Are you looking for the perfect form builder plugin for your WordPress site and unsure which one to choose? While there are many alternatives, picking the right one can seem daunting. Fear not; we are here to guide you on your quest for the perfect form builder plugin to transform your WordPress site into a lead generation powerhouse and beyond.
This blog compares two leading contenders, Ninja Forms and Fluent Forms. Let’s see what they offer.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Ninja Forms and Fluent Forms
Ninja Forms
Ninja Forms is an efficient form builder plugin known for its user-friendliness and straightforward approach. Users can create effective online forms using Ninja Forms without any coding skills. The plugin offers a wide variety of input fields and multi-column layouts, making it a versatile choice. However, the pricing can be challenging as many features are sold separately, leading to high costs when you add all necessary features. Additionally, users often feel restricted in terms of styling.
Fluent Forms
Fluent Forms is another lightweight and fast WordPress form builder plugin. It offers a variety of features, which we’ll explore in detail below. Fluent Forms is known for its extensive range of prebuilt form templates, conditional logic, and excellent customer support. The plugin also offers strong entry management and spam filtering capabilities, making it a well-rounded choice for any WordPress user.
Basic Functionalities
In this section, we will discuss the features that make up the skeleton of a form builder plugin. Without these essential features, a WordPress form builder is left incomplete.
Prebuilt Form Templates
Fluent Forms offers 75+ prebuilt form templates, which are excellent for beginners and advanced users. These templates cover various uses, from contact and feedback forms, and can be customized to fit the user’s needs. Ninja Forms provides 16 prebuilt form templates, which are helpful but fewer in comparison. The templates offered by Ninja Forms are also customizable, but the variety is limited compared to Fluent Forms.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its extensive selection of prebuilt form templates, which provides users with more options and flexibility when creating forms.
Input Fields
Fluent Forms provides 45+ input fields, with 25+ available in the free version. These input fields include essential features like text areas and radio buttons and advanced features like signature and payment fields. The fields can be easily customized and arranged to suit users’ needs. Ninja Forms offers 25+ input fields in the free version, covering essential fields like single-line text and checkboxes. While Ninja Forms provides customization options, users often experience issues with the drag-and-drop functionality.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its larger selection of input fields and smoother drag-and-drop functionality, providing users with more customization options and a better user experience.
Multi-Column Layout
Fluent Forms allows up to six input fields in a single row, using containers to keep things neat. This feature helps create compact and organized forms, especially for users who want to display multiple fields side by side. Ninja Forms allows users to manually drag and drop input fields but is less intuitive and can become cluttered if not carefully managed.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its intuitive multi-column layout feature, which gives users a more straightforward way to organize their forms.
Conditional Logic
Fluent Forms offers flexible conditional logic for free, allowing users to show or hide fields based on user input. This feature is handy for creating dynamic and interactive forms, as users can customize the form flow based on their needs. Ninja Forms provides this feature in the Small Business plan for $99 or as a separate purchase. The conditional logic offered by Ninja Forms is similar in functionality but requires an additional cost.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its free conditional logic feature, which gives users more value and flexibility when creating interactive forms.
Global Styler
Fluent Forms offers numerous global styling options without coding, including a preview page for styling capabilities. Users can customize various form elements, including colors, fonts, and layouts, to match their website’s design. Ninja Forms provides some styling options but lacks variety and is only available in higher-priced plans.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its extensive global styling options, which allow users to create visually appealing forms without any coding knowledge.
Advanced Capabilities
The basic functionalities will cover most of a web form’s everyday tasks. However, users may often find themselves needing to explore a few more features. Based on this, the following are some of the most sought-after features to help you create complex forms within minutes.
Image & File Upload
Both Fluent Forms and Ninja Forms offer file upload capabilities with their premium versions, allowing users to collect pictures, audio, videos, and more. Fluent Forms provides two separate input fields for image and file uploads, offering flexibility based on the user’s needs. Ninja Forms offers a File Upload addon for collecting files, but this requires an additional purchase.
Winner: Tie
Why: Both plugins offer similar image and file upload capabilities, but both require a premium version or an addon for this feature.
Form Step
Fluent Forms offers a Form Step input field that breaks down forms into segments, making long forms more manageable and user-friendly. This feature is available in their $59 license. Ninja Forms provides multi-step forms in their $99 plan, allowing users to break down long forms into smaller, easier-to-complete sections.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its more affordable pricing for the multi-step forms feature, providing users with a cost-effective way to create complex forms.
Partial Form Entry
Fluent Forms offers partial form entry and a Save & Resume feature for $59. This feature allows users to save incomplete forms and resume them later, which is useful for long forms. Ninja Forms offers a Save Progress add-on for $29, separate from its multi-step forms feature.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its integrated partial form entry feature, providing users with a more comprehensive solution for creating long forms.
eSignature
Fluent Forms provides a Signature Addon for $39, allowing users to collect digital signatures directly on their forms. This feature is useful for forms that require authentication or confirmation. Ninja Forms requires integration with DocuSign through Zapier to achieve similar functionality, which is less convenient and requires additional setup.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its straightforward and affordable eSignature solution, providing users with an easy way to collect digital signatures.
Survey, Polls, and Quizzes
Fluent Forms offers robust survey options with prebuilt templates, interactive input fields, and visual data reporting for easy analysis. These features are helpful in conducting market research or gathering feedback. Ninja Forms offers less user-friendly survey options that require HTML or value assignment, making it less accessible for non-technical users.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its user-friendly survey options, providing users a more efficient way to conduct surveys, polls, and quizzes.
Entry Management
Fluent Forms excels in entry management with visual reporting, import/export options, and a PDF addon for easier management. Users can view, sort, and take bulk actions against form entries, making it easy to manage form submissions. Ninja Forms offers basic submission management with viewing, filtering, and editing capabilities but lacks advanced features like visual reporting.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its advanced entry management features, providing users with a more comprehensive solution for managing form submissions.
Spam Filtering
Fluent Forms offers robust spam filtering with Honeypot, reCAPTCHA, form restrictions, and Akismet integration, ensuring secure form submissions. These features help protect the user’s website from spam and malicious submissions. Ninja Forms offers similar features but with a more complicated implementation, making it less user-friendly.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its easy-to-implement spam filtering features, providing users with a more secure solution for protecting their forms.
Integrations
Fluent Forms offers 45+ third-party integrations, including essential tools for free, and many more in their pro licenses. These integrations cover email marketing, CRM, and more, allowing users to extend the functionality of their forms. Ninja Forms provides 30+ integrations but none for free users, limiting the functionality available to free users.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its extensive third-party integrations, providing users with a more versatile solution for integrating with other tools and services.
Payment Module
Fluent Forms provides Stripe, Mollie, RazorPay, PayPal, and Square for all pro users, offering various options for collecting payments through forms. These integrations allow users to collect fees, donations, and more directly through their forms. Ninja Forms offers similar options but distributes them among various licenses, making it less straightforward to choose the right plan.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its inclusive payment module features, providing users with a more straightforward and affordable solution for collecting payments.
Customer Support
Fluent Forms excels in customer support, with detailed documentation, tutorials, priority support, and an active community ensuring users receive the help they need. The plugin has a high issue resolution rate, reflecting its commitment to customer satisfaction. Ninja Forms offers similar support but resolves fewer issues on its WordPress support forum, leading to a lower customer satisfaction rate.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its excellent customer support, providing users with a more reliable solution for resolving issues and receiving assistance.
Licensing & Pricing
Fluent Forms offers affordable pricing plans with the same features across all pro licenses, starting at $79 for a single-site license. This straightforward pricing model provides users with excellent value for their money. Ninja Forms starts at $99 for the Personal license, with higher costs for additional features, making it more expensive and less value-oriented.
Winner: Fluent Forms
Why: Fluent Forms wins this round due to its affordable and straightforward pricing, providing users with a cost-effective solution for their form-building needs.
Conclusion
When it comes to usability, both plugins have their pros and cons. However, Fluent Forms emerges as the better choice due to its extensive features, user-friendly interface, and affordable pricing.
To find the best form builder, consider key features like prebuilt templates, input fields, layout options, conditional logic, entry management, and more. Fluent Forms offers excellent value and is a solid investment for any WordPress site.