WordPress is the most widely used content management system (CMS) in the world. It is known for its reliability, security, and flexibility. Among the many plugins it supports, contact form plugins are among the most useful and sought-after.
These plugins allow website users to contact the website administrator or owner. Contact forms also allow the site owner to collect specific information while protecting against spam by not displaying a public email address. These plugins can support other features as well, such as order forms, payment forms, complaint forms, feedback forms, and more.
There are nearly 1,500 different contact form plugins for WordPress, and they all differ in terms of their features, strengths, and weaknesses.
In this article, we present our selection of the 5 best contact form plugins for WordPress.
Gravity Forms, the most powerful
Gravity Forms is a WordPress plugin launched by RocketGenius in 2009. It allows you to create contact forms using drag-and-drop, meaning you don’t need to code. It stands out from other plugins thanks to its highly advanced features, which make it possible to create complex content. This plugin is now the gold standard for contact forms on WordPress.
Its strengths
Gravity Forms has many strengths, ranging from its interface to its features.
- A user-friendly, lightweight interface that uses drag-and-drop functionality;
- Easy and intuitive to use, made even easier by a helpful guide;
- Adaptable, versatile, and scalable thanks to its many available extensions. It can be used to conduct surveys, generate quotes, and more;
- A system of notifications that can be scheduledbased on the formulas entered in each field;
- Ability to implement advanced features such as price or quantity calculations, or obtaining the user’s consent to the site’s or service’s terms of use;
- A CAPTCHA field to help prevent spam.
His weaknesses
Despite its many strengths, Gravity Forms is not without its weaknesses.
- Price: The publisher sells licenses at prices that may be prohibitive for some, including the basic plan, which does not provide access to all of the plugin's features.
- It is not possible to customize the appearance of contact forms without using CSS, which may be beyond the capabilities of some users.
WP Forms, the intuitive one
WP Forms is a plug-infor contact forms on WordPress. It was developed with the goal of providing a plug-in that is easily accessible and usable by everyone, including beginners. It uses a drag-and-drop interface, allowing you to freely arrange the form fields. It is one of the most flexible and seamless form plugins on the market. It allows you to create forms for a variety of purposes, such as subscription forms,email sign-up forms, donation forms, order forms, suggestion and complaint forms, quote requests, information requests, and more.
Its strengths
WP Forms stands out thanks to strengths that stem from its very design. The goal of that design was to create a functional plugin that is accessible to everyone.
- Easy to use, even when it comes to its most advanced features;
- Getting started is made easy with numerous user guides and video tutorials;
- A user-friendly and simple interface that uses drag-and-drop;
- A wide variety of pre-built form templates for various purposes;
- Already compatible with smartphones and tablets.
Its weaknesses
WP Formshas few weaknesses, but they mainly involve the lack of—or complexity of—very advanced features.
- A plug-in that is expensive in its full version, which includes all features;
- A very limited and not very useful free version;
- Complicated download management and the inability to perform multiple simultaneous downloads.
Ninja Forms, Agile
Ninja Forms is one of the most popular contact form plugins in the world. It owes its success to its ease of use, flexibility, and the many add-ons that allow you to expand its already extensive set of features. In addition, this plugin offers several form templates that allow you to either start a form from scratch or create a form to gather feedback from users or customers, a contact form, or a form for users to submit articles.
Its strengths
- A wide variety of add-ons that extend its functionality: Multi-Step Forms, Conditional Logic, Save Progress, PDF Form Submission, etc.;
- Easy to get started with, yet offers more advanced capabilities for more in-depth use;
- Ease of integrating advanced features such as payment methods;
- Optimized functionality with drag-and-drop, file storage, third-party component integration, and access permission control.
Its weaknesses
- A very limited free version and a paid version that is more expensive than most other plug-ins;
Caldera Forms, the most generous
Caldera Forms is included in this selection of the best contact form plugins because it offers advanced features in its free version. It allows you to add various types of fields, calculations, buttons, and drop-down menus—all with ease using drag-and-drop. This tool also allows you to upload files and create posts. It also includes built-in anti-spam protection and conditional logic.
Its strengths
Caldera Forms is one of the most feature-rich plugins in its free version, but its paid version is even more capable and powerful.
- A wide variety of fields that can be added to the form;
- Users are able to upload their documents or create content;
- A wide range of automatic response options thanks to conditional logic;
- Easily export entries to CSV format;
- Responsive forms;
- An effective anti-spam feature.
Its weaknesses
- Lack of add-ons to expand its functionality.
We Forms, the New Kid on the Block
We Forms is the latest contact form plugin. It is only compatible with WordPress versions 5.0 and later.
This is an all-in-one plugin designed for use by both beginners and experts. It features a minimalist interface that is easy and quick to use. All features are contained on a single page. The developers’ goal in creating this plugin was to enable users to create forms as quickly as possible. And, indeed, with this structure, it’s possible to create complex forms in just a few minutes.
Its strengths
Although it's very new, We Forms is racking up achievements and shaking up the competition.
- Features that are superior to those of other plug-ins, but at a similar price;
- Enables useful integrations with AWeber, MailPoet, Campaign Monitor, and Constant Contact, as well as with business applications such as Google Sheets, Zapier, and Slack;
- Using short codes;
- Anti-spam feature using reCaptcha;
- Smooth drag-and-drop functionality with instant preview.
Its weaknesses
- There isn't much documentation or video tutorials available, given that it was just recently launched.
Contact Forms: The Plugin to Avoid
Contact Forms is a WordPress plugin for creating contact forms. It is widely used because it is included for free with most premium . Its popularity among many users is therefore due solely to the fact that it’s free, not to any particular merits. On the contrary, it suffers from a few flaws and malfunctions, including security issues.
Why shouldn't you use it?
Contact Forms is known to have had numerous security vulnerabilities that put websites whose CMS included this plugin at risk.
The most recent vulnerability was related to a feature of Contact Forms that allows users to upload files via forms they create with the plugin. This is where the security vulnerability crept in. It is, in fact, possible to exploit this vulnerability to compromise the integrity of the site by using the temporary folder generated by the plugin to store the files the user wants to send.
Although updates and patches have been released to address these vulnerabilities, others may emerge. The plug-in is also known to lack flexibility and modularity, particularly when it comes to adding third-party add-ons.
