Online Form Builder

[thomass]

My goal was to build an online form for my website. I did not know that it was a hard task. I researched all the skills that were required to build an online form.

Throughout my researches, I've discovered that I need a place were the forms need to be sent. I discovered, that I may need an expensive server or at least a hosting with high budget features.

I had the following criteria:
Able to build HTML forms
No programming knowledge
Drag and drop form building
Easy to use
Support for integrations
Ability to process payments

This is the list of form builders I came up with:
- Google Forms
- Element Form
- Typeform
- Formstack
- Jotform
- Zoho
- Formsite

Here are my thoughts:

Google Forms
Does the job, is a very basic form builder. It does only have the barebones of features.

Element Form
Positively surprised! Used by many fortune 500 companies, this builder has all the features I'm looking for.
It supports an easy to use drag and drop form creation interface which you can use to build forms easily. I was able to integrate it with google docs in a matter of minutes and on top of it, it is free!
https://www.elementform.com/

Typeform
An interesting approach to forms where they only show one text at a time. It is supposed to be modern however I did not like it.

Formstack
This tool is meant for high profile enterprise users that have a budget of $$$$. I did not like the interface, it was very cluttered.

Jotform
Oh my goodness. Where should I start? This tool is riddled with errors and does not live up to its promise. Although I was able to build a form, it was completely unusable and fell through very quickly. I tried a test submission and the form crashed with an error. They are also charging you $$ for the supposed "free" version and $$$$ for the enterprise version. Stay clear.

Zoho
Again, one of the bare-bones form builders likes google forms. This one is not free. I wouldn't use it.

Formsite
Limited trial of 7 days and also a price tag of $$$ eliminates this one for me. I can't and don't want to use this one as it is simply not good enough.


The winner: Element Form
This is the easiest form builder I've used among the listed ones. It is perfectly capable to build online forms and meets all requirements.
I have built about 7 forms now. I've spent zero money on it!
https://www.elementform.com/

In total, I did this research in about 7 hours so I would appreciate your interest in it.

[johnswinson]

Wow! Thank you very much for your research.

I think this does underline the fact that sometimes the free tools are the best ones. Even if there is competition from the likes of Google.

Kudos

[sinceyourethere]

Great list.

Although not in your criteria of selection, by knowing a language like PHP would greatly help in building more complex forms, or when trying to debug small errors in your forms built with such tools.

[rambomordo]

Wow! Thank you very much for your research.

[jimmyhard]

I remember that I also had some problems with building online forms for my website. As a result I've transferred my site to Wordpress and used their plugins for online forms building.

[kaderinos]

Thank you very much for your post it s very helpful

[riyazahamed]

100 of kudos good list you have updated I usually work with google form will try out others also