Are you looking for a free contact form plugin for your WordPress site? Let's see how Formidable Forms stands up as a Contact Form 7 alternative.
Approximate read time: 7.5 minutes
Okay, it might not be as fun as talking about King Kong vs. Godzilla — tell us who you think would win in the comments! — but today, we’re comparing two titans of the form-building world…
Formidable Forms and Contact Form 7 are both popular plugins. Each is strong in its own right, but who would win in a fight between the two?
Whether you're a current user on the hunt for a Contact Form 7 alternative or are trying to decide which tool to start with, this article covers everything you need to know to choose the right one for you.
Why use a Contact Form 7 alternative?
If you don’t know how to code, you’ll have a hard time with Contact Form 7. It’s all about HTML, so if you’re not a developer or don’t want to waste your time coding a form from scratch, using a Contact Form 7 alternative is a much better option.
And whether you’re an expert coder or not, making a Contact Form 7 form responsive and attractive isn’t easy. You need to use CSS; even then, things get a bit funky.
Not to mention, Contact Form 7 doesn’t offer any native integrations.
So if you want to connect your online forms to an email marketing service or another CRM, you must install additional plugins and add-ons.
But why do that when a single plugin can do it all?
Meet the Beasts: Contact Form 7 and Formidable Forms
What is Contact Form 7?
Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest and most popular WordPress form builder plugins. It’s a free plugin that lets you create as many contact forms as you want for your website.
Contact Form 7 is an HTML form builder which allows you to build a form straight from code. It provides a minimalist interface so you can concentrate on the finer details of HTML.
What is Formidable Forms?
Formidable Forms is an advanced WordPress form builder. Hmm, advanced? Does that mean complicated? Not at all. We’ve made it super simple with a drag and drop interface, so there’s no need to know how to code.
Prefer to work with HTML and CSS? No problem. Formidable lets you fully customize the code and styling, too.
Now that we know what we’re dealing with, grab some popcorn 🍿 and settle in for an epic battle.
⚖️ Feature Comparison: Contact Form 7 vs. Formidable Forms
Formidable Forms is truly “The King of the Monsters” when it comes to form features.
A glance at this feature comparison makes it pretty clear:
| Feature | Contact Form 7 | Formidable Forms Free Plan |
|---|---|---|
| No code | ❌ | ✅ |
| Drag-and-drop form builder | ❌ | ✅ |
| Visual form styler | ❌ | ✅ |
| Pre-built form templates | ❌ | ✅ |
| Conditional logic | ❌ | ✅ |
| Save entries to database | ❌ | ✅ |
| Mobile responsive forms | Custom code required | ✅ |
| Export to PDF | ❌ | Available in Premium |
But let’s take a closer look at a few of the most important features.
Form builder interface
This is the biggest difference between Contact Form 7 and Formidable Forms.
Contact Form 7 keeps it simple with a basic interface that uses code snippets to build forms. That’s great if you're an HTML pro but not so great if you're a newbie.
One small mistake like a missing bracket can take down your form faster than Godzilla can destroy a city! 🦖
The CF7 form builder does offer a few ready-made options, but choices are limited. If you want something fancy, get ready to do lots of Googling and searching in forums to figure out the code.
But the biggest downside of Contact Form 7? You can't see what your form looks like. There’s no live preview, which is pretty inconvenient.
On the other end of the spectrum, Formidable Forms gives you a drag-and-drop form builder to view your form in real-time. It's a user-friendly dream, especially for beginners.
It’s so simple, even an ape could do it! 🦍
Say “Sayonara” to coding stress because it's all done for you in the background with Formidable. But hey, if you're head-over-heels for HTML, you can always dive into the code to make it your own.
Save entries to WordPress database
It's good practice to save form data in a database in WordPress. If you don’t, it's only too easy to miss leads. And that can wreak havoc on your business.
So you can keep control of your data, Formidable Forms saves all your form entries in the backend of your website, right in your WordPress database. You only have to look in one place to find all your form submissions.
Contact Form 7, however, doesn’t store submissions or leads anywhere. After users submit a form, their information is lost to the ether. Not ideal.
To save data from a Contact Form 7 form, you need to install and set up a separate third-party plugin.
Export to PDF
Want to go further with your form data and export it to PDF?
It’s easy with the premium version of Formidable Forms. And you can even generate custom PDFs from form entries to create invoices, certificates, contracts, and more.
You must install another plugin if you want Contact Form 7 to export to PDF. All these extra plugins start to add up, and they can seriously slow down your site.
Are other alternatives to Contact Form 7 for exporting to PDF?
You might be surprised to learn that many other popular form builders don’t offer this feature either. For example, you can’t export Typeform to PDF, and if you want Gravity Forms to download a PDF, you’ll need an extra third-party plugin.
Get the Best Contact Form 7 Alternative!
Conditional logic
So, you want to show or hide additional questions based on previous responses to keep user forms short and sweet.
And for that, you need conditional fields. Sometimes called branching questions, conditional logic can improve user experience.
A common feature of nearly all other form builders, including WPForms, Gravity Forms, Fluent Forms, Ninja Forms, and Formidable Forms, conditional logic isn’t built into Contact Form 7. It has a more reptilian kind of brain!
You guessed it. You need ANOTHER plugin for Contact Form 7 to get this basic form builder functionality.
Mobile responsive forms
By now, we’ve all seen how important it is for everything from user experience to SEO to have a mobile-friendly website.
So naturally, you want to make mobile responsive contact forms too.
With Formidable Forms, your online forms look beautiful on any device without adding custom code or media queries. It’s not so simple with Contact Form 7.
To make CF7 forms mobile responsive, you have to get your hands dirty by digging into the CSS.
Customer Support: Contact Form 7 vs. Formidable Forms
Formidable crushes this one like King Kong crushes skyscrapers.
The only way to get support for Contact Form 7 is through the WordPress forums.
Since this plugin has existed for ages, you shouldn’t have a problem finding answers to your questions. They also have helpful documentation and a handy FAQ section on their website.
But here's the catch: as a free plugin, the WordPress Plugin Directory doesn’t require them to provide support or guarantee quick responses.
But don’t worry; Formidable Forms is here to save the day!
We have an extensive documentation library, 100+ YouTube video tutorials, and a Formidable community forum where you can get support and development help from other users.
Plus, Formidable also offers support for Lite users (aka for the free version of the plugin) through WordPress.org. And there’s also extra support for any bug reports.
Users on Formidable Forms’ free plan typically get a response within 24 hours.
Need a bigger helping hand? Formidable Forms Pro comes with priority support.
Pricing: Contact Form 7 vs. Formidable Forms
This is the closest battle between the two giants.
Contact Form 7 is a free WordPress form builder you can use on multiple websites. So you’re not paying anything to get started with your website’s forms.
Formidable Forms also offers a free form builder plugin with the option to upgrade. Premium plans range from $39.50 annually to the Elite plan at $299.50.
Upgrading gives you access faster support, more integrations, and features. If you like the free plugin, you can always get more.
So, which is better, Contact Form 7 or Formidable Forms?
Formidable Forms is a fantastic form builder with a range of advanced features. There are no limits to what you can do with the right plan: multi-page forms, conditional logic, visual data reporting, and scale the Empire State Building.
Even the free version of Formidable Forms has more capabilities and a better overall user experience than the Contact Form 7 plugin. Plus, it’s truly a no-code solution.
That’s why we think Formidable Forms is the best alternative to Contact Form 7. And lots of users agree.
But if you’re an HTML and CSS wizard and only want to make a simple contact form, Contact Form 7 could do the job for you. Although, like King Kong, you may quickly feel caged in by the limits of the plugin or tied down by the need for so many additional plugins to create the WordPress forms you want.
We hope this Formidable Forms vs. Contact Form 7 comparison has helped you decide on your WordPress form builder plugin. And that it made you smile too!
Aren’t sure Formidable Forms is the best Contact 7 Form alternative for you?
If you’re wondering whether WPForms is better than Contact Form 7 or the difference between Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms or Caldera Forms, we’ve got you covered. Check out these reviews:
Outgrow vs Typeform, How To Choose
Gravity Forms Styler Alternative [Form Design Made Simple!]
Google Forms vs Typeform [Which Form Builder is Best?]
Hi, I'm very impressed with the capabilities and features of FormidableForms, I am creating a site to keep medical records (not in the USA) The doctors will save all the patient's record using your product. I have some questions:
1. Can your product graph information like blood pressure vs date? Or any other medical required graph? What about Anatomy input graph, for example, when a patient was inspected and the doctor has in paper a little pre-printed chest draw and there he can mark where a tumor was found. Any add-on for that?
2. Is there an appointment calendar private between he and his patients so they can interact to see days available, and so on and notifications for the patient?.
Maybe is almost a Christmas wish list but i wonder if already have that kind of features already developed and can be acquired as an add-on or something similar.
Best regards!
Hello Arturo,
Sounds like a fun and ambitious project you are working on. Formidable works very well for ambitious projects. 😉
Formidable certainly can allow graphs. Here's a link to Jamie's graphing post that covers some of the options available with graphs.
Nathanael also wrote a post about how to display the graphs easily.
Formidable does allow time fields. Here is specific documentation on time fields.
For more help regarding any of this, please post a ticket in the help desk.
Good luck!
For sure Contact Form 7 is the most popular plugin for sending emails, but... it's user interface is a bit obsolete, that's why I created a tiny plugin which solves this issue with modern loaders and alerts.
contact form 7 calculated fields is best plugin to is best plugin to both single and difficult calculation