Are you divided between using Everest Forms and Fluent Forms for a contact form on your WordPress website?
We don’t blame you — these two rank among the best WordPress contact form plugins, with around half a million combined active downloads and a 5-star rating each.
But you can only choose one; we are here to help you choose the best suit.
Table of Contents
Why do you need a contact form on your website?
Although overlooked, a contact form is an essential part of any website. It bridges the gap between you and your target audience.
There are other ways this type of communication can take place, but it’s safe to say it’s more structured, making it the obvious pick when it comes to business purposes.
For instance, if you are a service provider, you can have a contact form for potential clients to enquire about the service they are interested in.
You can populate the form with fields accordingly to help forward the business process. The form can include fields for name, address, contact information, services, and even a slider for budget.
This is preferred over communication through comments and email because it’s private and more convenient for users.
In addition, it also results in the maintenance of structured data that higher-ups can use to make business decisions in the future.
Hardcoded vs. Plugin Contact Forms
While you can create a contact form from barebone through coding, it is often not the most efficient one.
To start off, you need to have a good understanding of web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, even for the most basic forms.
Moreover, it takes substantial time to design and implement form this way. Not to mention the trouble one has to go through when a change is needed.
That’s why we recommend using a WordPress plugin. It makes the whole process much simpler and fast. Most contact form WordPress plugins provide you with an interactive builder as well as a collection of different-purposed forms. They help you process the form entries as well.
That said, choosing a WordPress plugin is not as easy. After all, there are tons of options to choose from. Fortunately for you, we will discuss two of the more popular options out there. So, without further ado, let’s take a quick look at both.
| Forms | Everest Forms | Fluent Form |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Author: WPEverest | WPManageNinja LLC |
| Requirements | WordPress 5.2 or higher PHP v7.2 or higher | WordPress v4.5 or higher PHP v7.1 or higher |
| Active Installation | 100,000+ | 300,000+ |
| Average Rating | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Website | everestforms.net/ | wpmanageninja.com/wp-fluent-form/ |
| Price | Freemium | Freemium |
Everest Forms Overview
Everest Forms is a beginner-friendly WordPress plugin by WPEverest. It comes with a simple drag-and-drop builder that allows you to make contacts without any coding background. You can even choose from a wide range of prebuilt templates if you don’t like putting in the legwork. Beyond contact forms, you can also create online surveys, polls, and application forms with ease.
The free version lets you use Everest Forms’ core features like email notification, Google Analytics, user redirection, file import/export, and AI form. However, if you wish to use its marketing, payment, and other integration, you will have to get the premium plans.
Key Features
- Unlimited Forms
- Email Notification / SMS Notification
- Style Customizer
- AI Contact Form
- Multi-Step Form
- Conversational Forms
- Frontend Listing
- E-signature
- Webhook
- Payment Gateways
- Marketing
- Third-party Integration
- Security Features
Pricing
You can get started with Everest Form for free — the free plan has all the basic features plus a few advanced ones. However, if you want to unlock all the capabilities, the premium plan starts at USD 41.4 /per year.
Fluent Forms Overview
Fluent Forms is another user-friendly WordPress plugin with drop-and-drop functionality. It is a freemium contact form plugin developed by WPManageNinja LLC. Fluent Forms places extra emphasis on speed, flexibility, and responsiveness.
You can create 100% responsive web forms that look just as great on mobile devices as on desktop. Likewise, a standard Fluent Form uses just 30KB of CSS, making it fast and agile. Conversational Forms is another highlight. It packs a bunch of advanced features that help you convert visitors into clients.
Key Features
- Mobile-Friendly Contact Forms
- Conversational Forms
- Email Notification
- One-Click Migrator
Pricing
Fluent Forms is also a freemium contact form WordPress plugin. You can use it for free, but it will limit your access to advanced features. Premium plans start at USD 69 per year for a single website.
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Everest Forms vs Fluent Forms
Form Builder
Both Fluent Forms and Everest Forms offer drop and drag builders. The UI on the Fluent Forms feels more modern, and it has video tutorials on the builder page to get started.
Other than that, the two builders function the same. You can choose from the available fields and assign constraints through customization.
You can also check how the form will look on your page by clicking on the preview button on the respective builders.
Overall, you won’t find much difference using the two form builders.
Prebuilt Template
When it comes to prebuilt themes, Fluent Forms offers a wider range of options compared to Everest Themes. It offers 65+ default forms against Everest Themes’ 14.
The forms are grouped based on the business and industry. One interesting thing is that all of the forms under the Nonprofit category are free.
Fluent Forms has over 30+ free forms, which again feels a lot when we compare it to Everest Theme, which only has five.
Input Fields
Input Fields are the building blocks of forms — the more, the merrier.
Here, too, Fluent Forms has a slight edge over Everest Form. The number and kind of input fields on offer on the two platforms are more or less the same.
That said, the number of free input fields on Fluent Forms is higher.
For instance, fields like Address, Country, Hidden Text, Custom HTML, and Multiple Choices are all available freely on Fluent Forms, while you will have to pay for them if you go with the Everest Forms.
So, if you want to design a form that has a variety of fields without spending much, Fluent Forms is the way to go.
Spam Protection
The next thing to look for is spam protection. You obviously don’t want bots filling up the forms with garbage information. Security measures on Fluent Forms and Everest Forms try to prevent that from happening.
To start with, you can use a captcha to confirm to distinguish real users from spam robots. You can choose from Google Recaptcha, hcaptcha, and Turnstile on both platforms. Honeypot fields can also be used to lure them in.
For an extra layer of security, Fluent Forms recommends installing the Askimat plugin and signing up for a subscription. On the other hand, the premium plan of Everest Forms offers additional features to block submissions based on the IP, email, and even the keywords used in the form.
Integrations
There are tons of third-party integrations available on Everest Forms and Fluent Forms, with just a few intersections.
Only a handful of integrations like Mailchimp and Google Sheets are available across both plugins. As a result, you would want to check all the available integrations before committing to one.
For instance, surveys and polls are only possible on Everest Forms, although you can create quizzes on both. Likewise, Slack and Telegram integration are only available on Fleunt forms.
Payment Gateway
If you want to receive money or collect donations from your form, you will require a kind of payment gateway integration.
Fortunately, neither Everest Forms nor Fluent Forms disappoints in this section. You can integrate popular payment gateways like Paypal Standard and Razor Pay into both.
The only downside is that you will have to sign up for the premium plans, and they are not covered by the free tier.
Pricing
Whether you decide to go with Everet Forms or Fluent Forms, you will need to pay a premium to access all the features. In this regard, the Evert Forms seems like a cheaper option as it starts at USD 41.4/year for a single site.
On the other hand, the cheapest plan for Fluent Forms will cost you USD 69/year for a single site.
Both plugins have different tiers of yearly plans, and you can opt for lifetime memberships, too.
Everest Forms vs. Fluent Forms Conclusion: Which Should You Choose?
As for the better plugins of the two, it all boils down to your needs.
For instance, Fluent Forms can be great if you wish to use prebuilt templates with minimal customization. It also seems to offer more functionality on the free tier.
On the other hand, Everest Forms has better security features and is cheaper to access premium features.
| Features | Everest Forms | Fluent Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Form Builder | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Prebuilt Forms | 4 | 4.5 |
| Input Fields | 4 | 4 |
| Spam Protection | 4.5 | 4 |
| Integrations | 4 | 4 |
| Payment Gateways | 4 | 4 |
| Pricing | 4.5 | 4 |