There really doesn’t seem to be much contention on this topic. Gravity Forms. Duh.

Gravity Forms is an amazing WordPress plugin for generating forms, especially complicated ones. Recently we have been picking up some pretty big projects that require relatively complex forms for things like event registrations and product rentals. Gravity Forms was the natural choice.

One of the coolest parts about Gravity Forms is that there are so many awesome integrations available. All the most common online business and marketing applications seem to be well supported. The Zapier add-on is especially cool as it opens up the door to many other cool data connections. There is just so much flexibility and virtually unlimited options when using this plugin.

Other form plugins

Of course this isn’t the only form plugin available for WordPress. There are many, many others and I have used my fair share of them. Here’s a few:

1. Formidable. Cool drag and drop interface. A reCAPTCHA integration, shortcodes, template tags and plenty more. There is a pro version which can also generate reports.
2. Contact Form 7. Pretty powerful tool that is also very easy to use. I’ve appreciated the ability to specify multiple recipients as well as the ajax submission method on the front end. We actually have a pretty funny story that came from working with this plugin on a client project. Tip: when a client says the form won’t work for them, take a very close look at their name/email address.
3. Fast Secure Contact Form. Easy ability to manage a number of different forms. Supports adding hidden fields. Import/export of options.
4. Visual Form Builder. Lots of flexibility here too. We have actually made some pretty complex forms in the past using this cool plugin. Ability to export entries is pretty nice as clients often request it. Shortcodes and multiples forms on the same page are supported.

Well, I hope that’s informative and helpful to someone.