Looking for the best database plugin for WordPress? This WordPress relational database plugin has everything you need to search and manage data easily!
Approximate read time: 6 minutes
Want the best WordPress relational database plugin?
A WordPress relational database management system can improve your website performance and help you avoid messy schema and structure coding. The best WordPress database plugin for relational databases goes way beyond the basics. This plugin can do much more than create a searchable database in WordPress.
Of course, we're referring to the WordPress searchable database plugin and WordPress form plugin, Formidable Forms.
Weren’t expecting a form plugin? Then, it's time to raise your expectations!
Why is a form-builder the best WordPress database plugin?
A form-builder plugin creates relational databases that allow you to gather information.
For example, here are some things you can do with an all-in-one plugin like Formidable:
- Use Views to show form data in a tables or grids, or use Classic View for development
- Lookup Fields and Advanced filters pull related info to show only what's needed
- The drag and drop form builder and AI form builder create forms in minutes
- The User Flow add-on helps you track user behavior
All this is to collect user emails and information from your WordPress dashboard.
Why download a plugin for one purpose when you can use a plugin that does far more than manage databases? And if you don’t have to fiddle around with database schema, which can lead to WordPress errors, why would you?
A plugin can handle it for you!
So, let's talk about what a relational database plugin should do:
- Provide tools for defining fields and uploading and importing data
- Include database tools to display data from the database in various ways
- Give you tools to perform database cleanup or database optimization
Formidable Forms is more than capable of handling those basics. What's more, it can help you manage and build the data from your forms and build them!
Today's post will show how our plugin boosts every WordPress website's database. And in case you're confused:
Formidable doesn't replace the default WordPress database. It extends it.
You'll have the power to import data and search it with ease.
Uploading & importing data
You can create a WordPress contact form with file uploads using Formidable Forms.
But that's not all.
You can upload data to your WordPress site in a few ways:
- Input the data yourself
- Using CSV files & XML files
- Form submission on the front end of your site
We often take this ability to import and export files for granted, and you should, too! Because Formidable Forms comes with functional data tables in the backend of WordPress, you can manually input data into your WordPress plugin database with a user-friendly UI.
As you can see in the image above, there's a button for importing entries, too.
This feature allows you to import and export CSV and XML files. Simply ensure your form has the custom form fields you need, and you'll be set!
And if you want users to upload data to your site but don't want them poking around the backend, that's possible, too! Create a form with front-end editing enabled, and users will be able to upload whatever data you want them to.
There are tons of possibilities here.
For example, users can upload images to the WordPress document library. And with Formidable's Views add-on, display submitted data in real-time on your website.
This is ideal for real estate listings, reviews, polling results, and more!
Searching, filtering & displaying data
But we all know an excellent database doesn't only collect information.
You need to be able to search and use the data, too! This is why Formidable is an excellent option. Here are a few features Formidable Forms allows in its WordPress relational databases:
- Backend user interface
- Lookup fields, chained select, dynamic fields
- Advanced views to display data
Once you have uploaded your data, you need a way to access it. The built-in Formidable UI has you covered!
There are a ton of options ready to go:
You can also take things further with this powerful search tool:
And, of course, you can sort your database, too:
You can even edit entire entries from the backend:
These are all standard features built into the core Formidable plugin (even our free version).
But there are even more features that can take your WordPress plugin form to database abilities even further.
Build powerful relational database features
Formidable Forms has advanced tools to create dynamic field relationships inside a database.
This is the ultimate feature if you want the best WordPress frontend database plugin. For example, you can create chained selects (cascading fields) with Lookup Fields:
Here's an example of a dynamic data relationship in action:
And don't forget about Formidable's powerful Views feature.
Views helps you create custom databases with data displayed how you want it every time.
Formidable’s relational database builder pulls from one or many forms to build the database relationships for your desired results.
For example, you can add a file upload field to a frontend form, collect audio files, and add them to an audio library.
Views gives you the tools to define the layout and how you will display the data within your WordPress theme.
When you use Views, you can create almost anything imaginable online. Create a small personal database or a powerful web application to rival top CRMs!
And it’s all possible with you using the best WordPress forms plugin with a database.
What else can a relational database plugin for WordPress do?
Still not convinced?
You can do anything with Formidable Forms as your database optimizer plugin, Views, and a form builder.
Whether you need a database reset or an advanced database cleaner (like WP Sweep or WP Optimize), Formidable covers you with a single click and WordPress installation.
If you’re unsure, check out these features:
- Optimize database after deleting revisions
- Filter out expired transients
- Organize database tables how you want
- Clean and optimize user information with ease
- Display data in appealing charts and tables
- Use Formidable as a backup plugin to create a backup
- And more!
No matter what you want to do, from creating database backups to managing post revisions and spam comments — a WordPress database plugin helps you manage it all.
What are you waiting for? Get your relational database plugin!
Managing a database is a lot of work.
Luckily, Formidable Forms is much more than the best WordPress database management plugin (although it has the best WordPress database). It has many other key features to help manage a website.
So, what are you waiting for? Get started with our form maker now!
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This is great information, Ryan. But it's written more as a sales pitch than as an instructional how-to. Could you follow up with pointers to details for any additional detailed onsite documentation about how to accomplish this very thing -- creating a searchable, sortable, filterable records set in Views, for a knowledge-base kind of application? And/or create a brief screen walkthrough that shows how to set up a site of this kind?
I'm hoping for something like the equivalent of the drill-down Lookup Fields that FF Forms have, but used for the purpose of having visitors search a database of existing FF records, rather than submitting new entries to it from the front end -- something like what formidableforms.com/knowledgebase can do, in fact. The FF support team told me just yesterday that this isn't doable -- I'm hoping they're wrong or misunderstood my question ;-).
Could the Forms lookup fields maybe be part of the solution, e.g. by hiding the Forms' Submit button via a checkbox, or using it for submitting a search that does not save a record and that displays found data on the same page as the search drill-down? Or could similar sorts of drill-downs also be created with Views, possibly using the methods described on the FF documentation for nested views and/or custom search forms?
Thanks,
Jim
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your questions and feedback. This article is intended to be a high-level overview rather than a step-by-step guide on setting up a searchable database.
I think you are right that a detailed how-to tutorial in our docs would be a great benefit to many. Is this article what you had in mind?
https://formidableforms.com/how-to-create-a-searchable-database-in-wordpress/
As always, our support team is standing by and ready to answer any questions you run into during the process.
Hi,
The example you show looks like is taking fields from a single table, like "cars" table. I have been using MS Access for over 20 years, spent on your site hours and still I am not sure if I can build a simple SQL query where I define relationships within tables so my visitors can apply my search on a query, not a table. For example, let's focus on four tables: "cars", "sales", "sales agents" and "car brands". I want for the user of the website to be able to see all SALES of FORD models an particular AGENT have done in year 2020, and, possibly show some additional data about the car (year made) and sales agent (year of employment, average annual salary...). Some cumulative data at the bottom (sales total) would be necessary.
I understand I can try the software for 14 days and get refund but I don't want to go through the hassle.
Thank you,
Dragan
It is an amazing post and you explained it in a detailed way. Nice to see this here. I will bookmark your blog for more details. Keep sharing new things like this.
We sponsor students and get them to several schools.
1, We want to manage our students’ information and keep them in a database. Add their personal and educational information, grades for each subjects etc. we want this to be searchable and add multiple custom form field
2, I also want to display the grades of the total students with graph, Like show how many students got more than 80, 90, etc of the subjects, Is this possible?
Hi Shegar,
Without knowing all the details of your use case, it is difficult to say definitively whether this is something that can be accomplished 100% with Formidable Forms, but it sounds like something that should be possible.
It sounds like a good fit for our plugin features, but you may need to try it out and reach out to our support team with more details to get a better understanding of whether this can be done.