Formidable Forms vs WPForms: Comparing Top WordPress Form Builders

Posted by Josh Blackburn, in Contact Form Plugins

Introduction to WordPress Form Plugins

When we delve into the world of WordPress, the significance of form plugins becomes evident swiftly. They are fundamental tools that empower us to capture information, ranging from simple contact form submissions to intricate survey data. Among these plugins, Formidable Forms and WPForms have emerged as noteworthy tools, each bringing their unique features to the table.

Formidable Forms is often recognized for its robust form-building capabilities, catering to developers and users seeking deep customizability. It provides a wide array of field types and the flexibility to create complex form-related solutions.

On the other hand, WPForms stands out with its user-friendly interface, making it highly accessible, especially for beginners. It emphasizes ease of use without requiring coding skills, allowing us to efficiently construct professional-looking forms.

Here are key features of each:

• Formidable Forms:

  • Advanced form fields and layouts
  • Power to integrate and extend with other plugins
  • Designed for more complex form functionalities

• WPForms:

  • Drag-and-drop form builder
  • Pre-built form templates for quick creation
  • Focuses on simplicity and ease of use

In essence, our choice between Formidable Forms and WPForms hinges on our specific needs—whether we prioritize advanced customizability or user-friendly design. Both form plugins enable us to create a diverse range of forms but address different user bases through their features and ease of use.

Comparing Form Builder Interfaces

When selecting a form builder for your WordPress site, the user interface plays a pivotal role in determining how quickly and effectively you can create forms. Both Formidable Forms and WPForms offer user-friendly interfaces, but their approaches differ somewhat, affecting the overall user experience.

Ease of Use and Drag-and-Drop Capabilities

With WPForms, we find a straightforward drag-and-drop interface that simplifies the form creation process. It’s designed for beginners, enabling us to add and arrange form fields with minimal effort. The learning curve is gentle, making it accessible even for users with no technical background.

Formidable Forms also offers drag-and-drop functionality, but with a focus on more advanced users. The interface provides robust tools that can handle more complex form-building tasks. Although it may require a bit more familiarity with form builders, the additional features present opportunities for greater customization.

Form Fields and Customization

WPForms provides a wide array of basic and advanced fields, each easily customizable through the interface. We can adjust field options with simple clicks, and see changes in real-time, which streamlines the customization of contact forms and other form types.

In contrast, Formidable Forms gives us access to more advanced fields and customization options. It allows for the inclusion of calculated fields, conditional logic, and more detailed stylings that cater to specific needs. For users who need to build forms that perform complex functions, Formidable Forms stands out.

Templates and Pre-Built Forms

Both form builders offer a selection of templates and pre-built forms to accelerate the creation process. WPForms provides a generous library of form templates that cover a range of standard needs, like contact forms, survey forms, and registration forms.

Formidable Forms also comes with a set of templates, but with an emphasis on form solutions that can be further tailored for more unique or specialized use cases. The templates serve as a starting point for extensive customization, appealing to those with more precise form requirements.

Feature Analysis

When considering Formidable Forms and WPForms, we focus on their capabilities in certain key areas, like conditional logic and calculations, spam protection features, and integration options for payments and advanced user interaction. The right choice will depend on your specific needs in these areas.

Conditional Logic and Calculations

Formidable Forms offers robust conditional logic that allows us to tailor the form’s behavior based on users’ inputs. It enables us to show or hide fields, sections, and even pages based on previous selections. Additionally, it provides advanced calculation fields that can be used for quotes, surveys, and complex calculations.

WPForms, while also supporting conditional logic, lets us create smart forms that adapt to our users’ choices, ensuring a streamlined experience. It facilitates basic calculations, suitable mainly for simple total calculations in payment forms.

Spam Protection Features

To maintain the integrity of data, both plugins incorporate spam protection features.

Formidable Forms relies mainly on reCAPTCHA and customizable HTML blocks that can act as a honeypot.

WPForms also includes reCAPTCHA and honeypot techniques by default and gives us the option to use the powerful anti-spam feature, Akismet, for additional protection.

Payment Options and Integration

Integration with payment providers is crucial for any payment form.

Formidable Forms provides integration with popular payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe, facilitating secure payment transactions within the forms. This is useful for donation, booking, or e-commerce forms.

WPForms allows PayPal and Stripe integrations as well, with the added benefit of conversational forms that can make the payment process more engaging for users.

Advanced Features for User Interaction

For an immersive user experience, advanced features come into play.

Formidable Forms stands out with its wide range of integrations and advanced solutions, including surveys, quizzes, and profile creation forms, which can be customized extensively for user interaction.

WPForms excels with its user-friendly approach to conversational forms, which guide users through the form-filling process in a step-by-step manner, akin to a real conversation. This feature is particularly effective in increasing form completion rates.

Integration Capabilities

In our comparison of Formidable Forms and WPForms, we find that both plugins offer a robust array of integrations which enhance the functionality of the forms built with them. These integrations span across various categories including email marketing, CRM, payment gateways, and other web-based services.

Email Marketing Integrations

For email marketing tools, Formidable Forms boasts integrations with popular services such as MailChimp and Drip. These integrations allow us to create forms that sync seamlessly with email marketing campaigns, aiding us in automating the process of capturing leads and segmenting them into appropriate lists.

WPForms, on the other hand, also supports MailChimp, among other email marketing integrations, ensuring that we can easily link our forms to various email marketing platforms to efficiently manage subscriber lists and dispatch newsletters.

• Formidable Forms:

  • MailChimp
  • Drip

• WPForms:

  • MailChimp

CRM and Payment Gateway Integrations

Our comparison reveals that both Formidable Forms and WPForms interface well with a number of CRM and payment solutions.

Formidable Forms provides the capacity to connect with HubSpot, which allows us to streamline customer relationship management by collecting and managing customer information directly through form submissions.

For payment gateways, Formidable Forms supports Square and Authorize.Net, enabling us to collect payments as part of the form submission process, be it for donations, online orders, or other transactions.

WPForms similarly affords connections to various CRM systems, including HubSpot, facilitating the consolidation of customer data for enhanced lead tracking and management. Payment gateways such as Square and Authorize.Net are also supported, allowing for smooth processing of financial transactions within forms.

• Formidable Forms:

  • CRM: HubSpot
  • Payment Gateways: Square, Authorize.Net

• WPForms:

  • CRM: HubSpot
  • Payment Gateways: Square, Authorize.Net

Webhooks and Other Integrations

Webhooks are integral for extending the functionality of our forms, by triggering custom actions and events in other systems.

Both Formidable Forms and WPForms provide webhook support, giving us the flexibility to integrate with numerous third-party applications. These integrations enable the automation of workflows and the syncing of data across disparate systems, streamlining operations and providing a cohesive user experience.

• Formidable Forms: Webhook support for third-party integrations
• WPForms: Webhook support for third-party integrations

In conclusion, the integration capabilities of both Formidable Forms and WPForms meet a range of business needs, from email marketing to payment processing, boasting notable flexibility and utility.

Ease of Access and Support

We understand that ease of access and excellent support are crucial for any user engaging with WordPress form plugins. Here, we specifically focus on how Formidable Forms and WPForms compete in terms of documentation, community support, and premium support options.

Documentation and Community Support

Formidable Forms offers a comprehensive documentation portal that guides users through setup, advanced features, and troubleshooting. The community around Formidable Forms is active, with forums and user groups where individuals exchange tips and solutions.

• WPForms, conversely, is known for its user-friendly interface which is complemented by detailed documentation making it accessible for beginners. The plugin’s extensive tutorials and guides help users quickly navigate through its functionalities. Community support for WPForms is strong, with a large number of users participating in forums and social media groups.

Premium Support Options

When it comes to premium support, both plugins provide timely help, but with varying benefits across their plans.

• Formidable Forms offers premium support in its higher-tier plans. Users have noted that the support team provides thorough help, addressing both simple and complex issues.

• WPForms has a reputation for responsive support as part of their premium plans, with positive reviews highlighting their helpfulness. Support tickets are typically addressed with detail, ensuring that users receive the necessary guidance to resolve their concerns.

Style and Customization

In our examination of Formidable Forms and WPForms, we focus particularly on how effectively each plugin facilitates form customization and styling. We also consider their performance concerning responsive design and accessibility, crucial for providing a seamless user experience across various devices.

Form Customization and Styling

Formidable Forms offers a range of styling options that allow us to personalize the appearance of our forms. With its built-in visual style editor, we can adjust colors, borders, padding, and more without the need for custom CSS. However, for those proficient in web design, it also provides the capability to insert custom CSS, giving us complete control over form aesthetics.

WPForms, on the other hand, offers a more streamlined approach to styling forms, suitable for users aiming for simplicity. It includes basic customization options like choosing colors and style templates. These features enable us to create professional-looking forms quickly. But for intricate customizations, we may need to employ additional CSS, just as with Formidable Forms.

• Accessibility: Both Formidable Forms and WPForms prioritize accessibility, thus featuring field labels and compliance with web accessibility standards.
• Custom Styles: Formidable allows applying pre-designed styles or creating custom appearances, while WPForms offers template-based styles that can be modified with custom CSS.

Responsive Design and Accessibility

Our commitment to providing an inclusive user experience propels us to ensure our forms are accessible and responsive. Formidable Forms and WPForms are both designed with responsiveness in mind, meaning that forms created with either plugin will adjust to fit the screen size of smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

• Formidable Forms: Utilizes a grid layout system which adapts to the viewing device, ensuring forms look neat and function well on any screen.
• WPForms: Automatically creates responsive forms that require no additional configuration for optimal viewing on different devices.

Both plugins support screen readers and comply with accessibility standards, which is critical for users with disabilities. They include features like ARIA support and keyboard navigation, making forms usable for everyone, regardless of how they interact with the web.

In conclusion, our analysis suggests that both Formidable Forms and WPForms offer robust options for style and customization, ensuring that forms not only look good but are responsive and accessible to all users.

Plans and Pricing

When selecting between Formidable Forms and WPForms, understanding the pricing and what each plan offers is crucial. We’ll compare their free versions, premium offerings, and the policies for money-back guarantees and trials to aid in making an informed decision.

Free Version Comparison

Formidable Forms:

• Offers a basic free version available on the WordPress repository.
• Suitable for creating simple forms with basic features.

WPForms Lite:

• Also provides a free version with essential features for WordPress users.
• Often chosen for its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.

Comparing Premium Tiers

Formidable Forms:

• Offers multiple premium plans, starting at around $49.50 per year for a single-site license.
• Higher tiers include additional features such as advanced calculations, integrations, and priority support.

WPForms Pro:

• WPForms premium versions start from approximately $39.50 per year for a basic package.
• The Pro version, which includes more advanced features such as payment integrations, starts at approximately $199.50 per year.

Pricing Comparison Table:

Money-Back Guarantees and Trials

Formidable Forms:

• Offers a 14-day money-back guarantee on all plans.
• No free trial is mentioned for the premium versions.

WPForms:

• Provides a 14-day money-back guarantee as well.
• Like Formidable Forms, WPForms does not offer a free trial period for their premium plans.

Form Applications

In our comparison of Formidable Forms and WPForms, we focus on their capabilities to handle various form applications crucial for any online business or project. We discuss their effectiveness in facilitating event management, processing payments, and engaging users through interactive forms.

Registration Forms and Event Scheduling

Formidable Forms offers robust solutions for creating registration forms and managing event scheduling. Our users can utilize advanced features like conditional logic to display certain fields based on user input, making the registration process intuitive and efficient. The plugin also integrates with popular calendar tools, streamlining event management.

• Registration Form Fields: Customizable and varied.
• Scheduling Features: Integration with calendar apps for convenient scheduling.

WPForms provides an easy-to-use interface for quickly setting up registration forms. While it may not have as many advanced features as Formidable Forms, it covers the essentials well and offers a user-friendly experience for both event planners and attendees.

• Registration Form Fields: Simple drag-and-drop builder for ease of use.
• Scheduling Features: Basic but effective tools for date and time selection.

Payment and Order Forms

For payment and order forms, WPForms excels with its simplicity and support for multiple payment options. Users can create order and billing templates with minimal effort, and the plugin supports leading payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe for secure transactions.

• Payment Options: PayPal, Stripe, and other gateways.
• Order Templates: Pre-built and easily customizable.

Formidable Forms also provides powerful functionalities for payment forms, allowing for more complex order and billing templates, calculations, and even suggests pricing fields depending on the user’s choices.

• Payment Options: Flexible and can accommodate various gateways.
• Order Templates: Advanced calculations for dynamic order forms.

Surveys, Polls, and Quizzes

Engaging with an audience is seamless with both plugins. WPForms offers a straightforward approach to creating engaging surveys, polls, and quizzes. The plugin comes with templates to quickly get these forms up and running, and it captures insights effectively through clear reporting.

• Surveys and Polls: Easy to set up with instant feedback.
• Quizzes: Templates for faster creation with automatic scoring.

Formidable Forms, on the other hand, stands out for the depth of customization available in its surveys and polls. Users can extract detailed analytics, and for quizzes, the plugin allows for flexible scoring systems and result displays.

• Surveys and Polls: Detailed analytics for in-depth insights.
• Quizzes: Custom scoring with rich response data.

In both tools, our users find that each excels in different aspects of form applications, with WPForms focusing on ease of use and Formidable Forms on advanced features and customization.

User Experience and Feedback

In our comprehensive understanding of user experience, we prioritize the ease of interacting with contact and feedback forms. This attention to detail defines the success of both Formidable Forms and WPForms in engaging users.

Feedback and Contact Forms

Formidable Forms offers a robust set of tools for creating feedback and contact forms that businesses can tailor to their specific needs. With its advanced features, users can construct forms that do more than just collect information; they allow for deeper interaction through customized notifications and immediate automated responses. Their interface facilitates the construction of complex forms, although this can come with a steeper learning curve.

• Feedback Form Templates: Various templates to expedite form creation
• Customizability: High level of freedom for form customization

WPForms, on the contrary, underscores the importance of a user-friendly interface. This focus makes it incredibly accessible for beginners to create online contact forms without the need for technical expertise. WPForms provides a drag-and-drop builder that simplifies the form creation process.

• Ease of Use: Drag-and-drop interface conducive to novice users
• Quick Setup: Intuitive setup process for creating forms promptly

User Interaction and Engagement

Our experience has shown us that user interaction and engagement largely hinge on the form’s ability to provide a seamless and responsive experience. Formidable Forms masters user interaction by enabling complex conditional logic that can alter form fields in real time based on user input. This leads to a dynamic form experience which ensures relevant data collection and user engagement.

WPForms, however, takes a slightly different approach by focusing on simplicity and effectiveness. It boasts a clean layout and ensures users can easily navigate and complete forms, which enhances the overall user satisfaction. WPForms’ conditional logic allows for customization, although it may not be as intricate as Formidable Forms’ options.

• Conditional Logic: Allows forms to respond dynamically to user input
• Clean Layout: Ensures a non-cluttered form experience for better user satisfaction

Both platforms offer robust solutions for creating feedback and contact forms, with distinct approaches to user interaction that cater to different levels of user proficiency and engagement preferences.

Security and Maintenance

When selecting a form plugin for WordPress, we must prioritize the security and maintenance features to protect data integrity and offer a seamless user experience.

Anti-Spam and Captcha Options

Formidable Forms and WPForms both incorporate robust anti-spam features to ensure the quality of the data collected. Our experience indicates that WPForms includes a simple anti-spam feature by default and also provides integration with popular services like Akismet for enhanced spam protection. It supports the use of CAPTCHA and Google’s reCAPTCHA, giving us multiple layers of security against spam.

On the other hand, Formidable Forms also offers advanced anti-spam options. It includes invisible reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha, which is a privacy-focused alternative to Google’s reCAPTCHA. Both plugins allow us to effectively mitigate spam submissions, but Formidable Forms stands out for those of us who prefer a more privacy-centric option.

Data Entry Management and Security

Ensuring the security of entered data is crucial. WPForms offers access controls to manage who can view and edit form entries, contributing to secure entry management. All data is stored in the WordPress database which is protected by the overall security of our WordPress site.

Formidable Forms extends its security measures by allowing us to customize permissions and regulate user access at more granular levels. Both plugins provide SSL compatibility, which means we can implement secure, encrypted connections to further safeguard data as it’s entered and submitted through the forms. It is up to us to maintain our SSL certificates to establish a secure environment for our users’ entries.

Extensions and Add-Ons

When evaluating Formidable Forms and WPForms, it’s imperative to consider the range and capability of extensions and add-ons offered by each plugin. These expand the functionality significantly, allowing us to cater to specific requirements for file management and automation processes within our form setups.

File Uploads and Form Submissions

Formidable Forms provides robust support for file uploads directly through their forms. Users can upload multiple files and images, which can be essential for job applications, customer support queries, and information gathering. This functionality is complemented with form submissions that are easily managed through a detailed entry management system.

WPForms, on the other hand, enables us to add file upload fields to our forms as well. It facilitates the management of user-submitted files and supports a variety of file types. However, the access to advanced management features might require us to upgrade to premium plans.

• File Types Supported: Images, PDFs, documents
• File Management: Direct integration with media library, tagging, and categorization
• Maximum File Size: Varies (based on server settings or plan)

Application and Automation Extensions

Regarding applications and automation, Formidable Forms excels with a wide array of extensions tailored for complex tasks. We can integrate with services like Zapier for automation, connecting our forms with numerous other applications and streamlining workflows.

WPForms also allows us for automation through its Zapier add-on, enabling us to connect our form submissions to over 2,000 web applications. This integration simplifies tasks like sending form entries to our CRM, email marketing service, or project management tools.

• Automation: Trigger emails, notifications, or other actions upon form submissions
• Applications: Connectivity with CRMs, marketing platforms, scheduling tools

Both Formidable Forms and WPForms deliver powerful add-ons and extensions to enhance file uploads, form submissions, applications, and automation capabilities, ensuring we have the tools necessary for a wide range of functions.

Custom Development Features

When choosing between Formidable Forms and WPForms for WordPress, we must consider the depth of custom development features each plugin offers. These features cater to developers looking for advanced customization options and additional tools to enhance form capabilities beyond standard offerings.

Advanced Customization and Development

With Formidable Forms, we have access to powerful advanced features that allow for more than just simple form creation. Specifically, the ability to directly customize form HTML is a standout. This capability gives us freedom to adjust form layouts, styles, and behaviors to meet precise design requirements. Formidable Forms provides a robust environment for custom code, meaning developers can inject JavaScript, CSS, or other programming languages as needed.

WPForms, on the other hand, focuses on ease of use but still offers facilities for advanced users to implement customizations. Although its interface is aimed more at non-coders, WPForms does allow us to add custom CSS classes to individual form fields, enabling a degree of personalized design – albeit less directly than editing HTML.

Additional Tools for Developers

We assess that Formidable Forms comes equipped with additional developer tools that enhance its capabilities for more complex project requirements. These tools include built-in hooks and filters, allowing for extensive modifications and extensions of form functionalities.

WPForms also provides developer-focused tools, like hooks and filters, to extend its functionality. However, compared to Formidable Forms, WPForms leans towards keeping these interactions more user-friendly, potentially limiting deeper development work.

Both plugins offer a range of advanced development features, but Formidable Forms exhibits a stronger orientation towards developers with a need for direct code interventions and extensive customization capabilities.

Comparison with Other WordPress Form Builders

In our examination of WordPress form builders, we focus on ease of use, customization, and pricing—critical factors that influence a user’s choice.

Formidable Forms vs. Gravity Forms

Formidable Forms offers advanced features such as formidable views which allow users to display submitted data on their WordPress sites. While it’s suitable for developers looking for deep customization, it may be overwhelming for beginners.

Gravity Forms, on the other hand, is a robust solution with extensive integrations and a variety of add-ons. It strikes a balance between user-friendliness and advanced capabilities, making it an attractive option for both newcomers and experienced users alike.

WPForms Alternatives

Regarding alternatives to WPForms, there are several WordPress form builders worth considering:

• Formidable Forms serves as a powerful WPForms alternative, offering more in-depth control and features like formidable views.
• Ninja Forms provides a free alternative with a user-friendly interface and premium add-ons for additional functionality.

Dissecting their pricing, WPForms offers a free lite version with essential features and paid plans that range from $39.50/year for the Basic plan to $299.50/year for the Elite plan, discounts included.

In conclusion, Formidable Forms and Gravity Forms cater to users seeking more control and features, while Ninja Forms and others serve as excellent WPForms alternatives for those wanting simplicity or advanced tools without significant investment.

Conclusion and Recommendations

In our evaluation of Formidable Forms vs. WPForms, we’ve considered various facets that impact user choice when selecting a suitable WordPress form plugin.

Formidable Forms:

• Pros: Advanced features for complex form-related tasks.
• Cons: Might be overwhelming for beginners.

WPForms:

• Pros: Extremely user-friendly with an intuitive interface.
• Cons: While highly adequate for most, it may lack some advanced capabilities found in Formidable Forms.

For those of us starting out with WordPress form plugins and looking for ease of use, WPForms is our recommendation. Its beginner-friendly approach simplifies the form creation process without sacrificing functionality for standard use-cases.

In the event that our project demands more sophisticated data solutions, from complex form fields to detailed data management, Formidable Forms stands out. It delivers robust features that are well-suited for developers or users with more experience in form creation and data handling.

When deciding between the two:

• Consider WPForms if ease of use and quick form setup is our priority.
• Opt for Formidable Forms when advanced data management and unique form structures are a necessity.

It’s clear both plugins offer distinct advantages, and our selection should align with our specific needs and level of expertise.