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How to Select a WordPress Contact Form Plugin

Welcome to our first installment of WordPress Wednesdays! Every Wednesday, we’ll be bringing you fresh insight into the fabulous blogging worlds for WordPress, be it WordPress version updates, hacks, tips and tricks, themes, e-commerce, or plugins.

This week we’re focusing on something that at its core is a very basic plugin: the WordPress contact form plugin.  Most WordPress sites that we come across have a contact form installed.  So, why focus on contact form plugins? Because there are many versions out there.  Let’s demystify the process and focus on 3 key WordPress contact form plugins:

1 – Contact Form ][ –  If you want the absolute basic contact form, use Contact Form ][.
Pros: it’s simple to configure and lightweight
Cons: no spam prevention, restricted to a simple form, no flexibility

2 – Enhanced WordPress Contact Form Plugin This form has more meat on its bones.
Pros: simple to use/configure, spam prevention, refer path
Cons: not fully configurable, still stuck with a simple form

3 – cformsII – If you’re in the mood for some serious formage (is that a word? moving on…), this be the form for ye, matey 😉
Pros: ultimate flexibility, multiple forms on one page, css layouts, complex forms, ability to backup forms
Cons: no refer path, complex, can conflict with other plugins

What’s this site running?
If you’re interested in in knowing which one this site is running, we’ve gone with Joost’s enhanced wp contact form.  Why? We don’t need all the features and styles of Cforms and are mainly interested in a simple form with spam prevention and knowing the refer path commenters came by.

Which contact form plugin are you running? Like another that isn’t listed? Let us know.

11 Comments

  1. Scott Hack

    I’ve been using Contact Form 7 which was worked out well for me. However, recently I needed a form that could handle a url redirect after submitting the form, and cformsII did the job!

    Scott Hacks last blog post..Sun and Sand

  2. Brian Wallace

    Scott Hack: glad to hear cformsII did the job! 🙂

    SEO Alchemist: I’ve tried Contact Form 7 and of what I recall was pretty standard. Will have to review it next time around, thanks for the suggestion!

  3. that jon jackson

    @SEO Alchemist. I’m using Contact Form 7 on several sites and like it alot. Would be interested to know what you think about it too Brian.

  4. Oliver Bockelmann

    I often used cforms if people wanted to have a new contact form. Cforms is a great plugin but updated very, very often. Additionally it comes up with many features not really needed in most cases.

    WP-ContactForm does not work very well for me. I recognized some encoding as well as spam issues with this one. May be not enough to change the plugin until now. 😉

    The Enhanced CFP mentioned above seems to be a simple but complete alternative. Thanks fot the advice. I will give it a try.

    Oliver Bockelmanns last blog post..Eu benennt sich wegen Google um?

  5. Alfredo

    @rohin what I do is edit the CSS to keep it from displaying.

    The main thing I don’t like about cformsII is that it’s such a pain to update. Other than that, it works fine for my purposes.

  6. mssmotorrd

    It’s the first time I commented here and I must say you share us genuine, and quality information for bloggers! Good job.
    p.s. You have a very good template for your blog. Where did you find it?