Create Free Online Forms Effortlessly with These Top Tools

Introduction

Online forms are a convenient way to easily collect information and data from users at scale. With the right online form builder, anyone can create professional-looking forms for business, research, events, and more without any coding required. The goal of this article is to provide a comparison of the top free tools available for quickly building functional online forms optimized for completion rate. We'll be evaluating ease of use, customization options, templates, integrations, and other key features. Follow along to discover the best free platforms that will allow you to create online forms tailored to your specific needs and use case. With these hassle-free builders, you can gather information through surveys, quizzes, registration forms, lead gen forms, and more in just minutes.

Overview of Top Free Online Form Builders

There are many free online form builders to choose from, but the following options stand out for their versatility, ease of use, and customization capabilities:

JotForm - A very user-friendly option with drag and drop form creation and plenty of free templates for surveys, quizzes, job applications, event registrations, and more. Best for quickly spinning up simple, clean forms.

Typeform - Provides advanced logic options like branching and skip logic to create smart, customized forms. Excellent for complex or long surveys and questionnaires.

Google Forms - Form building completely inside a spreadsheet for ultimate flexibility. Great for data collection and management with calculations and scripts.

Wufoo - Focuses on beautiful, engaging form design and seamless mobile optimization. Great for customer-facing lead capture and email list growth forms.

Formidable Forms - An open-source form builder with nearly endless customization via CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. Best for developers wanting total control.

JotForm

JotForm makes it incredibly easy for anyone to create online forms from scratch in minutes by dragging and dropping fields into place. It offers numerous templates for common use cases like contact forms, surveys, event registrations, and more. Forms are mobile-friendly by default and can be shared via links or embedded.

Useful for quickly spinning up simple, clean-looking forms for collecting contact info at events, running polls or surveys, gathering email signups, accepting applications, etc. Integrations allow form data to be sent to many services like Mailchimp, Slack, Google Sheets and more for further processing.

Pros:

• Very intuitive drag and drop editor
• Mobile responsive forms
• Lots of templates and customization options
• Easy distribution via links or embeds
• Many integrations

Cons:

• Advanced logic and calculations require workarounds
• Submission limits on free plan

Typeform

Typeform provides extensive customization options for building complex, personalized online forms. Advanced logic like branching, skip logic, and multi-page forms allow creating smart surveys that adapt based on user responses.

For example, Typeform could be used to create a 50+ question psychological evaluation that branches to different sections based on early responses.

The platform is great for long, multi-page questionnaires or research surveys that require complex routing. Form data can be exported to Excel or integrated with Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Slack etc. Useful analytics help improve form completion rates.

Pros:

• Conditional logic for smart branching forms
• Multi-page form workflows
• Useful analytics to improve conversions
• API for advanced customization
• Excel and Google Sheets integration

Cons:

• Steeper learning curve than other builders
• Must upgrade for some features

Google Forms

Google Forms takes a unique approach by letting you build online forms completely within a spreadsheet. This gives ultimate flexibility to add logic, calculations, scripts, and more that aren't easy in traditional form builders.

For example, you could create a registration form that automatically calculates ticket costs based on selected options.

Useful for creating dynamic forms with validated entries, customized calculations, and controlled data flows. All submissions are automatically added to the sheet. The integrated script editor unlocks advanced options not available in most other form builders.

Pros:

• Full control via spreadsheet interface
• Calculations, scripts, add-ons, and more
• Entries added to sheet automatically
• Validation and conditional formatting
• Seamless data collection and analysis

Cons:

• Less intuitive than drag and drop builders
• Form design flexibility is limited

Wufoo

Wufoo stands out for its beautiful form templates and seamless mobile responsiveness. It makes it quick and easy to build stylish, engaging forms for capturing leads and growing email lists.

The platform offers 100+ templates for lead gen forms, contact forms, surveys, pop-ups, and more. Forms are natively mobile-friendly and built to convert. Integrates with MailChimp, Salesforce, Slack and more.

Useful for customer-facing forms to capture emails, leads, and other info. Integrates easily with CRMs, email services, and analytics platforms.

Pros:

• Beautiful, conversion-optimized templates
• Intuitive drag and drop editor
• Optimized for mobile
• Popular CRM and email integrations
• Pop-ups and slide-ins available

Cons:

• Advanced logic and calculations limited
• Must upgrade for some features

Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms is an open-source JavaScript form builder that gives developers extreme flexibility and customization options. The drag and drop editor requires no coding knowledge, but full form HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can be accessed.

Add-ons allow adding custom form fields, multi-page forms, Stripe payments, and more. Useful for developers wanting to fully customize form functionality and appearance.

Pros:

• Open-source and self-hostable
• Access to full HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Drag and drop editor
• Additional custom fields and add-ons
• API for easy integration

Cons:

• Steep learning curve for non-developers
• Hosted version lacks some features

Key Factors to Consider When Choosing an Online Form Builder

When selecting the right online form builder for your needs, here are some key factors to consider:

• Ease of use - How intuitive is the form builder interface and editor? Can you quickly create forms without coding expertise?
• Customization - What customization options are available? Can you tweak form design, add logic/branching, and access code?
• Mobile optimization - Are forms mobile-friendly out of the box? Adaptive mobile experience is crucial.
• Integrations - What 3rd-party integrations are offered to connect forms to tools you use like CRMs, email, databases etc.?
• Templates - Does the builder offer templates for common use cases like contact forms, surveys, newsletters etc. to expedite form creation?
• Analytics - Does the builder provide analytics to optimize form completion rates?
• Security - What security measures like encryption, backups, and compliance does the form builder offer?

Evaluate your specific use case and needs to determine which strengths matter most. Test out a few top options to find the best user experience and features for your purposes. Start simple initially and expand into more advanced capabilities as your needs grow.

Tips for Creating Effective Online Forms

Here are some best practices for crafting easy-to-use, effective online forms optimized for high completion rate:

• Give clear instructions at the beginning so respondents know how to properly fill out the form
• Organize questions logically in a simple, linear progression from start to finish
• Keep forms as short and concise as possible - only ask what you absolutely need to know
• Allow respondents to save progress to complete forms in multiple sessions if needed
• Use radio buttons, checkboxes, dropdowns etc. to make selecting answers easy
• Provide expected formats and examples for free response questions
• Use progress bars and visual feedback to motivate filling out all questions
• Thoroughly test forms before publishing to identify any issues

Following these tips will help create forms that efficiently collect the data you need at a high completion rate.

Conclusion

This guide compared top free online form builders like JotForm, Typeform, Google Forms, Wufoo, and Formidable Forms to help you easily create functional forms optimized for completion without coding. Their key strengths and ideal use cases were explored. Evaluation criteria like ease of use, customization, mobile optimization, integrations, templates, analytics, and security were discussed to help select the right builder for your needs and audience. Additionally, tips were provided for optimizing online forms for high completion rates. With the right free platform tailored to your goals, you can quickly deploy effective data collection forms in minutes without development resources.

If you're interested in quickly creating simple contact forms, event registrations or surveys, check out user-friendly JotForm. For advanced logic and complex questionnaires, explore powerful conditional builders like TypeForm. Give these top free online form builders a try to start gathering valuable data through optimized online forms today.