Form Maker vs Formidable Forms: A Comparative Analysis

Posted by Josh Blackburn, in Contact Form Plugins

Overview of Form Maker and Formidable Forms

When exploring WordPress form builders, we encounter a variety of options that excel in creating interactive forms for websites. Form Maker and Formidable Forms are two widely recognized plugins in this field.

Form Maker is a user-friendly plugin that allows us to construct forms with a simple drag-and-drop interface. We can create forms tailored to our needs, ranging from simple contact forms to detailed surveys and quizzes. It includes:

• Pre-built templates
• Multiple field options
• Basic conditional logic

On the other hand, Formidable Forms is identified as a more advanced solution for WordPress users. This plugin enables us to:

• Develop complex forms
• Utilize advanced calculations
• Employ comprehensive conditional logic
• Integrate multi-page forms with file uploads

Here’s a quick comparison:

Our evaluation reveals that while both plugins offer robust support, Formidable Forms typically provides a more extensive range of advanced features, which are suitable for complex form building scenarios. In contrast, Form Maker is deemed suitable for those of us who prefer simplicity and ease of use with less complex requirements.

Key Features Comparison

In assessing Form Maker and Formidable Forms, we focus on their form building capabilities, range of templates, user experience, and advanced features like conditional logic and dynamic fields.

Form Building Capabilities

Formidable Forms boasts a robust drag-and-drop form builder, enabling users to create complex forms efficiently. With repeater fields and multi-page form support, it excels in allowing for intricate form structures. In contrast, Form Maker also offers a drag-and-drop interface, but it may have limitations when it comes to very advanced form functionalities.

Form Templates and Customization

When it comes to form templates, Formidable Forms provides a vast array of pre-built form templates, including contact forms, registration forms, and calculator forms. These templates facilitate rapid deployment and customization. Form Maker also offers various form templates; however, the spectrum might not be as extensive as Formidable Forms, which stands out with its detailed customization options.

User Experience Design

Formidable Forms emphasizes user experience with responsive forms that adjust to any device, ensuring a seamless experience for form submitters. It also offers conversational forms, which aim to increase interaction rates. While Form Maker ensures an easy-to-use interface and responsive forms, the depth of user engagement tools it offers is typically more straightforward.

Conditional Logic and Dynamic Fields

Both Formidable Forms and Form Maker support conditional logic, which is crucial for creating dynamic and interactive forms. Calculations and data manipulation are also available in both, although Formidable Forms might offer a more extensive set of options and flexibility with these features. Formidable Forms further incorporates a datepicker and powerful conditional logic, for a high level of sophistication in dynamic form creation. Form Maker also offers conditional logic and dynamic fields but might be more suited to simpler conditional applications.

In our analysis, we find that the choice between Form Maker and Formidable Forms should be guided by the complexity and customization level required for the forms at hand.

Integration and Add-Ons

To ensure our forms serve every function required, we rely on key integrations and add-ons. These elements allow us to enhance functionality, connect with various services, and manage data effectively.

Email Marketing and CRM Platforms

We seamlessly integrate with Email Marketing and CRM Platforms to maximize the reach and impact of our forms. Integration with services like MailChimp streamlines the process of adding contacts to our mailing lists.

• MailChimp: Automate email list population upon form submission.
• CRM Integration: Transfer form data directly to our CRM systems, simplifying lead management.

Payment Processors Integration

Our Payment Processors Integration ensures secure and efficient transactions. We offer compatibility with leading payment gateways, significantly expanding our e-commerce capabilities.

• PayPal: Enables instant payment collection upon form completion.
• Stripe and Authorize.Net: Provide robust payment options that maintain high security standards.

Advanced Data Management

We prioritize Advanced Data Management to offer sophisticated handling of form entries. This includes powerful features for both entry management and data organization.

• Entry Management: Full control to view, edit, or delete form submissions.
• Import/Export: Simplify the migration of form data between systems.
• Cascading Lookup Fields: These fields allow dynamic filtering options based on previous selections.

Ease of Use and Accessibility

When comparing Form Maker and Formidable Forms, we find distinct aspects that stand out in terms of ease of use and accessibility. Both offer a user-friendly experience, but they shine in different ways.

Beginner-Friendly Approach

Form Maker distinguishes itself with a straightforward drag-and-drop interface that makes form creation accessible to beginners. We appreciate the light learning curve, as new users can quickly understand the process. Formidable Forms, while also intuitive, offers a nuanced experience that caters to both beginners and advanced users with additional customization options.

• Form Maker

  • Drag-and-Drop Interface: Yes
  • Beginner-Oriented: Yes
  • Lite/Free Version: Usually offers basic features

• Formidable Forms

  • Drag-and-Drop Interface: Yes
  • Beginner to Advanced: Yes
  • Lite/Free Version: Limitations—access to form entries usually requires the Pro version

Comprehensive Documentation and Support

Both platforms understand the importance of exceptional documentation and support, which bolster user confidence and reduce potential frustration. Form Maker offers comprehensive guides, ensuring users have access to the necessary knowledge to use the tool effectively. Customer support is available to address any issues that arise.

Formidable Forms boasts a robust documentation system, which is complemented by a supportive community and professional customer service, allowing users to overcome any obstacles they face during form development. Educational resources are also available to enhance user experience and provide learning opportunities for advanced form development and integration capabilities.

• Form Maker

  • Documentation: Comprehensive
  • Support: Available and Responsive

• Formidable Forms

  • Documentation: Detailed with advanced user guides
  • Support: Professional with a strong community presence

In our analysis, we see that both Form Maker and Formidable Forms prioritize making the user’s journey easier through well-designed interfaces and strong support structures.

Security and Spam Protection

In our comparison of Form Maker and Formidable Forms, a crucial aspect to consider is their approach to security and spam protection. Both plugins offer robust features designed to secure forms from malicious entries and automated spam, ensuring a secure experience for both users and administrators.

Captcha Implementation

Form Maker provides recaptcha, a widely-used system that challenges users to confirm they are not robots. This feature is critical in the prevention of automated spam and ensures that only genuine users can submit forms. Implementing recaptcha involves a simple setup within the form settings, and it serves as a first line of defense against spam.

Formidable Forms, on the other hand, utilizes an invisible spam protection technique known as Honeypot. This method is seamless from a user’s point of view, as it doesn’t require any interaction like recaptcha does. The Honeypot feature is automatically enabled on all forms, and it functions by identifying and blocking suspicious submissions behind the scenes.

Pricing and Value for Money

When assessing Form Maker and Formidable Forms, it is crucial to consider both their pricing and the value for money they offer, particularly if we’re integrating them into a WordPress environment.

Form Maker presents a variety of pricing tiers. Its base price starts at $45, making it a cost-effective choice for those on a tighter budget. For users seeking more advanced features, upgrading to a premium version would be the next step, although specific costs for higher tiers aren’t detailed here.

In contrast, Formidable Forms operates on a slightly higher pricing scale, with its basic plan kicking off at $79 per year. This plan includes over 50 form templates, conditional logic, and file uploads. For more extensive needs, Formidable Forms scales up with several plans, including:

• Plus: $99.50/year
• Business: $199.50/year
• Elite: $299.50/year

Each tier offers progressively more features such as app shortcuts and increased site licenses. It is worth noting that there is also a free version available, which might be suitable for users with minimalistic requirements or those who wish to try the plugin before investing.

We have to make a note regarding WPForms, which is another popular form-building plugin, to provide a comprehensive view. While specific WPForms pricing is not mentioned, it is known for its tiered pricing structure that caters to a range of needs, from basic to enterprise-level users.

In terms of value, both Form Maker and Formidable Forms carry a GNU/GPL license, providing the flexibility and freedom associated with open-source software. The consideration of cost against features is essential in determining which form plugin provides the best value for our money.

WordPress Compatibility

When we consider the compatibility of WordPress form builders like Form Maker and Formidable Forms, it’s essential to focus on two vital aspects: integration with other WordPress features and the ease of embedding forms into posts and pages via shortcodes.

WordPress Forms Integration

Both Form Maker and Formidable Forms are designed to integrate smoothly with a WordPress website. These plugins provide a suite of tools that allow us to create a variety of forms, from simple contact forms to complex, multi-page forms with conditional logic.

• Form Maker: Offers a user-friendly interface that makes it compatible with virtually all WordPress themes and plugins. It supports a selection of fields which we can drag and drop, reorder, and customize according to our needs. It also integrates with popular WordPress plugins for email marketing and payment processing.

• Formidable Forms: Is known for its robust feature set, granting us deeper integration capabilities. It lets us pick from a vast library of templates and to further customize how our forms behave within the WordPress ecosystem, such as linking to posts, user data, and taxonomies.

Shortcode Support and Embedding

Shortcode functionality in a WordPress forms plugin ensures that we can embed forms into our content with minimal fuss. Both Form Maker and Formidable Forms offer this feature, allowing us to insert forms into pages, posts, and widget areas.

• Form Maker: Generates a unique shortcode for each form we create. We can simply copy and paste this shortcode into a post or page editor to display the form.

• Formidable Forms: Similarly uses shortcodes to embed forms into our content. Its added benefit includes the ability to customize form appearance and functionality directly through the shortcode by including additional attributes and values.

In both cases, the use of shortcodes makes the form integration process straightforward and manageable without the need for extensive coding knowledge. Shortcode embedding plays a vital role since it gives us the flexibility to select where and how our forms appear on our WordPress site.

Engagement and Interaction Tools

We recognize that the heart of understanding user preferences and improving service relies heavily on efficient engagement and interaction tools within form builders. In this section, we’re honing in on how Form Maker and Formidable Forms facilitate surveys, polls, and customer feedback, ensuring that you, the site owner, can capture the insights needed to grow and refine your online presence.

Surveys and Polls

Form Maker provides us with a user-friendly interface to create various types of interactive surveys and polls. Our ability to include different question types, such as multiple-choice, check-boxes, and drop-down menus, enhances the user experience and increases the likelihood of response. We appreciate the drag-and-drop functionality which simplifies the creation process. Moreover, the integration of star ratings allows for instant visual feedback.

With Formidable Forms, we observe a robust feature set that supports complex survey and poll creation. It enables us to craft intricate forms that can incorporate conditional logic, thereby adapting to the user’s input for a more targeted response. This ensures a tailored interaction that collects more nuanced data.

Customer Feedback Features

When considering customer feedback, Form Maker offers basic tools that serve well for simple feedback requirements. We can employ text boxes and star ratings to gather customer opinions and sentiments quickly.

On the other hand, Formidable Forms goes a step further by providing comprehensive feedback features. This includes a range of feedback form templates and more advanced field options, like likert scales and customizable HTML blocks, for a more personalized approach. These advanced tools not only gather feedback effectively but also make the analysis of the data more straightforward for us.

Advanced Functionality

When comparing Form Maker and Formidable Forms, it becomes evident that each platform caters to advanced user needs with specific features enabling detailed form creation and data management.

Front-End Editing and Posting

Front-end editing capabilities are crucial for a seamless user experience. Formidable Forms provides a comprehensive solution where users can edit entries on the front-end without the need to navigate to the dashboard. This is facilitated by Formidable Views, which allows the display of form entries and an editing option directly on the website’s front-end.

• Formidable Views: Custom display of data for editing and posting by users.
• User Registration: Simplifies the process by allowing new users to register via a front-end form.

Form Maker, while offering front-end editing, puts focus on user-friendliness, with easy-to-manage settings that enable non-developers to implement these features.

Graphs and Reporting

Effective data analysis hinges on the ability to visualize and report data. With Formidable Forms, you benefit from advanced Graphs and Charts capabilities that allow you to generate detailed, insightful reports directly from the form entries.

• Repeater Field: Collects multiple sets of data, like team members in a project, which can be graphically represented.

Form Maker also provides tools for graphical data representation, ensuring that users can create reports and graphs that effectively showcase the data collected from their forms.

• Graphs: Visualize submission data which aids in analysis and presentations.
• Calculator Form: Enable complex calculations and present the data through graphical depictions.

Both platforms provide robust solutions for a tailored approach to data visualization, ensuring that the forms are not just a means of data collection but also a powerful analysis tool.

Comparison in Specific Use Cases

When selecting a form plugin for specific use cases like multi-page forms or e-commerce transactional forms, it’s essential to understand how each plugin handles these scenarios efficiently.

Multi-Page and Complex Forms

In the realm of multi-page and complex forms, Formidable Forms shines by providing a robust solution with its intuitive drag-and-drop interface that facilitates the creation of multi-step forms. We can easily construct detailed survey, registration, or application processes that are broken down into manageable sections, enhancing user experience. Form Maker also supports multi-page forms, but with a simpler approach which may be more suitable for users who require less complexity.

Features of Formidable Forms for Multi-Page/Complex Forms:

• Drag-and-drop builder for form setup
• Conditional logic for tailored experiences
• Save progress feature for user convenience

Features of Form Maker for Multi-Page/Complex Forms:

• Sequential page navigation
• Basic conditional logic

E-commerce and Payment Forms

For e-commerce and payment forms, we recognize the necessity of seamlessly integrating payment processing capabilities. Formidable Forms offers comprehensive features that include various payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe, facilitating straightforward transactions. It’s adept at handling complex pricing scenarios, which is critical for diverse e-commerce needs.

Features of Formidable Forms for E-commerce/Payment Forms:

• Wide range of payment gateway integrations
• Complex pricing options

Form Maker, while less versatile in its e-commerce integration, still holds its own with essential functionalities that support payment forms.

Features of Form Maker for E-commerce/Payment Forms:

• Basic payment gateway options
• Simple product and pricing configurations

For both e-commerce and intricate, multi-page forms, our analysis suggests that Formidable Forms provides a more comprehensive feature set suitable for various scenarios, while Form Maker offers a more straightforward, user-friendly experience with enough features to satisfy basic requirements.