Are you trying to choose between Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms vs WPForms? Comparing form builders plugin is tricky when there are so many addons and features to consider.
In this article, we’ll break it down to find the important differences between Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, and WPForms.
What Is a Form Builder?
A form builder is a tool that lets you build forms inside your browser. You can add different fields to your form and customize the way they work.
You can use a form builder to make:
- Contact forms
- Mailchimp signup forms
- Chatbot subscription forms
- Multi-step forms
- …and more.
All of the form builders in this article let you embed forms in WordPress for your visitors to fill out.
Now we know a little bit more about form builders, let’s look at these 3 WordPress form builder plugins in detail.
Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms vs WPForms: Which Is the Best Form Builder?
In this review, we’re going to look at each form builder on features, ease of use, support, and pricing.
Here’s a summary of our findings:
Ninja Forms | Gravity Forms | WPForms | |
---|---|---|---|
Free version available | Yes | No | Yes |
Pricing | $99+/yr | $59+/yr | $79+/yr |
Live form preview | Yes | No | Yes |
Templates included | 17 | No | 100+ |
Form import tool | Yes – Ninja Forms only | Yes – Gravity Forms only | Yes – Ninja Forms, Pirate Forms, WPForms, Contact Form 7 |
Keep reading to find out how they measure up.
Features
If you need a free contact form for your website, WPForms Lite comes with a customizable, free template.
For advanced forms, it helps to think about the features you’ll need before you start to compare plugins.
Gravity Forms Features
With the Gravity Forms Basic license, you can use conditional logic, multi-page forms, and the Basic addons.
The Basic license also gives you most of the same forms fields that you’ll find in WPForms and Ninja Forms.
There are a few differences. For example, Gravity Forms is missing the star rating field. This field is handy if you want to collect testimonials from customers.
The form builder in Gravity Forms doesn’t have a live preview in the form builder.
You can set up email notifications when your forms are submitted and use reCaptcha or Akismet to prevent spam.
The Gravity Forms Pro license unlocks the Pro addons, but otherwise, the features are similar to Basic. If you want to use the payment fields, coupon fields, or create surveys, you’ll need to pay for an Elite license.
Ninja Forms Features
The Ninja Form form builder shows you what your finished form will look like as you work.
All form fields are available in the free version of Ninja Forms. Keep in mind that some fields won’t work unless you pay for an addon.
It’s also worth checking that the fields work the way you expect. For example, the address field is primarily designed for US addresses. You can customize this manually. But there’s no way to quickly change the address scheme.
You can add spam protection to your forms. Ninja Forms supports some types of Google reCaptcha, but not the latest reCaptcha v3.
If you want to change the layout of your fields, you will need to write your own CSS, or pay for a $49 addon.
WPForms Features
WPForms Pro is the best value form builder plugin. It’s super easy for beginners to use.
With WPForms Pro, you get all of these great features:
- Unlimited forms
- Unlimited entries
- Conditional logic
- Templates
- Spam protection
- File uploads
- Offline forms
- 1-click geolocation
- Entry storage
- …and more.
There are also tons of easy ways to customize your forms. For example, you can quickly choose a field size using a dropdown in the form builder.
The layout buttons make it easy to position fields in columns without writing code.
When you’re done, you can embed your forms anywhere on your website using a block or shortcode.
You can place your forms in 3 places:
- On a page
- In a post
- In the sidebar.
Just add the WPForms widget where you want your form to appear.
Then select your form from the dropdown.
And remember: WPForms is the only tool on our list that can import forms from Contact Form 7.
Ease of Use
All of these form builders use a browser interface to build a form. However, the form builders are slightly different in the way they work.
Gravity Forms Ease of Use
The Gravity Forms builder opens inside the WordPress interface. This means that you have less space to work in Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms or WPForms.
The way you edit form fields in Gravity Forms is also different. When you click the field, all of the options drop down below it, not to the side.
You will need to scroll up and down a lot while customizing the fields.
There’s also no live preview, so you will need to preview the form on your site as you work.
If you have a small monitor, be sure to check out the Gravity Forms demo to see if this layout works for you.
Ninja Forms Ease of Use
The Ninja Forms builder fills the whole screen when you open it. To add a field, click the plus icon at the bottom right.
You can drag the field onto your form and customize it. When you’re finished, click the Done button, and the right-hand pane closes.
You can then click the plus icon again to add your next field.
If you’re building a long form, this process adds a lot of extra clicks.
By default, most customizations are hidden until you turn on ‘Dev Mode’ in the settings.
WPForms Ease of Use
WPForms is the easiest form builder for beginners.
To build a form, you can pick a template and then customize it, which really helps to speed things up.
The WPForms builder pops out into a fullscreen window so you have tons of space to work in. Even on a small monitor, you can see your form preview all the time as you work.
Creating forms with WPForms is super easy. To build a form, just drag and drop fields from the left-hand pane to the right-hand pane. Click on the field to customize it.
You can use the left-hand pane to set up your defaults, placeholders, or your matrix question answer choices.
When you’re done, it’s really easy to embed your form on your website without using any code.
You can use a widget to add it to any post, page, or the sidebar or footer of your theme.
Support: Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, or WPForms?
Support is vital when your form isn’t working the way you expect. But when we compare Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms vs WPForms, which support will suit you best?
Gravity Forms Support
Gravity Forms has an FAQ page on its website along with documentation for all fields, addons, and features.
It provides support via tickets to paying customers Monday-Friday, 9 am to 6 pm EST. Elite license holders get priority support.
The team doesn’t support 3rd-party templates or addons.
Ninja Forms Support
Ninja Forms offers support within 24 hours for free users or priority support for paying customers.
It has documentation covering all features in the plugin. Information about tools in ‘Dev mode’ is hidden behind dropdowns on the documentation pages.
WPForms Support
WPForms has 3 online help resources:
- A troubleshooting guide
- Documentation for all features, fields, and addons available in the plugin
- Separate Developer Documentation for advanced users.
WPForms Lite users get free support in the WPForms Lite forum.
Users for any paid version of WPForms can send a support ticket to get help. Support tickets are answered Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm EST. The team usually responds to all tickets within 24 hours.
WPForms also has a helpful user community on Facebook called the VIP Circle.
Pricing: Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms vs WPForms
You can spend up to $499 on a form builder plugin, depending on what you need to do.
Let’s look at some typical forms you might want to make along with a typical price.
Ninja Forms | Gravity Forms | WPForms | |
---|---|---|---|
Contact form | Free | $59/ yr | Free |
Constant Contact signup form | $99/yr | $59/yr | Free |
Mailchimp signup form | $99/yr | $59/yr | $79/yr |
Drip lead capture form | $199/yr plus Zapier subscription | $159/yr plus Zapier subscription | $199/yr |
To understand this better, we need to look at how pricing works for each plugin.
Gravity Forms Pricing
There’s no free version of Gravity Forms, but there is a demo you can use to try it out before you buy.
To install Gravity Forms on your website, you’ll need to pay for an annual subscription:
- The Basic license is suitable for 1 website and costs $59/ year. This gives you all fields and most of the mailing list addons.
- The Pro license costs $159 a year for 3 sites. It adds integrations for services like Zapier, Slack, and FreshBooks.
- An Elite license costs $259 a year for unlimited sites. It adds Stripe fields, polls, and user registration forms.
The Elite license also has survey tools similar to SurveyMonkey.
Ninja Forms Pricing
Ninja Forms has the most complicated pricing of all 3 plugins.
You can pay for individual addon annually, or buy an annual membership.
There are up to 3 different prices for each addon, and 3 different memberships priced at $99-$499.
For example:
- Constant Contact integration costs $18, $29, or $46 as a single addon. It comes with bundles costing $99, $199, or $499, or a lifetime license.
- OnePageCRM costs $49, $79, or $129 as a single addon, or you can buy the $499 membership bundle, or a lifetime license.
If you just need 1 addon, this pricing will make sense for you. If you need more than 1, it gets more complicated. You could spend a lot of time trying to figure out which plan will be the best value.
WPForms Pricing
There are 4 paid WPForms licenses:
- Basic, which gives you templates, multi-page forms, file uploads, and conditional logic
- Plus, which adds support for most mailing list providers like Mailchimp
- Pro, which adds almost all of the other features and addons
- Elite, which adds specialized features like webhooks, and usage on unlimited sites.
If you want to see exactly what is included, check out this comparison chart of WPForms features.
In the free version, you can:
- Try all of the basic fields
- Use form templates
- Protect your forms from spam
- Get entries by email.
It’s really easy to start with WPForms Lite. You can easily upgrade to WPForms Pro later when you need more features.
Remember! When you buy any WPForms license, it comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Which Is the Best Form Builder? Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms WPForms
WPForms is the best form builder for WordPress.
Here’s why:
- The fullscreen form editor makes it really easy to make and publish any type of form
- There are more than 100 templates to get you started
- You can preview forms as you make them
- You can publish forms on your website without using any code
- It’s easy to connect your forms to other of services using WPForms addons
- The Developer Documentation lets you customize your forms any way you like.
Don’t forget: WPForms is the only form plugin we looked at that can import forms from other plugins, including Ninja Forms.
Create Your First WordPress Form Now
Final Thoughts
And that’s it! Now you know the pros and cons of Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms vs WPForms.
If you’d like help creating your first form in WPForms, check out this article on how to create a contact form in WordPress.
Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
If this article helped you out, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more free WordPress tutorials and guides.
The post Gravity Forms vs Ninja Forms vs WPForms – Form Builders Compared appeared first on WPForms.
source https://wpforms.com/gravity-forms-vs-ninja-forms-vs-wpforms/