The best online form builders provide a simple and easy solution to create forms online, for everything from collecting customer feedback to marketing, often using drag and drop functionality without needing to code.
Online forms are extremely versatile and there are many different reasons to use one. If you are a business selling a product or service, you may want to find out what your customers are thinking. Marketers need forms to convert visitors into leads, and students can use them to collect qualitative data for research projects.
Either way, you'll commonly find that forms are an integral part of project management software (opens in new tab) as well as customer relationship manage (CRM (opens in new tab)) software, for precisely these reasons. Online forms used to be ugly, but that's not the case with the best form builders available. They have evolved in both style and functionality, allowing you to be inventive and creative when it comes to achieving your form-related goals.
It's worth remembering that you may not need every feature that comes with a form builder; it's not necessarily something that should break the bank. Ensure that the one you pick provides just enough functionality for you to achieve your goal. Here we feature the best online form builders currently available.
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The Hubspot Free Online Form Builder is one of the best form builders online simply because it is free. Designed with small-to-mid-sized businesses in mind, the free version lets you use up to 1,000 form fields. It's easy to use, featuring a drag-and-drop form builder that allows you to embed a form into a website in seconds. It offers 12 different field types - such as text, drop down, radio select, checkbox, date picker, and more.
The form builder is a gateway to entice you into signing up for full the Hubspot Marketing Suite, which makes it even more powerful, but even on its own this free form builder will get the job done for most people.
Gravity Forms has been around a long time as a WordPress plugin (opens in new tab) and has evolved into a feature-packed form builder. Packing all of the tools that you need to build professional forms into your website quickly, it features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that comes with features such as conditional formatting, custom HTML insertion, and more.
Its integrations set it apart from the competition, allowing forms to be complemented by many third-party services - from Paypal and Slack to Zapier and MailChimp (opens in new tab). There is a free trial available.
Typeform is the best online form builder if you prioritize beautiful design above all else. It has a smooth interface that keeps people engaged, especially when form questions are written in a conversational tone.
Forms can be made more engaging through the use of images, video, and animated GIFs, which is done in a subtle way that encourages visitors to continue answering questions rather than distracting them. Typeform lets you customize a welcome screen and comes with simple analytics to provide insights at a glance.
Built-in integration with Google Sheets (opens in new tab) and MailChimp, added to more than 500 integrations with Zapier, further extends its functionality.
Read our full Typeform review (opens in new tab).
WuFoo is one of the best online form builders if you want to collect rich data and interrogate it using complex reporting and detailed analytics. Used by heavy hitters such as amazon.com; Best Buy; Disney; Microsoft; Sony; and Twitter, WuFoo’s online form builder lets you collect data, files and payments without writing a single line of code.
It also accepts online payments through its payment partners (opens in new tab) which include PayPal and Stripe, and its automated workflows allow data to be transferred to a CRM or marketing automation system on-the-fly.
Built for home, education and business use, Microsoft Forms is the Redmond company’s answer to Google Forms. It features the ability to create surveys to collect customer feedback, measure employee satisfaction, and organize team events.
Whether you want to create surveys, quizzes, or other forms, Microsoft Forms collects responses in real-time and automatically visualizes data for deeper insights, combining with Excel to perform customized, in-depth analysis in the back-end.
Used by companies such as Netflix and Twitter, Formstack lets you create great-looking forms without knowing how to code. It features a drag-and-drop form builder that comes with hundreds of templates to get forms up and running quickly.
Formstack's nifty automation workflows let you connect it with everything from MailChimp to PayPal, Hubspot, and Google Docs (opens in new tab). And, whatever you do with it, you’ll be kept up-to-date with email notifications – and time can be further served through the automatic approval of projects.
Read our full Formstack review (opens in new tab).
Paperform is an excellent option if you want to build thoughtfully designed and powerful forms. The versatility of its functions, the custom HTML and CSS capabilities, and growing 27+ question fields, including calculations and conditional logic, means it's customizable to your unique specifications. So, whether you want to build forms for onboarding, take payments, perform complex calculations or sell products, it's a single destination for all your business needs.
Unlike other form builders, the free-text interface allows you to customize your forms to the finest details. Tailor your fonts, images, and videos to your brand. You can now import your branding from Adobe with their direct integration. If that's not enough, it can integrate with over 3,000 third-party apps to further extend its functionality.
Formsite is one of the most secure form builders for collective sensitive data thanks to its ability to encrypt form submissions. It packs many other features including the ability to save survey responses and return to complete them at a later time. Its dynamic form builder comes with a toolbox of more than 40 different item types, which can be dragged and dropped into Formsite’s interface.
Formsite also includes a wide range of data visualization options to make the most of data, ranging from graphs and tables to custom reports that can be merged with Microsoft Word documents or converted into PDF format.
Cognito Forms lets you create unlimited forms with its intuitive drag-and-drop form builder. Like the best online form builders, it lets you integrate payment providers including Stripe, PayPal, and Square for accepting payments from visitors. Cognito Forms is one of the more powerful form builders out there due to its ability to let you perform powerful calculations that can compare total costs, compare dates and more.
That can be bolstered with conditional logic to control what fields people see, and dynamic repeating sections are ideal for collecting as much or little data from customers. It’s free for individuals, offering 100MB of storage, increasing in price in stages up to the Enterprise option which provides up to 100GB of storage.
Growform is another form builder that offers a range of templates, and a drag-and-drop builder so that forms can be set up without any coding. The company states its' aim is to produce more attractive forms that can double conversion rates.
The forms are easy to embed, and come with the ability to integrate with a wide range of platforms and applications for handling lead generation through Zapier. Although Growform should be easy to set up, support is available to help as required, and there is a free 14-day trial to try it out.
Ideal for businesses of all sizes, JotForm helps companies create survey forms without any knowledge of CSS, JavaScript or other programming languages – though if they do, there’s plenty of scope for diving into the code and tweaking designs.
Forms are highly customizable and can be set to show different content based on users’ location, and field types can be further customized to show properties as required, setting character limits and pre-populating fields. There is a free trial available.
Read our full JotForm review (opens in new tab).
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Which online form builder is best for you?
When deciding which online form builder to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free and budget software may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require from your form builder.
How we test the best online form builders
To test for the best online form builders we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, then tested each to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each form builder to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools for landing pages, marketing, and customer surveys.
Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar (opens in new tab).
