Every WordPress site needs a contact form, which is why this is one of the most crowded categories in the ecosystem. In this comparison we put the four most established names side by side, Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms and Fluent Forms, together with our own Fluxo, freshly published in the official WordPress plugin directory.
We build Fluxo, so you know where we stand. And, as in every comparison we publish, we will be honest, including about our own plugin’s weaknesses. All four competitors are mature, excellent products; the question is which model makes sense for your case.
What is the best form plugin for WordPress?
The short answer: Contact Form 7 is the best minimalist free option, WPForms is the easiest for beginners, Gravity Forms is the most complete for complex projects, Fluent Forms has the most generous free tier in forms, and Fluxo is the only one that includes a free CRM inside WordPress. The best one for you depends on what should happen to the lead after submit, and that is the yardstick this comparison uses.
The question that separates these plugins: what happens after submit?
Almost every comparison in this category looks at the builder: how many fields, how many templates, whether it has drag and drop. That matters, but the real difference between these plugins shows up after the visitor clicks send. Does the submission become just a notification email? A stored entry? A lead in a pipeline? And does that lead live in your database or in a third party’s cloud? That is the yardstick, together with price and ease of use, that we apply to all five.
Contact Form 7: free, but it does not store submissions
Contact Form 7 is the dean of the category, free and running on millions of sites. It is lightweight, stable and has done the basics solidly for almost two decades.
Where it falls short: configuration is done by editing text markup, with no visual builder, which scares non-technical users. And on the yardstick we defined above, it stops at the first step: by default a submission becomes only an email, with no stored entries (you need to install Flamingo, an additional plugin, just to keep them). There is no notion of a lead or a pipeline at all.
Choose Contact Form 7 if you want the absolute minimum, free and lightweight, and a notification email solves your life.
WPForms: the easiest builder for beginners
WPForms popularized the drag-and-drop builder and remains the friendliest experience for beginners, with hundreds of ready-made templates. The Lite version is free and covers simple forms.
Where it falls short: the features that make a difference (conditional logic, integrations, payments) sit in the paid plans, which start at a steep annual level, around 200 dollars per year for Pro. And the post-submit story depends on integrations: to turn submissions into manageable leads, you connect WPForms to an external CRM, typically a SaaS, and that is where your contacts’ data goes.
Choose WPForms if the priority is building good-looking forms without touching code and the budget accommodates the subscription.
Gravity Forms: the most complete (and the most expensive)
Gravity Forms is the Swiss army knife of the category: advanced fields, deep conditional logic, hooks for customization and a huge add-on ecosystem. It is the classic choice of agencies and complex projects, and it stores entries in the WordPress database.
Where it falls short: there is no free version, annual licenses run from 59 to 259 dollars, and popular third-party add-ons cost extra. For someone who needs a contact form, it is a bazooka for a mosquito. And the CRM, again, is outsourced: the native integrations push leads to HubSpot, Salesforce and the like.
Choose Gravity Forms if you build serious form-based applications and have the budget and technical team to extract its value.
Fluent Forms: the best free tier in forms
Fluent Forms is the fastest-growing modern contender, with a quick builder and the most generous free tier among the big names: conditional logic and stored entries at no cost, features rivals charge for. It is lightweight and well loved by the community.
Where it falls short: growth features live in Pro (multi-step forms and advanced integrations, for example), and payments in the free version carry a 1.9% per-transaction fee on Stripe, on top of Stripe’s own fees. For lead management, the same company offers FluentCRM, which also keeps data in WordPress, but it is a separate plugin, with its own installation, learning curve and costs to unlock the full potential.
Choose Fluent Forms if you want the most complete free tier in forms and do not mind assembling the plugin puzzle for the CRM.
Fluxo: a WordPress form plugin with a free CRM
Fluxo starts from a different thesis than the four above: the contact form is not the product, it is the front door. That is why it brings together, in a single free plugin, the form builder and a CRM with a pipeline, inside the WordPress dashboard. The visitor submits, the contact enters the pipeline, you work the lead to close, without installing a second plugin, without subscribing to a SaaS, and without your data ever leaving your database. That last point is non-negotiable for us: no Fluxo data is sent to external servers, which simplifies GDPR and LGPD compliance and eliminates international data transfers, as we detailed in our article on digital sovereignty.
And where Fluxo falls short, with the same frankness: it is the newest plugin on this list, without the years of mileage and the mountain of reviews the veterans have accumulated. It is deliberately simple (“basic and easy” is right there in the name), so anyone who needs advanced conditional logic, payments, multi-step forms or native integrations with dozens of services will find more features in the mature competitors. And the built-in CRM covers the sales pipeline of websites and small businesses; it does not intend to replace a full marketing automation platform.
Choose Fluxo if your goal is the most common one of all: capturing contacts through your site and working them until they become customers, at zero cost and with your data under your control.
The short version
Contact Form 7 is the free minimum that stops at email. WPForms is the best beginner experience, paid to be worth it. Gravity Forms is the deep tool for complex projects, priced accordingly. Fluent Forms is the most generous free tier in forms, with the CRM sold in a separate box. Fluxo is the only one that delivers form and CRM together, free, with all data inside your own WordPress, at the honest cost of being the simplest and newest of the bunch.
Fluxo is available for free in the WordPress.org directory: install it, build your first form and watch leads enter your pipeline in minutes.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free form plugin for WordPress?
It depends on the need: Contact Form 7 is the lightest, Fluent Forms has the free version richest in form features, and Fluxo is the only free plugin that already includes a CRM and sales pipeline in the same package.
Does Contact Form 7 store submitted messages?
Not by default. Contact Form 7 only sends messages by email; to store submissions in WordPress you need an additional plugin such as Flamingo. Plugins like Gravity Forms, Fluent Forms and Fluxo store entries in the database natively.
Is there a free CRM for WordPress?
Yes. Fluxo includes a free CRM with a sales pipeline inside WordPress itself, with no subscription and no data sent to external servers. FluentCRM is another option that runs in WordPress, installed as a plugin separate from the form builder.
Do contact forms need to comply with the GDPR or LGPD?
Yes: names, emails and phone numbers collected through forms are personal data under the GDPR and the LGPD. Plugins that store everything on your own server, without sending data to third parties, simplify compliance because they remove external processors and international data transfers.
Fluxo is a product by Sudo, a digital product studio from Brazil, also the maker of Parly, Softdex and Kanjica.