Web Development: Comparing the 5 Best PHP Form Builders (and 4 Free Scripts)

Comparing the 5 Best PHP Form Builders (and 4 Free Scripts)

If you’re using PHP to build a website, chances are at you’ll need to add a form to the site.

The most common forms on the average website are contact forms. They enable visitors to contact you quickly and easily. But other forms can come in handy as well. For example, you may want to add a PHP email form as an alternative to the PHP contact form, or add a form to get feedback from your visitors on some aspect of your service or products. Whatever kind of form you need, you’re going to want to have one up and running quickly and easily.

That’s where a PHP form builder script comes in—also known as a PHP form generator script. Today we’ll take a look at the five best PHP form builders available at Envato Market and compare them in terms of functionality, flexibility, and aesthetic appeal. But first, let’s look at exactly what a PHP form builder is.

What Is a PHP Form Builder or Generator?

A PHP form is a form on a web page that allows visitors to the page to input information and send it to a server to be processed in some way. In essence, it’s an online version of a paper form where users fill out particular fields and then hand them in to be processed.

A PHP form builder is a tool you can add to your website that enables you to create a variety of well-designed PHP forms quickly and easily. You don't even have to know how to code!

Why Should You Use a PHP Form Builder?

The best thing about a PHP form generator is that it speeds up the job of creating and adding forms to your site. And the forms you create will look good and work well! The best-designed PHP form generators allow you or your client to create a variety of professionally-designed web forms and add them to a web page quickly and easily.

When someone fills out and submits a form, the form builder will allow the website owner to easily receive a notification via a computer or mobile device. It also allows the website owner to collect, browse, or download the data received from the form.

Not everyone who needs to add a form to their website wants or needs the same functionality, so the right PHP form generator for you isn’t necessarily the one with the most bells and whistles. Instead, it is the one that best meets your needs.

PHP Form Builder Scripts on CodeCanyon

At the time of writing this article, there are more than 100 PHP form builder scripts available on CodeCanyon. Most of these form generator and form creator scripts give you drag and drop functionality to create your form.

They also offer ready to use pre-built forms of various types that you can start using in your website right away. Once you purchase any of these scripts, you will get free lifetime updates and 6 months of free support.

Comparison of the 5 Best PHP Form Builders

1. Easy Forms: Advanced Form Builder and Manager

Easy Forms PHP form builder checks all the boxes when it comes to the ideal form generator and is the perfect choice for the inexperienced developer. This form creator script uses a drag-and-drop system that allows you to create forms in minutes right from your browser with little coding knowledge. It also offers a good selection of themes and templates for a variety of taste and branding needs.

Easy Forms enables you to create the usual forms you’d expect—like contact forms, order forms, registration forms and online surveys. But you can also create specialised forms like multi-page forms and multi-column forms.

Your forms can then be placed anywhere on your webpage and, once they're embedded, you can track views, submissions, geographical data, abandonment rates, and other important performance information. What’s more, Easy Forms offers form analytics to help you learn more about your data, the ability to create reports based on the analytics, and the ability to export data collected by your forms.

Easy Forms Advanced Form Builder and Manager

Additional features:

user management
geolocation
email notification
autoresponder
mobile friendly
and more

This plugin is being actively updated. The latest update adds a couple of new and useful features to the form builder. This includes things like:

upload multiple files with a single file field
evaluate maths expressions with multiple fields
generate QR code to share forms
auto-suggest to help users quickly fill out a form
and a lot more

User imagesthataspire says:

"This is an excellent script and, if you need online forms, will almost certainly meet your needs."

2. Just Forms Full

The Just Forms Full form builder is a budget-friendly form builder that will help you create all kinds of forms quickly. You can use it to create classic forms, multi-step forms and pop-up forms as well.

It already comes with over 120 fully functional forms that you can start using right away. Other than that, you can use over 100 form templates to quickly create your own forms. Using the form builder does not require you to have any knowledge of PHP or JavaScript.

All the forms and form elements have been tested on multiple operating systems like Windows, iOS and Android. They have also been tested on a lot of browsers going back up to IE9.

The forms are also compatible with Bootstrap 3 if you are using that framework.

Once the form has been successfully submitted, it gives you multiple options to process the information. The simplest things you can do is just send an email. However, you can also tell the form builder to export the data in either a CSV file or as a PDF document. The data can also be copied easily to a MySQL database.

You should definitely check out this plugin if you are looking for a basic form builder to help you get up and running quickly.

3. PHP Form Builder

A powerhouse among form builders, the PHP Form Builder allows you to create just about any type of form you need using simple functions. This form designer and creator also provides options for horizontal, vertical and inline layouts to suit your page design and accepts any HTML5 form elements, including field sets, multiple selects, opt groups, and button groups.

You can customise the HTML with wrappers, IDs, classes and attributes, JavaScript events, and custom code almost anywhere. The builder comes with excellent documentation suitable for both novice PHP users and experienced programmers.

Additional features:

build any form with any framework
validate posted values
send your emails using customisable HTML/CSS templates
connect your database and insert, update, or delete records
over 120+ pre-built templates included
and more

This script is also under active development, and the latest update added a lot of new features, improved old features and fixed a few bugs. Here are a few of its new features:

signature pad to add electronic signatures in forms
a new lightweight date range picker plugin
the date range picker is now available in multiple form templates
the drag and drop form builder now has much better JSON support

User MonicePetkovska says of this incredible PHP form builder:

“The support is great, I'm really impressed. The product is easy to implement. Thank you again for your support. I'm beginner in PHP and I learned a lot of things from you."

4. Zigaform PHP Form Builder: Contact & Survey

Zigaform: Contact & Survey enables you to build a range of forms for any PHP website in a matter of minutes. The builder uses a handy grid system into which you can drag and drop over 40 form elements to create whatever kind of form meets your need. You can use their Skin Customiser and over 700 icons, 650 fonts, and 80 animation effects to fine-tune every part of your form so that it fits nicely into the webpage on which it’s located.

Once a user has completed a form, they receive an acknowledgement email and you receive a notification email, both of which are completely customisable. All data submitted via the Zigaform is stored in the admin panel, from where it can be exported in CSV or PDF format. The builder also allows you to filter and search submitted data, which can then be used to create graphic charts for trend and other analysis.

Additional features:

extensive documentation
translation ready
spam protection
cross-browser compatibility
form validation
and more

User orlandobcr says:

“I had found the product very useful. Lots of details to customise, lots of options to implement. Nice work!”

5. Zigaform: PHP Calculator & Cost Estimation Form Builder

Zigaform: PHP Calculator & Cost Estimation Form Builder is the sister of the Zigaform Contact & Survey Form Builder mentioned above and specialises in helping you to build your own eCommerce and invoicing forms, summary estimate forms, and instant checkout payment forms to give your buyers a simplified checkout experience.

Other than these specialised forms, the PHP form generator has the same great features as the Zigaform Contact & Survey Form Builder. You can drag and drop the numerous form elements provided into an organising grid and use the Skin Customiser, numerous icons, fonts, and animation effects to customise your form. The builder also offers the same great notification and data processing as its sister form builder.

Additional features:

advanced search for entries
import and export your custom forms
option to duplicate forms and fields
detailed entries report by form
mobile friendly
and more

User davinci7 says:

“This form is absolutely brilliant! I had previously spent more than $400 having a complex form developed for me (in the end it didn't even work), but I built the same form myself using this software in around 30 minutes. The customer support I received was amazing. I was very reluctant to buy it, but now I can't recommend it enough.”

The Best Free PHP Form Builders

You can also use some free PHP form builders if you don't want to spend the money for a premium script. However, most of these forms will not be as user-friendly as the scripts listed above. For example, you will not get a drag-and-drop interface with most of them.

1. PHP Form Builder

This is a simple open-source PHP form builder class that will help you quickly create forms using PHP and output the required HTML. The script still works, but keep in mind that the source code was last updated 6 years ago so new features are not being added by the author. This script is great if you want to create forms using code, not with a graphical interface.

2. Laravel Form Builder

This is a free and open-source PHP form builder that is based on the Laravel framework in PHP. The UI of the form is styled using Bootstrap 3 framework. Again, this is a script for creating forms using PHP code, not using drag-and-drop.

3. Form

This form builder allows you to quickly create a form using PHP. It also comes with some useful functionality such as remembering old input for per-populating the form fields and displaying error messages. This is an open-source form builder script, so you can get it for free and modify the code as much as you like. But be warned, this script is no longer maintained so it may be out of date.

4. pForm

This one is not a downloadable script. Instead it's a website that lets you create simple forms using drag-and-drop, without any knowledge of PHP. Best of all, it's absolutely free to use!

Tips for Creating PHP Forms

Here are a few tips that might be helpful when you create your own forms:

1. Sanitize User Input

It is very important that you validate and sanitize all input that you receive through a form. Some users might unknowingly provide data in a wrong format while others with a malicious motive might try to do more harm using SQL injections. Even if your form is generated by a PHP form creator script, you still need to sanitize the results before using them in your code!

2. Show Informative Error Messages

Always make sure that you provide users with all the details that they need to fill out the form. If the username can only be between 4 and 10 characters long, you should mention it even before they start filling out and submit the form. If the users do fill out something in improper format, try to tell them exactly what they did wrong. This will create a much more user friendly experience.

Choosing the Right PHP Form Builder for You

From the five PHP form builders covered here, you can see that form builders come in various sizes and functionality. For someone looking for a simple and reliable contact form, the Zigaform: Contact and Survey Form Builder is the right choice. For someone who needs invoicing and e-commerce forms, the Zigaform: PHP Calculator and Cost Estimation Form Builder is a better pick. For someone else who needs a large degree of flexibility in creating a variety of forms, the Easy Forms: Advanced Form Builder and Manager is one of the best choices.

In other words, any of the form builders featured here would be a great choice depending on what you need.

The first step when choosing a form generator script is to be clear about what you want from your form builder. Once you’ve gotten clear, take another look at these form builders to decide which one’s right for you. If none of them are quite what you’re looking for, don’t worry—we’ve got more great PHP form builders at Envato Market, so head over there and check them out.

Other PHP Scripts on CodeCanyon

There are a huge variety of scripts available on CodeCanyon. These range from calendar, navigation, and form scripts, to shopping carts and social networking.