Contact Form 7 vs WPForms [Best Alternative for Contact Form 7]

Are you looking for an alternative to Contact Form 7 to build forms online? If so, then you’re probably trying to pick between WPForms and Contact Form 7.

In this article, we’ll compare WPForms vs Contact Form 7 so you can decide which one is better for you.

What Is Contact Form 7?

Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest free form builder plugins that’s used by a lot of developers because of its advanced features.

One of its biggest drawbacks for people building their own websites is that there’s no visual builder. This makes it hard for anyone who doesn’t know HTML to build or edit a form.

And because of its configuration settings, a lot of people end up having the Contact Form 7 not sending email issue. But luckily, there are way more beginner-friendly plugins out there that make building website forms super simple for everyone, like WPForms.

Which Is Better? WPForms vs. Contact Form 7 (Compared)

Let’s check out the comparison of WPForms vs Contact Form 7. We’ll look at their ease of use, features, support, and pricing.

Both WPForms and Contact Form 7 are WordPress plugins that you’ll need to install before you can start using them to add a contact form to your website.

For detailed instructions, check out this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

1. Ease of Use

Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest and most popular free WordPress contact form plugins. In fact, the age of the plugin really shows when you look at how to create a contact form.

When it comes to using Contact Form 7, adding additional fields isn’t really hard, as long as you know a little bit about HTML. That’s because you need to use HTML to format the form the way you want in a text area.

You also don’t get a live preview of your form or a drag and drop interface, which makes it pretty hard to visualize your forms.

WPForms, on the other hand, is a modern WordPress contact form plugin that emphasizes usability.

It’s the most beginner-friendly WordPress contact form plugin on the market to date and requires no HTML knowledge to use. Even brand new WordPress users can build forms with WPForms.

Although you can build forms from scratch in WPForms, you never have to thanks to the hundreds of pre-built form templates the plugin comes with. You can access them right in the form builder and load the template you want to use with 1 click.

Contact Form 7 templates can be found on the web but can have security issues, be hard to install, and not work properly.

On top of that, with WPForms, when you want to add new form fields, rearrange their order, or customize the way your form looks and behaves, you use a complete drag and drop builder.

Plus, there’s a live preview section in the form builder so you always know what your form looks like as you’re making changes. And, if you want to take it one step further, it’s super easy to test your forms before publishing them on your WordPress site.

Not to mention, WPForms offers more form fields out of the box, such as:

• Checkboxes
• GDPR Agreement (for protecting your users’ personal data)
• Page Break
• File Upload
• Likert Scale
• Rating
• And many more

This popular Contact Form 7 alternative also comes with built-in payment form fields like Single and Multiple Items, Dropdown Items, Checkbox Items, and Total so you can easily accept payments right from your WordPress forms and make money online.

The Pro version integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and Square, and the Elite license also lets you use Authorize.Net.

If you want a plugin that’s easy to use and works right out of the box with no coding skills required, then WPForms is worth it.

How to Add a Contact Form in WordPress

Another important factor to consider is how easily you can add your forms to your WordPress site.

Contact Form 7 lets you insert forms in your site’s pages using a shortcode or a block.

WPForms also offers these options, but it makes it fast and easy to publish a form right from the form builder. Just click on the Embed button at the top of the screen.

Then WPForms will let you choose if you want to add your form to a page that’s already on your site, or if you want to create a new page.

All you have to do after that is click Publish.

This means you never have to look for the form’s shortcode or add a block to a page. WPForms does all the work for you.

Winner: WPForms

2. Features

Contact Form 7 gives you a quick way to set up your contact form. However, the features are limited. The only form fields to choose from are text, number, date, dropdown menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, reCAPTCHA (No reCAPTCHA v3 support), and file uploads.

And, the only way to expand the plugin’s features is by installing more plugins and Contact Form 7 extensions that are not officially supported by the plugin.

On the other hand, WPForms can be used for much more than making simple contact forms.

The free version, WPForms Lite, is comparable to Contact Form 7 in terms of features. It gives you an unlimited free trial of WPForms. You can turn on free entry backups to store your submissions so you can unlock them when you upgrade to the paid version of the plugin.

And WPForms makes it easy to add a contact form in Elementor, Divi, or SeedProd.

If you want to build even more types of forms, you can use WPForms Pro, the paid version that comes with tons of official addons and features.

Some of these features include:

• Smart Conditional Logic
• Better Spam Protection
• Email list building with AWeber, Mailchimp, GetResponse, Campaign Monitor, Drip, Sendinblue, MailerLite, or Constant Contact
• Entry management from the WordPress dashboard so you can manage multiple entries
• Survey and poll creation
• Form Locator that shows you where each form is embedded on your site
• Instant email notifications and confirmations with form submissions
• Drag and drop multi-column forms
• Multi-part form creation to fight form fatigue
• Partial form saving to capture more leads
• Form revisions that let you track changes and restore older versions of your forms
• Support for reCAPTCHA v3 and reCAPTCHA v2, plus hCaptcha and Cloudflare Turnstile
• And much more

Check out all of the differences in WPForms Lite vs Pro!

If built-in features and flexibility are what you’re after when it comes to creating online forms, WPForms is the clear choice.

Winner: WPForms

3. Support

With Contact Form 7, you can request support in the WordPress.org support forum. However, it should be noted that free plugins available in the WordPress Plugin Directory are not required to provide support or offer any guarantees of timely responses.

Contact Form7 has answered less than 24% of recent support requests.

You can also access documentation and a FAQ section for troubleshooting common problems with Contact Form 7.

WPForms Lite also uses the WordPress.org support forum, but it’s much more active. We’ve answered over 76% of support requests from free users.

Plus, there are a lot of other free resources for WPForms, including:

• Extensive documentation
• Developer documentation for advanced users
• The WPForms VIP Circle Facebook Group
• The WPForms Blog
• The WPForms YouTube channel

Paying customers of WPForms have access to a support ticket system. Pro and Elite level users get priority support, but we try to answer all requests within 1 business day.

Winner: WPForms

4. Price

Both Contact Form 7 and WPForms Lite are free forever. And, like we mentioned earlier, their feature sets are comparable, though ease of use is not.

You can upgrade to the paid version of WPForms to access tons more features and powerful addons.

See this tutorial on how to upgrade WPForms Lite to a paid license.

Winner: Tie

The Best Alternative to Contact Form 7

When Contact Form 7 was first launched over a decade ago, it was one of the best contact form plugins on the market. And, because it’s been around for so long, it has accumulated a massive download and active install count.

However, it’s no longer the best solution because it fails to keep up with the latest technologies and add new features to make the plugin more user-friendly and feature-packed. So many people have the Contact Form 7 not sending emails issue.

That’s why WPForms is easily the best alternative to Contact Form 7. None of the other Contact Form 7 alternatives compare to the ease of use and pricing of WPForms.

It continues to grow in popularity because it offers more features, better support, and an exceptional user experience for site visitors. Not to mention, people of all skill levels can build online forms in minutes thanks to the drag and drop form builder.

Next, Grow Your Online Business With WPForms

And there you have it! A comparison of WPForms vs Contact Form 7, with WPForms coming out as the clear winner and best alternative to Contact Form 7.

Are you also considering Ninja Forms? We’ve compared these 2 form builders in our Ninja Forms vs Contact Form 7 post. We can also help you if Ninja Forms is not sending email.

If you happen to be using Contact Form 7 and have decided to make the switch to WPForms, check out this helpful guide on WPForms power hacks to grow your business online.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started with the most powerful WordPress forms plugin today.

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