Create free online forms easily with these 5 tools
Online forms are a critical component for many businesses and developers today. They allow for easy collection of user data including leads, registrations, orders, and survey responses. However, building customized online forms from scratch requires HTML, CSS, and JavaScript expertise. This is where specialized form building tools come in handy!
In this post, we'll explore 5 top recommended platforms for easily creating free online forms without any coding required. We'll compare the features, advantages, limitations and ease of use for each tool to help you find the best option for your needs.
Why Online Forms Matter
Collecting information through online forms provides many benefits:
- Conveniently gather submissions 24/7 through your website
- Streamline data collection into organized formats
- Identify trends and insights from survey responses
- Capture leads through email signups and contact forms
- Allow customers to place orders or book appointments
- Qualify leads with multi-step questionnaires
- Conduct research through online polls and surveys
For developers and tech companies, forms are essential for capturing signups, feedback, bug reports, waitlists, beta registrations, newsletter subscriptions, and other critical data from users.
Specialized form builders make it easy for anyone to leverage these benefits without coding expertise. Next we'll explore 5 top-rated platforms for creating online forms for free.
Tool #1: JotForm
JotForm is a fully featured form builder used by over 5 million users. It provides a drag-and-drop form editor with 100+ templates.
Key Features
JotForm offers many powerful features even on their free plan:
- Drag-and-drop editor to quickly build forms
- 100+ form templates for common needs
- Libraries of form widgets like radio buttons, star ratings, images, etc.
- Conditional logic to branch forms based on user responses
- Accept payments through Stripe and PayPal integrations
- Zapier integration to connect form data with apps like MailChimp, Slack, etc.
For example, you could create a multi-step registration form with JotForm and use Zapier to automatically send new registrations to MailChimp for email marketing.
Ease of Use
The drag-and-drop editor enables beginners to put together basic forms within minutes. But for more advanced options like conditional logic, there is a bit of a learning curve. Overall JotForm manages to balance beginner-friendliness and powerful functionality quite well.
JotForm's free plan allows unlimited forms with up to 100 submissions per month.
Tool #2: Google Forms
Google Forms is a simple form building tool that comes free with Google accounts. It focuses on ease of use over advanced features.
Key Features
Google Forms makes it fast and easy to create basic forms with essential fields like:
- Short answer
- Paragraph
- Multiple choice
- Checkboxes
- Dropdown selections
- Date pickers
Forms can also be enhanced by inserting images and YouTube videos.
Ease of Use
Thanks to the straightforward drag-and-drop interface, Google Forms is extremely beginner-friendly. But advanced users may find it limiting for complex forms due to the lack of conditional logic and other premium features.
Overall, Google Forms is great for quickly spinning up simple contact forms, surveys, and registrations.
Tool #3: Wufoo
Wufoo provides an advanced form builder with many customization options and 100+ templates.
Key Features
Wufoo offers several powerful capabilities:
- 100+ templates for diverse form types
- Form themes and custom CSS styling
- Accept payments via Stripe and PayPal
- Conditional logic to customize form flow
- Webhooks and Zapier to connect with other apps
For example, you could use conditional logic in Wufoo to ask different followup questions based on someone's role selection in a registration form.
Ease of Use
The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for beginners to create forms. But the large range of styling, templates, and advanced options can also feel overwhelming initially.
Wufoo finds a balance between catering to form building beginners and power users. Their interface keeps things reasonably organized.
Wufoo's free plan allows up to 100 forms and 100 submissions per month.
Tool #4: Typeform
Typeform specializes in highly engaging, conversational forms with polished design.
Key Features
Typeform differentiates itself through:
- Beautiful form themes and templates
- Animated transitions between questions
- Unlimited forms and responses on free plan
- Integration with apps like MailChimp and Slack
The conversational interface makes forms feel more like guided interactions.
Ease of Use
The intuitive conversational interface makes Typeform very easy to use. But advanced options like conditional logic are not supported.
Overall, Typeform is a great choice if you want high visual appeal without complexity.
Tool #5: Formspree
Formspree offers the quickest way to send form data directly to your email.
Key Features
Formspree works by adding their customized submit URL to your HTML form code. When the form is submitted, the data is emailed to you.
The setup only takes a few minutes but has limited customization options beyond sending to email.
Ease of Use
Formspree makes it extremely easy to add a contact form to any site with HTML forms. But it lacks more robust features for complex forms.
If you just need a super simple contact form, Formspree delivers the minimum viable solution.
Summary
When choosing a form builder, consider your use case, complexity needs, design preferences, and volume requirements.
For beginners, Google Forms and Typeform are the easiest to get started with. JotForm and Wufoo support more advanced functionality. And Formspree offers extreme simplicity.
The best way to decide is to try out a few online form builders to see which one suits your needs. Just remember - leverage specialized tools instead of building forms from scratch. This will save huge amounts of development time and effort down the line.
Ready to get started creating great online forms? Check out DevHunt for developer-focused tools and resources to build exactly what you need.