Formidable Forms vs Gravity Forms
Formidable Forms is a drag-and-drop builder for contact forms, payment forms, calculators, quizzes and surveys, with an option to build small data-driven applications and views from collected entries. Gravity Forms is a long-established premium form builder with many field types and connections to payment gateways, email marketing tools and automation services. Both cover drag-and-drop building, conditional logic, multi-step forms, payments, file uploads, calculations, entries in the admin and spam protection. Formidable Forms offers a free Lite edition, while Gravity Forms has no free version.
| Feature | Formidable Forms v7.0 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details | Gravity Forms checked 23 Oct 2026 Paid Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 300,000+ | — |
| Last updated | October 16, 2026 | — |
| Editions | Formidable Forms · Formidable Pro ($) | — |
| Pros | Free drag-and-drop builder with unlimited forms; Stripe and PayPal payment forms in the free version; Spam protection options such as honeypot and reCAPTCHA | Drag-and-drop form builder with conditional logic; Multi-page forms, file uploads and calculations; Entries screen, notifications and merge tags |
| Cons | Multi-page forms, file uploads and conditional logic need Pro; Admin shows Pro upgrade screens and prompts; Calculated fields are unclear in the free version docs | Paid product that needs a licence key for updates; Payment gateways are separate paid add-ons; Sends weekly telemetry to the vendor without a visible opt-in |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 1 |
| Features (Form plugins checklist) | ||
| Drag-and-drop builder | Yes | Yes |
| Conditional logic | No | Yes |
| Multi-step forms | No | Yes |
| Payments | Yes | Yes |
| File upload | No | Yes |
| Calculations | — | Yes |
| Entries in admin | Yes | Yes |
| Spam protection | Yes | Yes |
| Free version | Yes | No |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Built-in MCP server for AI clients, Visual form styler, Form actions such as notifications after submit | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe, PayPal, Square | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, StopForumSpam | — |
| Requires WordPress | 6.3 | — |
| Requires PHP | 7.0 | — |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | — |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | — |
| External services | app.squareup.com, sandbox.formidableforms.com, api.stopforumspam.org, feedback.strategy11.com | — |
| Blocks | 1 | — |
| Shortcodes | 3 | — |
| Custom tables | 2 | — |
Verdict
Formidable Forms suits developers and site owners who want calculations or custom displays of form data, with a free starting point. Gravity Forms suits agencies and businesses building complex workflows on a paid licence.