Snapshot Governance
Snapshot governance is a widely used off-chain voting platform that allows protocols to conduct polls without incurring the gas costs of on-chain transactions. Because it is off-chain, it does not directly execute changes to the protocol; instead, it serves as a signaling mechanism for the community.
The results of these votes are then manually or via multi-sig implemented on-chain by the protocol's developers or governance council. While it is highly accessible and encourages broader participation, it lacks the technical enforcement of on-chain governance.
This makes it vulnerable to scenarios where the community votes one way, but the executors choose to ignore the result. It is an excellent tool for gauging sentiment and building consensus before committing to expensive on-chain changes.