Throughout our journey with CanadaCreate, we have evaluated nearly every WordPress form plugin available. However, three names consistently arise in discussions among website owners: WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms.
At CanadaCreate, we actively use WPForms and have assisted many website owners in successfully utilizing the other two plugins. We recognize that selecting the right one among these three can be daunting. Each of them is a robust form builder with a solid reputation.
To simplify your decision-making process, we have conducted thorough tests on each plugin. Our evaluation covered aspects ranging from user-friendliness to advanced functionalities.
In this comprehensive comparison, we will reveal our findings, including which plugin may be the most suitable for your individual requirements. 🎯
An Overview of WordPress Form Plugins
WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms are some of the leading WordPress contact form plugins available. Each offers distinct features and enables you to integrate various forms into your website.
WPForms was founded in 2016 by Syed Balkhi, the creator of CanadaCreate, and Jared Atchison. Since its inception, over 6 million WordPress sites have adopted this plugin.
WPForms was designed to provide a user-friendly and powerful form plugin. It simplifies the process of creating online forms, making it accessible for beginners.
👉 At CanadaCreate, we utilize WPForms for all our form requirements. For instance, we employed the plugin to set up our contact form, registration form, and job application form.
Gravity Forms is a premium WordPress plugin developed by Rocketgenius, designed for creating versatile and robust forms. It is particularly favored by developers who require advanced features for constructing intricate form workflows.
Formidable Forms is a robust WordPress form builder created by Steph and Steve Wells. It allows users to design everything from basic contact forms to sophisticated tools such as mortgage calculators, directories, and listing forms. It is also one of the companies supported by the CanadaCreate Growth Fund.
In this article, we will compare these WordPress form plugins to determine which one is the best choice for creating forms on WordPress.
Through our research, we tested numerous WordPress form plugins and have chosen to compare these top three plugins based on the following criteria:
- User-Friendliness
- Form Templates
- Customization Features
- Additional Features and Integrations
- Pricing Options
- What is the Best WordPress Form Plugin?
- Additional Resources 🔗 : More Guides on WordPress Forms
Let’s dive in.
User-Friendliness
Choosing a WordPress form plugin requires selecting a tool that is user-friendly. The form builder should enable users to customize their forms effortlessly, without needing to edit code or hire a developer.
Let’s compare the three plugins based on their user-friendliness.
WPForms – User-Friendliness
WPForms is an intuitive form plugin designed for WordPress beginners. It features a straightforward drag-and-drop form builder that is very easy to navigate.
You can quickly customize any form by selecting various form fields from the left menu. Just drag the desired field and drop it onto your form template.
WPForms includes an AI-driven form generator that revolutionizes the form creation process.
Instead of manually constructing forms from the ground up, you can simply describe your requirements in plain English, and the AI will promptly create a complete form for you.
WPForms also simplifies the process of placing your forms anywhere on your WordPress site. The best part is that you can accomplish this directly within the form builder. Just click the embed button, and WPForms will present options for adding your form.
You can create a new page or choose an existing one to insert your forms.
Additionally, you can manually add your form to any page or post using the WordPress block editor. The plugin also supports shortcodes for easy form integration into your WordPress site.
Gravity Forms – User-Friendly Design
Gravity Forms features an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to create various types of forms without any coding knowledge.
You can effortlessly modify your form directly from the WordPress dashboard. The form builder provides multiple field options that you can easily add to your template by dragging and dropping.
Once your form is created, Gravity Forms allows for straightforward embedding on your website. Similar to WPForms and Formidable Forms, you can add your form directly within the drag-and-drop builder.
Gravity Forms also includes a WordPress block for seamless embedding of your forms on any page or post. Additionally, you can use shortcodes or manually insert forms anywhere on your site.
Formidable Forms – User-Friendly Design
Formidable Forms is an easy-to-use plugin that enables you to customize your forms with a drag-and-drop builder, just like WPForms and Gravity Forms.
You can simply drag any form field from the options on the left and drop it into the form preview area.
The plugin allows you to easily rearrange the order of fields by dragging them up, down, or sideways.
Formidable Forms simplifies the process of embedding forms anywhere on your website.
You can utilize the Formidable Forms block to insert the form into any post or page, or use the embed button in the form builder for quick integration.
Winner – Tie
In terms of user-friendliness, all three plugins perform equally well. They each provide a drag-and-drop builder, enabling you to design and customize forms without any coding knowledge. Additionally, embedding forms throughout your WordPress site is fast and easy.
WPForms has a slight advantage due to its AI-driven form creation, over 2,000 form templates, and its exceptional ease of use for beginners. Conversely, Gravity Forms and Formidable Forms are more tailored for developers.
Form Templates
Form templates are a crucial aspect to consider when selecting a form plugin for WordPress.
Templates save you time since you won’t need to start from scratch. You can quickly modify a template to fit your needs or simply use the default template to add a form to your website.
Let’s compare how WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms perform regarding form templates.
WPForms – Form Templates
WPForms provides over 2,000 ready-to-use form templates to suit your needs, whether you’re aiming to create:
- a straightforward contact form
- a client feedback form
- a quote request form
- a payment processing form
- an online calculator form
- a registration form
The plugin organizes form templates into various categories within the form builder.
For example, you can explore templates tailored for business operations, customer service, education, entertainment, event planning, feedback, health and wellness, and more.
Even the free version of WPForms offers numerous form templates to help you get started.
Gravity Forms – Form Templates
Gravity Forms provides fewer prebuilt form templates compared to WPForms and Formidable Forms, offering only 14 templates within the form builder. Some of these include:
- a basic contact form
- an advanced contact form
- a donation form
- an eCommerce form
- an event registration form
- a survey form
- a newsletter subscription form.
Formidable Forms – Form Templates
Formidable Forms provides more than 300 customizable WordPress form templates and examples suitable for your website. Its unique feature is the availability of templates specifically designed for advanced forms. For example, you can create:
- an advanced mortgage calculator form
- a net promoter score (NPS) survey form
- a car payment calculator form
- a life insurance calculator form
- a doctor visit form
- a signature form
In addition, you can find forms for various purposes including payment collection, health and wellness, customer service, education, donations, event planning, and more.
Winner – WPForms
WPForms emerges as the clear winner when compared to Gravity Forms and Formidable Forms. It boasts the largest library of form templates, featuring over 2,000 options. There are prebuilt templates available for nearly every type of form you wish to create for your website.
Customization Options
A WordPress form plugin should enable you to easily edit and customize your forms. When choosing the right tool, it’s important to consider the customization options that the plugin provides.
Here’s an overview of the various features offered by WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms.
WPForms – Customization Options
WPForms provides extensive customization options for your forms. You can easily drag and drop various form fields from the menu on the left directly onto your template.
It includes standard fields such as paragraph text, multiple choice, and checkboxes, as well as advanced fields like file upload, address, phone number, website, date picker, and more.
By clicking on an existing form field, you’ll access additional customization options.
You can modify the field label, set it as required, apply conditional logic, and more. For example, you can select which payment methods to display on an order form and adjust their arrangement.
WPForms also features a collection of beautifully designed form themes that you can access directly from the WordPress block editor.
Choose from over 40 themes to instantly give your forms a unique visual style and harmonious color scheme.
Additionally, WPForms allows you to create conversational forms, enhancing interactivity.
Instead of presenting multiple questions at once, you can adopt a one-question-at-a-time format, creating a conversational experience that can significantly improve form conversions.
You can enhance form conversions by utilizing the Lead Forms addon, which enables you to embed interactive conversational forms anywhere on your WordPress site.
WPForms provides extensive customization options, including the ability to create custom landing pages for your forms, similar to Google Forms. This allows you to design a distraction-free environment that can boost your conversion rates.
The plugin allows you to add a title and description for your page, upload a header logo, and modify the page URL. You can also change the background color and select a style that makes your forms visually appealing.
WPForms includes a save and continue feature, allowing users to save their progress while filling out a form and return later to complete it. Additionally, users can sign your online forms using a mouse or touchscreen.
For longer forms, you can utilize the multi-page feature to divide them into separate pages, making them easier to navigate.
Conditional logic can be applied to display different form fields based on the user’s responses, enhancing the user experience.
Furthermore, you can customize the notification and confirmation settings for your form. In the notification settings, you can adjust details such as email addresses, subject lines, names, messages, and more.
You can customize the confirmation message displayed to users after they submit a form. Options include showing a thank you message, redirecting to a specific page, or directing users to a designated URL.
WPForms now features an Entry Automation tool that allows you to automatically export form entries on a set schedule and delete older entries, ensuring your database remains organized without any additional effort.
Gravity Forms – Customization Features
Gravity Forms provides a variety of form fields to personalize your form template.
These options include standard fields, advanced fields, post fields, and pricing fields.
Like WPForms and Formidable Forms, you can click on existing form fields to make further edits.
However, there are slight differences in the customization options available. You can access general settings for each field to modify its label and add a description.
Additionally, you can adjust the field’s appearance, change advanced settings such as enabling field autocomplete, and implement conditional logic.
Moreover, you have control over various form settings, including the ability to modify notification and confirmation settings directly within the form builder.
You can configure ‘Personal Data’ settings similar to WPForms, allowing you to prevent the storage of IP addresses during form submissions.
Additionally, you can enable integrations with other tools for exporting and deleting personal data, which is essential for compliance with data regulations like GDPR.
Formidable Forms – Customization Features
With the intuitive drag-and-drop builder of Formidable Forms, you can effortlessly customize your forms by adding prebuilt form fields to your template.
What sets this plugin apart is its extensive range of form fields that enable you to create sophisticated forms. For example, you can include user ID fields, CAPTCHA, hidden fields, appointment scheduling, lookup fields, and more.
Moreover, you can easily modify each existing field in your template.
There are general options available to change labels, add CSS classes, and more. You can also access advanced options to insert placeholder text and descriptions, adjust field sizes, and set maximum character limits.
Unlike WPForms and Gravity Forms, Formidable Forms provides a variety of styles for your forms.
You can choose the default style or select from a variety of options to customize the look of your forms without needing to write any CSS code.
Additionally, you can tailor the form settings, including notification preferences, form permissions, and scheduling options.
Best Overall – WPForms
After evaluating all three plugins, we determined that WPForms stands out as the best option. It provides more customization capabilities than both Formidable Forms and Gravity Forms.
With the drag-and-drop builder, you can easily add various form fields, adjust their settings, rearrange them, and more. WPForms also includes numerous features designed to enhance your form’s appeal and increase conversion rates.
Extra Features and Integrations
Having discussed usability, templates, and customization options, let’s explore how WPForms, Formidable Forms, and Gravity Forms stack up regarding extra features and integrations.
As a website owner, you want a WordPress plugin that seamlessly integrates with third-party tools, payment gateways, and email marketing platforms. Here’s what each plugin provides.
WPForms – Extra Features and Integrations
WPForms features a wide range of premium addons and integrations that enhance its capabilities and advantages.
For example, the post-submission addon enables file uploads, allowing users to easily submit content directly on your website without needing access to the WordPress dashboard.
Additionally, there are addons available for geolocation data, which lets you track where your form users are located. The User Journey addon reveals the pages and posts users visited prior to submitting a form.
The Form Abandonment addon helps you capture incomplete form entries, enabling you to follow up and encourage users to finish their submissions.
This plugin also includes an Entry Automation addon, which allows you to automatically export form entries on a customized schedule and send them directly to your email, Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, and more.
Moreover, WPForms offers additional addons for features like digital signatures, custom Captcha creation, securing WordPress forms, designing interactive form layouts, and much more.
You can also incorporate custom calculations into your forms using the powerful Calculations addon, enabling the creation of dynamic order forms, quote requests, mortgage and loan calculators, shipping cost estimators, self-scoring quizzes, and more.
One of the key benefits of WPForms is its seamless integration with various tools and plugins. It works well with popular email marketing platforms such as Drip, Mailchimp, and Constant Contact.
The plugin supports multiple payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Authorize.net. Even the free version of WPForms allows you to accept payments via Stripe.
WPForms can also be integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) systems like Salesforce and HubSpot.
Gravity Forms – Unique Features and Integrations
Gravity Forms provides various addons that enhance the functionality of the plugin. However, its selection is not as extensive as that of WPForms, and additional fees are required for third-party extensions.
With Gravity Forms, you gain access to advanced features for user registration, survey and poll creation, user geolocation tracking, partial form entry collection, signature capture, and more.
Additionally, Gravity Forms supports integrations with a variety of tools and plugins.
You can easily connect with email marketing services like AWeber, Constant Contact, Mailgun, and others. It also allows you to implement anti-spam measures such as Akismet and reCAPTCHA.
Additionally, it integrates with Heroic KB, one of the top WordPress knowledge base plugins. This feature enables you to include a knowledge base search field in your forms, allowing users to find answers independently before reaching out to you.
Other available integrations include Google Analytics, Dropbox, Zapier, Trello, ActiveCampaign, HelpScout, PayPal Checkout, 2Checkout, and Stripe.
Formidable Forms – Unique Features and Integrations
Formidable Forms provides a variety of add-ons and integration capabilities. Many of these additional features are comparable to those offered by WPForms and Gravity Forms.
What sets Formidable Forms apart is its extensive range of powerful features that enable you to create advanced forms, develop web applications, display statistics on the front end, and much more.
For example, the plugin includes a form action automation feature that allows you to schedule email notifications, SMS messages, and other actions. It also supports API webhooks for submitting data to REST APIs.
Moreover, it features a visual views add-on that allows you to showcase data from form entries on your website’s front end. You can build web applications to present form submissions in tables, grids, calendars, and various other formats.
This is ideal for displaying testimonials and product reviews, creating a user-submitted events calendar, and showcasing valuable statistics.
In addition, Formidable Forms allows you to build applications for your website. It provides ready-made templates that include various forms, views, and pages tailored for your application. Just choose a template, and the plugin will handle the setup for you.
You can create a variety of applications, including testimonials, product reviews, real estate listings, restaurant menus, certificates, and much more.
For instance, you can easily offer professional certificates in just a few clicks. Simply select the certificate application template, and Formidable Forms will automatically generate a form with a certificate creator on your site.
It will also generate views for the certificate and the certificate of completion, which users can access on the front end.
Formidable Forms also includes advanced features such as converting WordPress forms to PDF, mapping form fields to PDF fields, creating quizzes, using repeater fields, SMS voting, front-end editing, and more.
Additionally, you can integrate Formidable Forms with various payment gateways, email marketing platforms, CRMs, and third-party plugins.
It is also compatible with Uncanny Automator and Zapier, enabling you to connect Formidable Forms to services like Asana, Slack, and Dropbox.
Formidable Forms stands out by providing all advanced features in a single package, eliminating the need for multiple subscriptions. Unlike Gravity Forms, which requires additional third-party addons, Formidable offers everything you need in one pricing plan.
For instance, using Gravity Forms necessitates the basic plan plus additional extensions such as Gravity PDF, File Upload Pro, Gravity View, and Gravity Math. This can significantly increase your overall expenses, making Gravity Forms a costly option.
Winner – Formidable Forms
While all three plugins offer various features and integrations, Formidable Forms emerges as the clear winner.
It provides more sophisticated functionalities, allowing you to showcase form results on the front end, design complex forms, convert forms to PDF, develop web applications, and utilize various addons for tailored form solutions.
WPForms deserves an honorable mention for its marketing features, such as form abandonment tracking and digital signatures. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with leading email services, CRM systems, tracking tools, payment gateways, and other plugins.
Pricing Plans
Next, we will evaluate the pricing of WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms to determine which plugin delivers the best value for your investment.
WPForms – Pricing Options
WPForms provides four distinct pricing plans tailored for various business needs. The Basic plan is available for $49.50 per year and allows usage on one website, featuring essential functionalities such as premium templates, entry management, and file uploads.
For those needing to use the plugin on multiple websites and requiring marketing integrations, the Plus plan is offered at $99.50 per year.
Alternatively, the Pro plan encompasses all features from the Basic and Plus plans, including payment add-ons with no transaction fees, conversion tools, and advanced form functionalities, priced at $199.50 per year.
Finally, the Elite plan, available for $299.50 per year, includes unlimited website usage and access to all features and integrations that WPForms provides. Each premium plan is backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Additionally, WPForms offers a free Lite version that includes multiple form templates, standard customization fields, spam protection, and more.
It also features a Stripe integration with a low 3% transaction fee on payments made through your forms.
Gravity Forms – Pricing Plans
Gravity Forms provides three premium subscription options: the Basic License, Pro License, and Elite License.
The Basic License allows you to use the plugin on a single website and includes addons for email marketing integration and spam protection, priced at $59 per year.
The Pro License plan offers additional addons, enabling integration with more email marketing services, CRMs, payment gateways, and various third-party applications, available for $159 per year.
The Elite License plan encompasses all features from both the Basic and Pro plans, along with exclusive features such as polls, quizzes, digital signatures, surveys, geolocation, and more, priced at $259 per year.
However, Gravity Forms does not provide a free version like WPForms or Formidable Forms, and additional fees apply for various third-party addons and extensions.
Formidable Forms – Pricing Options
Formidable Forms offers four pricing plans, starting with the Basic plan at $39.50 per year, which includes over 50 form templates and essential features such as conditional logic and file uploads.
Additionally, there is a Plus plan available for $99.50 per year, which provides access to more form templates and features. This includes the Formidable Views feature, landing pages, and integrations with Mailchimp, MailPoet Newsletters, and AWeber.
Next, the Business plan is offered at $199.50 per year and includes over 150 form templates, premium addons, enhanced integrations, and additional features.
Finally, the Elite plan is priced at $299.50 per year and encompasses all available features and integrations. This plan grants access to all templates and support for third-party tools such as Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, and HubSpot.
Formidable Forms also provides a free version, allowing you to start without any cost. This version includes features like a drag-and-drop form builder, basic form templates, and standard form fields for customization.
Winner – WPForms and Formidable Forms
In terms of value for money, both WPForms and Formidable Forms clearly excel compared to Gravity Forms.
Both platforms offer four different pricing plans suitable for businesses of all sizes. Additionally, they provide a free version, which is beneficial for small website owners, bloggers, and others looking to create WordPress forms without significant investment. You also won’t incur extra costs for using multiple addons and advanced features.
What is the Best WordPress Form Plugin?
WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms are among the top WordPress form plugins available today.
We believe that WPForms stands out as the best plugin for building forms on your WordPress site. It’s incredibly user-friendly and packed with features.
With WPForms, you gain access to over 2,000 form templates, a user-friendly drag-and-drop form builder, customizable form fields, and various settings to tailor your forms. Additionally, there are premium addons available to enhance WPForms’ capabilities.
Moreover, WPForms Lite is available for free, offering numerous form templates, Stripe payment integration, and customization options. You can easily create forms for your website using this free version.
For more information, check out our comprehensive WPForms review.
Alternatively, if you’re a developer aiming to streamline the creation of complex WordPress forms, Formidable Forms is an ideal choice. It allows you to build calculators, web applications, convert forms to PDF, and much more without needing to write code.
Additional Resources 🔗 : Explore More WordPress Form Guides
We hope this comparison of WPForms, Gravity Forms, and Formidable Forms has helped you choose the ideal form plugin for your WordPress site. Be sure to explore our expert articles on:
- Contact Form 7 vs WPForms: Which is the Best Choice for WordPress?
- Essential Tips for Designing an Effective Contact Form Page (With Examples)
- How to Create More Engaging Forms in WordPress to Boost Conversions
- Top Online Order Form Plugins for WordPress: Expert Recommendations
- The Best Calculator Plugins for Your WordPress Website
- Leading Online Form Builders: Expert Recommendations
- Top Alternatives to Typeform: Free and Paid Options
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also connect with us on Twitter and Facebook.
