Elementor Forms Alternative
While Elementor treats forms as just another page widget, you’ll have a purpose-built form builder inside any Elementor page to capture more leads, with a dedicated builder, field analytics, and 2,100+ templates that drop straight into any Elementor page.
Elementor is a page builder that added forms but WPForms is dedicated form builder for WordPress, and that focus shows everywhere.
| Feature | WPForms | Elementor Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone Form Plugin | Yes, a dedicated form builder that works with any theme and page builder, including Elementor | No, forms are a widget inside the Elementor Pro page builder |
| Free Version | Drag and drop builder, 2,100+ template gallery, Stripe, Square, and PayPal payments, and smart spam protection | Free Elementor includes no form widget at all |
| Entry Storage | Every entry saved in your WordPress dashboard on all paid plans | Not included on the $60 Essential plan; submission storage starts at $84 per year |
| Form Templates | 2,100+ ready-made form templates | A blank three-field default form; no library of ready-made form types |
| Conditional Logic | Built in, point and click, on every license | Not built in and Elementor’s docs suggest custom JavaScript or a third-party addon |
| Built-In Form Analytics | Field-level views, drop-offs, and time per field, plus conversion goals and AI insights | There is no built-in form analytics just a submissions list with CSV export |
| Payments | Stripe, Square, and PayPal in every version, plus Authorize.Net and Mercado Pago on higher plans, with recurring subscriptions and coupons | No payment fields and Stripe and PayPal are separate buy-button widgets |
| AI Form Building | Generate, edit, translate, and calculate by prompt, included with your license | Angie AI drafts form layouts in the new V4 editor, using metered plan credits |
| Spam Protection | reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile, Akismet, and custom CAPTCHA | reCAPTCHA, honeypot, and Akismet |
| WordPress.org Reviews | 4.8 stars on WordPress.org with 13+ thousand 5-star reviews across 5+ million sites | 4.5 stars for the free page builder, which doesn’t include forms |
A widget can only stretch so far and this is where a dedicated form builder pulls away, from payment fields to conversion tracking, all without leaving your Elementor pages.
WPForms ships a native Elementor widget so you can build your form in WPForms, then drag the widget into any Elementor page and pick your form from a dropdown. It works with the free version of Elementor and free WPForms Lite, and the Style tab lets you match fields, labels, and buttons to your design without CSS, allowing you to create branded forms.
In Elementor, a form only exists inside a page, so every form starts by editing a page and clicking through sidebar tabs. WPForms flips that with a dedicated drag and drop builder. Watch a live preview as you work, and embed the finished form anywhere, on as many pages as you like. Column layouts are drag and drop too, so there’s no calculating width percentages to line up two fields.
Elementor stores submissions, and that’s where its tracking ends. There’s no dashboard for views, conversion rates, or drop-off anywhere in its stack. WPForms includes built-in Form Analytics that go field by field: views, interactions, drop-offs, errors, and the time visitors spend on every field. You can also set a conversion goal, and ask the built-in AI what to fix first to improve lead acquistion.
Elementor’s Angie assistant can draft a form layout in the new V4 editor, using metered plan credits. WPForms AI builds an entire form for you. You can also use Smart Edit to change any existing form from a chat box, let AI Choices fill in dropdown options, generate calculation formulas, and translate entire forms. Abilities API support also lets assistants like Claudeor. ChatGPT build and edit forms for you.
Elementor forms can’t charge anyone and its Stripe and PayPal widgets are standalone buy buttons that don’t know what a visitor picked in your form. WPForms puts payment fields inside the form. Stripe, Square, and PayPal work in every version, including the free one, totals react to what visitors select, and recurring subscriptions are available on all paid plans. There is also a built-in Payments screen.
WPForms is active on 5+ million websites and holds 4.8 stars on WordPress.org with 13+ thousand 5-star reviews, more validation than any other form builder. Even Elementor’s own blog ranks WPForms among the top form plugins for WordPress. Paid plans include ticket support with typical responses around one business day, priority handling on Pro and Elite, 200+ doc guides, and a 20k-member community.
Every panel below is something you can do in WPForms today. Here’s where switching from Elementor Forms pays off first.
You built your site in Elementor because you love the design control. Keep it and build forms in WPForms’ dedicated drag and drop builder, then drop the native widget into any Elementor page and pick your form from a dropdown. The Style tab matches fields, labels, and buttons to your theme with point and click controls, no CSS. It even works with the free version of Elementor and free WPForms Lite, so the whole setup can cost exactly nothing.
Describe the form you want and WPForms AI builds it, fields, labels, and all. From there, Smart Edit updates any existing form from a plain-English request, AI Choices writes your dropdown options, AI Calculations generates formulas, and Instant Translations localize a whole form in one prompt. As a result, editing a form stops being a sidebar-tab hunt and starts being a conversation.
Elementor can show you the submissions you got. WPForms shows you the ones you almost got. Built-in Form Analytics track views, interactions, abandonment, and time spent on every field, with no cookies, no outside services, and no setup. So when the Phone field on your Job Application form is losing 23% of visitors after 37 seconds of hesitation, you’ll spot it, fix it, and watch your conversion goal ring climb.
Elementor’s form widget starts you with a blank three-field form every time. WPForms gives you 2,100+ emplates, so registrations, surveys, quotes, and order forms start from a working form instead. Then connect your forms to email marketing tools, CRMs, and 9,000+ apps through Zapier, plus Make and n8n for automation workflows.
Switching doesn’t mean losing your data and you can export your submissions from Elementor as a CSV, and the WPForms Entry Importer maps those CSV columns to your new form’s fields with a paid license. One example: 1,847 entries imported in a single pass, history intact. As for the forms themselves, WPForms AI or a template rebuilds each one in minutes, so the whole move fits in an afternoon.
WPForms holds 4.8/5 stars with 13+ thousand 5-star reviews on WordPress.org, more validation than any other form builder, and it’s active on 5+ million websites. Every paid plan comes with a 14-day, 100% money-back guarantee, so trying the switch is risk-free. And because WPForms Lite is free while Elementor’s forms require a Pro subscription, trying the alternative is the cheaper experiment.
Have questions about switching from Elementor Forms? We’ve got answers.
Yes, WPForms is the most popular Elementor Forms alternative for WordPress, active on 5+ million websites.
Elementor treats forms as one widget inside its Pro page builder, while WPForms is a purpose-built form builder with field-level analytics, payments inside your forms, conditional logic, and 2,100+ templates.
And since WPForms ships a native Elementor widget, you get all of that without giving up Elementor.
Yes. WPForms integrates with Elementor through a dedicated widget: build your form in WPForms, then drag the WPForms widget into any Elementor page and select your form from a dropdown.
It works with the free version of Elementor and free WPForms Lite, so the combination costs nothing to try. The Style tab lets you adjust fields, labels, and buttons right inside the Elementor editor, no CSS needed.
No, Elementor Forms doesn’t include built-in, no-code conditional logic for form fields.
Elementor’s own documentation suggests adding custom JavaScript inside an HTML field to show or hide fields, or you can buy a third-party addon.
WPForms includes smart conditional logic on every license, so your forms react to visitors’ answers with point and click rules.
Elementor offers standalone Stripe and PayPal buy-button widgets, but its forms have no payment fields, so a form can’t charge based on what a visitor selects.
WPForms includes Stripe, Square, and PayPal payments from the free version, with recurring subscriptions on paid plans and totals that react to your visitors’ choices.
No. Elementor stores form submissions and exports them to CSV, but there’s no built-in dashboard for form views, conversion rates, or drop-off anywhere in its stack.
WPForms includes Form Analytics that track views, interactions, conversions, abandonment, and errors for every form, down to the exact field where people quit. The full field-level experience comes with Pro and Elite licenses.
Rebuild your forms in minutes using WPForms AI or one of 2,100+ templates, since Elementor forms live inside its page builder and can’t move to another form system.
Your data comes with you: export your submissions from Elementor as a CSV, then the Entry Importer maps the CSV columns to your new form’s fields with a paid WPForms license.
Finally, drop the WPForms widget into the same Elementor pages where your old forms lived.
Yes. WPForms Lite is free forever and includes the drag and drop builder, the 2,100+ template gallery, Stripe, Square, and PayPal payments, smart spam protection, and unlimited forms and submissions.
That’s a real difference from Elementor, where the free plugin includes no form widget at all. Paid plans start at $49.50 for the first year. See the full breakdown in the Lite vs Pro comparison.
WPForms starts free, and paid plans start at $49.50 for the first year.
Elementor’s forms require a Pro subscription: the $60-per-year Essential plan includes the form builder but doesn’t store submissions, submission storage starts on the $84-per-year Advanced Solo plan, and AI features come with the $228-per-year One bundle.
Note that WPForms Lite, Basic, and Plus add a 3% fee on payments, which disappears on Pro. Compare plans on the WPForms pricing page.
Yes, every WPForms form is responsive by default and works on phones, tablets, and desktops with no extra configuration.
Templates and AI-generated forms inherit the same mobile-friendly layouts, and forms adapt to any WordPress theme automatically.
You can also preview any form at different screen sizes before publishing it.
On paid plans, WPForms stores every entry in your own WordPress database, on your own hosting, the same self-hosted approach Elementor uses for submissions.
Nothing routes through a third-party service, which keeps you in control for GDPR and privacy. Form Analytics data stays in your database too, with no cookies or outside scripts.
You can also export entries to CSV or Excel anytime.
The weekly summary WPForms emails you now opens with stat tiles for entries, views, and spam, each marked with how it moved against the previous week.
Beneath them, a table gives every form its own line, and when the data earns it the headline changes to call out a best week, a milestone, or a form that has gone quiet.
A single button takes you from the email back into WPForms, so the thing worth checking is one click away.
The Paystack addon brings card, bank transfer, and mobile money payments to your forms for buyers in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya.
Buyers click submit and pay in the Paystack popup in naira, cedis, rand, or Kenyan shillings, with no new field to add to your form.
Bank transfer and mobile money payments are saved as Pending, and WPForms can hold your notification emails until Paystack confirms the payment, then completes the order on its own.
Every Paystack payment shows up in WPForms » Payments, and full refunds can be issued without leaving WordPress.
The WPForms Dashboard is a new home screen that opens the moment you click WPForms in your admin menu. Stat cards across the top total up your forms, entries, payments, views, and spam across the whole site.
An Entries widget charts activity over your chosen date range with a per-form table of entries, views, interactions, and conversion rate, and a payments widget totals everything collected once a gateway is connected.
With the Geolocation addon active, Top Locations ranks the countries your visitors come from, and a Suggested Next Steps panel points to features worth turning on.
Nothing to install, as it comes with every plan, including Lite!
Every form now has its own built-in QR code generator, with nothing extra to install or buy.
Open a form’s General settings, choose the page the form lives on or paste its URL, and click Generate QR Code to copy it or download it as a PNG or a print-ready SVG.
Put it on menus, packaging, event badges, or business cards, and every scan opens your form instead of a page that only hands people something to read.
Included with every plan, including Lite; Pro and Elite plans can keep, remove, or replace the WPForms logo in the center with their own.
The Surveys & Polls addon gains a Ranking field!
Instead of scoring each option separately, respondents drag options (or tap arrow buttons on a phone) into the order they prefer, so one option always has to come first.
WPForms tallies every response into a “Times at #1” count and an average rank for each option, with a chart that makes the winner obvious.
Lay options out as a vertical list or a grid, and use Image Choices or Icon Choices in place of plain text labels.
