Contact Form 7 vs Formidable Forms
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| Feature | Contact Form 7 v6.2.3 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.0/5 Visit Details | Formidable Forms v7.0 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 10M+ | 300,000+ |
| Last updated | October 21, 2026 | October 16, 2026 |
| Editions | Contact Form 7 | Formidable Forms · Formidable Pro ($) |
| Pros | Completely free, with no upsells in the code; Several spam options: Akismet, reCAPTCHA, Turnstile, quiz, disallowed list; Stripe payment field and Brevo contact sync built in | 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 |
| Cons | No visual drag-and-drop builder; forms are markup; No conditional logic or multi-step forms without add-ons; Does not store submissions without Flamingo | 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 |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 2 |
| Features (Form plugins checklist) | ||
| Drag-and-drop builder | No | Yes |
| Conditional logic | No | No |
| Multi-step forms | No | No |
| Payments | Yes | Yes |
| File upload | Yes | No |
| Calculations | No | — |
| Entries in admin | No | Yes |
| Spam protection | Yes | Yes |
| Free version | Yes | Yes |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Form-tag markup editor for fields and mail templates, Block editor contact form selector, REST API for forms and submission feedback, Quiz and Really Simple CAPTCHA tags, Spam check against the WordPress disallowed comment keys, Saves submissions to Flamingo when that plugin is active | Built-in MCP server for AI clients, Visual form styler, Form actions such as notifications after submit |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe | Stripe, PayPal, Square |
| Brevo (Sendinblue) | — | |
| Plugins | Akismet, Flamingo | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile | Google reCAPTCHA, StopForumSpam |
| Requires WordPress | 7.1 | 6.3 |
| Requires PHP | 8.3 | 7.0 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | Only if you agree |
| External services | api.stripe.com, www.google.com, www.recaptcha.net, challenges.cloudflare.com, api.sendinblue.com | app.squareup.com, sandbox.formidableforms.com, api.stopforumspam.org, feedback.strategy11.com |
| Blocks | 1 | 1 |
| Shortcodes | 2 | 3 |
| Custom tables | — | 2 |