on all entries in a View.

Sorting

Both features support sorting entries by feedback:

• GravityBoard: Cards sort by total vote count within each lane. Enable “Sort Cards by Votes” in board settings. In GravityView, set the View’s default sort to “Votes Count” or click the column header to sort.
• Ratings & Reviews: Entries sort by average star rating or by number of upvotes in GravityView. Configure sorting in the View settings.

GravityView Fields

GravityBoard adds two GravityView fields:

• Votes Count — displays the aggregate vote count (read-only). Shows “—” for entries that have never been voted on.
• Entry Voting — displays the interactive vote widget (up/down buttons). Votes are fully synced with the board.

Ratings & Reviews adds three GravityView fields:

• Rate Entry — displays the voting or rating widget (up/down buttons or star selector)
• Stars Rating — displays the entry’s aggregate star rating (read-only display)
• Votes Rating — displays the aggregate up/down vote count (read-only display)

Merge Tags

Both features provide merge tags for Gravity Forms notifications:

GravityBoard:

• {gravityboard_voters:emails}  — comma-separated list of voter email addresses
• {gravityboard_votes:count}  — total number of voters
• {gravityboard_votes:total}  — net vote total
• {gravityboard_votes:average}  — average vote weight
• {gravityboard_votes:up}  — number of upvotes
• {gravityboard_votes:down}  — number of downvotes

Ratings & Reviews (12 merge tags):

• {gv_entry_ratings:review_count}  — total number of reviews
• {gv_entry_ratings:average_stars}  — average star rating
• {gv_entry_ratings:1_star}  through {gv_entry_ratings:5_stars}  — count at each star level
• {gv_entry_ratings:empty_star}  — count of reviews without a star rating
• {gv_entry_ratings:vote_total}  — net vote total
• {gv_entry_ratings:up_votes}  — number of upvotes
• {gv_entry_ratings:down_votes}  — number of downvotes
• {gv_entry_ratings:neutral_votes}  — number of neutral votes

Permissions

• GravityBoard Voting: Requires login. Permissions controlled by user role — configure “Who Can Vote on Cards” and “Who Can See Who Voted” separately.
• Ratings & Reviews: Supports anonymous ratings (v2.3+). Can limit to one review per person per entry. Administrators can always leave unlimited reviews. Uses WordPress comment moderation for review approval.