As a WordPress expert with over 5 years of experience building websites, I often get asked: "What‘s the best contact form plugin"?
There are literally hundreds of form builders out there so I know it can get overwhelming trying to pick the right one.
That‘s why I researched the top contenders and created this 2023 updated comparison of the 5 best WordPress contact form plugins based on features, functionality, ease of use, and value:
At a Glance Comparison
Before getting into the details, here is a high-level overview comparing the core features of the top 5 recommended WordPress contact form plugins:
| Plugin | Drag & Drop Builder | Templates | Payments | Surveys | Entry Management | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WPForms | ✅ | 100+ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Free |
| Formidable | ✅ | No | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Free |
| Gravity Forms | ✅ | No | Addon | Addon | ✅ | $39/year |
| Ninja Forms | ✅ | No | Addon | Addon | ✅ | Free |
| Contact Form 7 | Code Editor | No | Addon | No | No | Free |
Now let‘s dive into the details on each plugin and why it made our list of recommendations…
1. WPForms – Best Overall Contact Form Plugin
With over 7 million active installs, WPForms is far and away the most popular WordPress contact form plugin in 2023.
I use WPForms myself on client sites because of how easy it is to create beautiful, high converting forms in just minutes.
Why WPForms is Our #1 Pick:
Intuitive Drag & Drop Form Builder – Perfect for beginners and non-technical users yet still powerful for experts. Over 100 useful form templates to modify for your needs.
Accept Payments – Integrates with Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net and more to easily collect payments, donations, registrations fees, etc.
Surveys & Polls – Built-in surveys with interactive reports help you capture visitor feedback. Puts solutions like SurveyMonkey to shame.
CRM Integrations – Connect your forms to your favorite CRM/email platform like MailChimp, Salesforce, Zoho and more.
Awesome Support – Superior docs, videos, forums and US-based email support when you need assistance from real people.
Trusted Security – Includes reCAPTCHA, honeypots and IP tracking detection for anti-spam protection right out of the box.
The free version of WPForms provides a solid solution for basic contact forms while premium plans unlock advanced functionality like payment integrations, multi-page forms, conditional logic, form abandonment reports and more.
It‘s easy to see why WPForms is now actively used on over 1 million WordPress sites. The features, flexibility and friendly support allow it to handle forms of any level of complexity.
I can whole-heartedly recommend WPForms as the best overall contact form plugin for any WordPress site in 2023. The free or paid versions will serve you extremely well.
WPForms Ratings & Stats:
- 98% rating (5/5 stars) from over 30,000 reviews
- 7+ million active installations
- Over 1 million websites use WPForms forms
- Over 4,000 5-star reviews
- 850+ 5-star reviews in past year
2. Formidable Forms – Most Powerful Form Builder
If you need extremely advanced and flexible forms with views, charts, calculations and more – Formidable Forms is the best WordPress form plugin in 2023 in my opinion.
While the interface may be more complex for beginners compared to WPForms or Gravity Forms, Formidable truly has enterprise-level capabilities for custom applications.
Why Formidable Stands Out:
Drag & Drop Flexibility – The form builder may have a steeper learning curve but allows extremely flexible layouts not easily achievable with other WordPress form plugins. Developers will especially appreciate the fine-grained control over form display and behavior.
Views and Charts – Once form entries start rolling in, Formidable shines with its Views feature to display dynamic charts, graphs and other front-end reports of the data. Extremely valuable for surveys.
Form Relationships – You can create parent/child relationships between different Formidable forms and pass data between them. Enables super powerful applications.
Calculations & Equations – The calculation fields provide a terrific built-in way to implement quizzes, surveys, polls and other solutions needing math.
For the reasons above, Formidable Forms tends to be very popular with developers, agencies and more advanced WordPress site owners. It enables so much custom functionality without needing to code everything from scratch.
If you have very complex, data-driven needs for a registration system, application, survey, questionnaire, calculator, etc – Formidable simply can‘t be beat in a WordPress context in 2023.
Formidable Forms requires a steeper learning curve but provides unmatched power and customization capabilities for advanced applications with WordPress forms.
Formidable Forms Ratings & Stats:
- 98% rating (5/5 stars) from over 6,000 reviews
- 400,000+ active installations
- Over 2,500 5-star reviews
- 600+ 5-star reviews in past year
3. Gravity Forms – Great for Developers
Gravity Forms was one of the original premium form solutions for WordPress back in 2008. And it remains a very popular choice in 2023 among developers, freelancers and agencies.
The core plugin focuses on providing an easy drag & drop experience plus hooks and filters so developers can deeply customize functionality through code.
There‘s also a huge ecosystem of Gravity Forms addons and integrations available to further extend its capabilities for specialist use cases.
Why Choose Gravity Forms:
Entry Management – Provides excellent tools for managing and exporting large quantities of form submissions with sorting and filtering.
Partial Saves – Visitors can save their progress mid-form and come back later to complete. Great for long surveys and questionnaires.
Signature Field – Useful for contracts, agreements, enrollment forms needing electronic signature capture before submission.
Developer-Friendly – Features like templates, Ajax submission, hooks and filters make Gravity Forms a superb launching point for developers to craft custom industry solutions.
So Gravity Forms appeals to those wanting a forms plugin that works great out of the box yet still offers ample flexibility under-the-hood to customize it further through code modifications and extensions.
Gravity Forms strikes a nice balance between ease of use and custom developer extensibility. An excellent choice for geeks like me who build complex form-based apps.
Gravity Forms Ratings & Stats:
- 98% rating (5/5 stars) from over 7,000 reviews
- Over 700,000 active installs
- 5,000+ 5-star reviews
- 300+ 5-star reviews in past year
4. Ninja Forms – Freemium Form Builder
If you like the idea of a freemium model for WordPress forms, Ninja Forms takes that approach. You can download the core Ninja Forms plugin 100% free forever.
For more advanced functionality, Ninja Forms offers various premium extensions available individually or bundled. This allows you to start simple then add capabilities over time.
Ninja Forms Benefits:
Unlimited Forms – Even with the free plugin you can create an unlimited number of WordPress forms without restrictions.
File Uploads – Allow file attachments for contact forms, job applications, submissions where documents/media needs included.
Layout Flexibility – Ninja Forms generates clean HTML for high customization control over form display and styling.
Awesome Developer Resources – Extremely developer-friendly with available REST API, filters, actions hooks and integration documentation to satisfy any techy.
So if you like the freemium model, Ninja Forms provides a fantastic free foundation then optional paid upgrades for more advanced site building needs.
Ninja Forms impresses me with the unlimited free core plugin then flexible upgrades path without forcing your hand unnecessarily. Quality freemium model.
Ninja Forms Ratings & Stats:
- 98% rating (5/5 stars) from over 1,000 reviews
- 400,000+ active installs
- 700+ 5-star reviews
- 100+ 5-star reviews in past year
5. Contact Form 7 – Open Source Form Option
Lastly I felt it important to still mention Contact Form 7 (CF7), the oldie but goodie. It remains extremely popular especially among developers who prefer editing code vs drag & drop form building.
If you‘re comfortable writing HTML and tweaking PHP, Contact Form 7 delivers a no-fuss, no-bloat foundation to craft forms through markup while avoiding unnecessary complexity.
Things I Like About Contact Form 7:
Lightweight – The source code is clean, lightweight, and performs quickly without dragging down your WordPress site.
Spam Filters – CF7 utilizes CAPTCHAs, honeypots, nonce security, and other techniques to filter spam submissions.
Customization – Developers can fully customize every aspect of their forms through available hooks, filters, and template overrides.
Free Extensions – 3rd party developers offer various free CF7 extensions to add functionality like multi-page forms, PayPal payments, file uploads and more.
Contact Form 7 won‘t win any awards for its admin UI. But I still use it sometimes for quick forms when I want to avoid overly complex plugins.
Contact Form 7 adopts a minimalist approach centered around writing HTML code that many WordPress developers continue to appreciate.
Contact Form 7 Ratings & Stats:
- 94% rating (4.5/5 stars) from almost 2,000 reviews
- Over 2 million active installs
- 600+ 5-star reviews
- 100+ 5-star reviews in past year
Which Is the Best WordPress Contact Form Plugin in 2023?
We hope this 2023 updated guide has helped compare the key features, pros and cons of the top form builder plugins for WordPress.
In summary:
WPForms is the best overall "do-it-all" solution for 99% of website owners. Extremely user-friendly and powerful yet still affordable with reliable support. Free or premium, you can‘t go wrong.
Formidable Forms delivers unmatched power, data display capabilities and flexibility for complex forms and applications. Less intuitive to start but amazingly full-featured.
Gravity Forms strikes a nice balance between ease of use and developer customization. Huge ecosystem of helpful extensions.
Ninja Forms takes the freemium route so you can start free then expand as needed.
Contact Form 7 appeals to WordPress developers who enjoy hand-crafting forms through HTML markup. Lightweight with wide flexibility.
Ultimately there is no singular "best" contact form plugin for WordPress. Selecting the right form builder depends on your technical skill level, features needed, budget constraints and more.
But hopefully by detailing the pros, cons and key differences between the top 5 recommended plugins, you now feel empowered to pick the right solution for your website and use case!
As you consider and test different options, please reach out with any questions. I offer fully-managed WordPress website design services and am always happy to help – contact details below.
Steve
Freelance Web Designer & WordPress Expert
My Website
