FormCraft vs Ninja Forms: Comparing WordPress Form Builders

Posted by Josh Blackburn, in Contact Form Plugins

Introduction to FormCraft and Ninja Forms

When considering WordPress form plugins, two names often come to the forefront: FormCraft and Ninja Forms. Both offer unique features that cater to diverse needs within the realm of website form building.

FormCraft is known for its drag-and-drop interface, which simplifies the process of form creation. This plugin stands out with its array of customizable templates and versatility, allowing you to swiftly construct various forms ranging from simple contact forms to detailed payment and survey forms.

On the other hand, Ninja Forms offers a strong feature set that allows for extensive customization and has gained popularity due to its user-friendly approach to form building. Whether you’re a novice or an expert at WordPress, Ninja Forms can accommodate your level of expertise.

Here’s a brief look at what each plugin offers:

• FormCraft

  • Drag-and-drop form builder
  • Customizable templates
  • Suitable for contact forms, payment forms, and surveys
  • Emphasizes design and usability

• Ninja Forms

  • User-friendly and flexible
  • Wide range of customization options
  • Integrates with various third-party services
  • Strong community and support

They both serve the fundamental purpose of enhancing visitor engagement and simplifying form management on WordPress sites. To decide which plugin aligns best with your needs, always consider factors such as ease of use, customization capabilities, and integration possibilities.

Key Features and Benefits

When assessing the capabilities of FormCraft and Ninja Forms, it’s crucial to understand the unique offerings and common functionalities each plugin provides. This examination will gauge how these solutions cater to form creation needs through their features, customization abilities, user interfaces, support systems, and overall flexibility.

FormCraft Specific Features

• Drag and Drop Form Builder: FormCraft boasts an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, allowing for easy form creation.
• Responsive Forms: Ensures that forms are adaptable to any screen size for a seamless user experience.
• Templates: Offers a selection of templates to kickstart the form creation process.
• File Uploads: Users can easily upload files, enhancing the form’s functionality.

Ninja Forms Specific Features

• Conditional Logic: Ninja Forms facilitates advanced form interactions with conditional logic, tailoring the user experience based on previous inputs.
• Multi-Page Forms: Supports the creation of multi-page forms, suitable for longer forms to improve user engagement.
• Form Analytics: Tracks form performance with analytical tools, providing insights into user interaction.
• User Registration: Allows for user registration forms, making it a valuable tool for membership sites.

Common Features

• Spam Protection: Both plugins ensure forms are protected from spam, maintaining form integrity.
• Custom Fields and Taxonomies: Extensive support for custom fields allows for tailored data collection.

Customization and Flexibility

• Custom Fields: We can create specific data fields which are crucial for collecting unique information.
• Customization Options: Both plugins offer a range of customization options, providing flexibility to tailor forms to match brand identity.

Form Creation and User Interface

• User-Friendly: Aimed at providing a seamless user experience, both plugins prioritize a user-friendly interface.
• Drag-and-Drop Builder: A familiar feature for both, simplifying the process of form creation.

Support and Documentation

• Extensive Documentation: We can access thorough guides and tutorials for both plugins.
• Support: Each offers support channels, including forums and Help Scout, for any troubleshooting needs.

Integrations and Add-Ons

In this section, we will explore the integrations and add-ons available for both FormCraft and Ninja Forms, focusing on how these enhance the functionality of the core plugins.

Email Marketing Integrations

FormCraft and Ninja Forms both offer integrations with popular email marketing services such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, and Campaign Monitor. These integrations allow us to automate subscriber list updates and improve our email marketing efforts.

• Ninja Forms: Includes Mailchimp Addon, Constant Contact, AWeber, and Campaign Monitor Addon.
• FormCraft: Integrations are available but may require premium versions for full access.

Payment Gateway Support

Both plug-ins cater to online transactions with integrations for PayPal and Stripe. This means we can accept payments and process credit card information securely within the forms.

• Ninja Forms: Supports payments via PayPal Addon and Stripe.
• FormCraft: Similar integrations available, facilitating smooth payment processes on forms.

CRMs and Productivity Tools

Managing customer relationships and productivity becomes streamlined as both form builders integrate with CRMs like Zoho CRM, Salesforce, Capsule CRM, Insightly, and productivity tools such as Slack and Trello.

• Ninja Forms: Offers CRM integrations potentially within higher-tier plans.
• FormCraft: Also provides CRM connectivity, enhancing customer data management.

E-Commerce and Other Integrations

For e-commerce websites, compatibility with WooCommerce is key. Ninja Forms and FormCraft can be integrated with WooCommerce, ensuring comprehensive form solutions for online stores.

• Ninja Forms: Known to be WooCommerce compatible.
• FormCraft: E-commerce integrations ensure compatibility with WooCommerce platforms.

Advanced Features and Add-Ons

With advanced features such as file upload, entry management, filters, custom fields and taxonomies, these plugins offer robust solutions for form creation. Add-ons can enhance features like revision systems, randomization, post templates, and many more.

• Ninja Forms: Includes a range of add-ons for advanced functionality.
• FormCraft: Similar advanced features and add-ons are available, potentially in the premium version.

Developer Features

Both plugins provide features catering to developers, such as shortcode functionality, which makes it straightforward to integrate forms in various parts of the site.

• Ninja Forms: Offers extensive developer-friendly features such as filters and hooks.
• FormCraft: Also offers developer-oriented features, although specifics vary.

Automation and Optimization

Integration with Zapier allows both Ninja Forms and FormCraft to connect with hundreds of other applications, automating workflows and optimizing business processes.

• Ninja Forms: Employs Zapier for automation.
• FormCraft: Also utilizes Zapier to enhance automation capabilities.

Ease of Use and Accessibility

When comparing FormCraft and Ninja Forms in terms of ease of use, we find that both plugins offer accessible interfaces that cater to users with varying levels of technical expertise. With Ninja Forms, users benefit from a straightforward drag-and-drop builder, making the creation of forms intuitive. This especially fosters an environment where even beginners can approach form building with confidence.

• User Interface: Ninja Forms presents a clean, modern UI that is helpful in designing forms quickly.
• Responsiveness: Forms created are fully responsive, ensuring compatibility across different devices.

FormCraft also provides a user-friendly experience with its own drag-and-drop functionality. It emphasizes a minimalist design allowing for quick navigation through form elements.

• Form Maker: The term “form maker” typically refers to the tool within the plugin that facilitates form creation. Both plugins serve as robust form makers with their intuitive interfaces and ease of manipulating form fields.

In terms of responsive design, both FormCraft and Ninja Forms ensure that the forms look and function well on mobile devices, which is crucial for user engagement in our mobile-first world.

• Responsive Forms:
  • Ninja Forms: Automatically adapts forms for optimal mobile performance.
  • FormCraft: Offers responsive templates to maintain form function and aesthetics on any device.

We ensure our analysis reflects the efficiency with which you can operate the plugins, considering that a smooth user interface and responsive design are key aspects of user accessibility in web form builders. FormCraft and Ninja Forms both prioritize these elements to enhance user experience and form interaction.

Pricing and Plans

In this section, we’ll explore the different pricing structures and plans for Ninja Forms and FormCraft, helping you understand which may suit your needs and budget better.

Free vs Paid Versions

Ninja Forms:

• Free Version: Available with basic features.
• Paid Version: More advanced features are unlocked with the paid plans starting from $99 per year for a single site license.

FormCraft:

• Free Version: Not explicitly mentioned in the provided data.
• Paid Version: Pricing starts at $36, although it’s unclear if this is a one-time payment or an annual fee.

Subscription Plans and Pricing

Ninja Forms:

• Plus Plan: Priced at $99/year, suitable for a single site.
• Pricing Structure: Annual subscription with tiered pricing based on the number of sites and included features.

FormCraft:

• Details on the exact subscription plans and pricing tiers are not provided in the search results. Generally, WordPress plugins like FormCraft offer a range of plans to accommodate different user types.

Business and Agency Solutions

WordPress form plugins often cater to businesses and agencies with more robust solutions.

Ninja Forms:

• Offers more comprehensive plans which may include priority support, more add-ons, and multi-site options suitable for business and agency use.

FormCraft:

• It’s expected to have similar offerings, with plans that provide additional features and support options that cater to the needs of larger-scale operations.

Comparison With Other Plugins

When comparing pricing and plans between Ninja Forms and FormCraft, it’s helpful to look at alternatives such as Gravity Forms and WPForms. Both alternatives offer a range of plans, usually starting from a base free version with the option to upgrade to a paid subscription that provides more features and add-ons.

Discounts and Monetization Options

• Coupons: We might find discount coupons available for both Ninja Forms and FormCraft, especially during promotional periods such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
• Monetization: Both plugins should offer options for integrating payment gateways, which can be particularly useful for monetization. However, details about whether these features are included in free plans or require a paid subscription are not specified.

Reviews and User Opinions

In assessing Ninja Forms and FormCraft, we’ve observed that numerous users value ease of use and user-friendliness when it comes to form builders. User reviews often highlight Ninja Forms for its intuitive interface and broad functionality. Our understanding aligns with user experiences that report a generally smooth setup process.

Interestingly, we encountered feedback noting that FormCraft is appreciated for its aesthetics and design flexibility, with some users specifically pointing out the visually appealing forms they can create. However, it’s worth mentioning that for any form builder, the ease of use may vary depending on the individual’s familiarity with WordPress plugins.

When discussing support, the sentiment leans towards Ninja Forms offering a responsive and helpful service, which is crucial for troubleshooting. Here’s a brief breakdown of what we’ve gathered from user perspectives:

User opinions are instrumental in understanding the practical use cases of both form builders. We consistently notice that users don’t shy away from sharing their experiences—both the challenges and the successes. This candid user feedback is what guides us in comprehending the real-world applications of these tools.

Installation and Getting Started

When we approach the installation of Ninja Forms or FormCraft, we find both available on the WordPress plugin repository, simplifying the process. Our initial steps involve accessing our WordPress dashboard and navigating to the ‘Plugins’ section to search for either plugin by name.

Ninja Forms Installation:

• Go to Plugins > Add New.
• Type “Ninja Forms” in the search bar.
• Click Install Now on Ninja Forms.
• After installation, click Activate.

Once activated, Ninja Forms provides a guided setup that helps us swiftly create our first form.

FormCraft Installation:

• Go to Plugins > Add New.
• Enter “FormCraft” in the search bar.
• Click Install Now on FormCraft.
• After installation, click Activate.

FormCraft is known for its intuitive drag-and-drop builder, which is accessible as soon as the plugin is active, ensuring we can start creating forms almost immediately.

We ensure that the Ninja Forms Core (the free plugin) is installed before using any add-ons. Both form builders are designed with accessibility in mind, making the experience simpler even for those new to WordPress.

Custom Fields and Functionality

When we assess the capabilities of FormCraft and Ninja Forms concerning custom fields and functionality, it is clear that both plugins offer a robust range of options to enhance our forms.

Ninja Forms comes equipped with a variety of field types, from the standard text inputs and checkboxes to more advanced fields like date pickers and file uploads. One of their standout features in terms of custom fields is their flexibility, allowing us to create a field for virtually any specific need we may have. This adaptability extends to custom field mapping, which is pivotal when we integrate Ninja Forms with other services like CRM systems.

FormCraft, on the other hand, also brings to the table an impressive array of fields, including staples such as single-line text, dropdown menus, and multi-page forms. Their emphasis is on a drag-and-drop form-building interface, simplifying the process of form creation. Additionally, FormCraft offers a number of premium add-ons that can further extend functionality with an array of advanced fields such as star ratings and sliders.

We highlight that both plugins are equipped to handle advanced fields that can significantly enrich the data collection process. Whether it’s through conditional logic, multi-part forms, or integration capabilities, both Ninja Forms and FormCraft allow us to construct intricate forms tailored to our precise requirements.