Gravity Forms vs Vue Formulate: What are the differences?

Introduction

Gravity Forms and Vue Formulate are both form builders that allow users to create and manage forms on their websites. However, there are several key differences between the two platforms that set them apart in terms of functionality and user experience.

1. Design and Customization: Gravity Forms provides a range of pre-designed templates and layout options that users can easily customize to match their website's branding. On the other hand, Vue Formulate offers a more flexible and granular approach to form design, allowing users to fully customize the appearance and behavior of each form element.

2. Integration Capabilities: Gravity Forms offers seamless integration with popular third-party services and platforms such as PayPal, Stripe, and MailChimp. It also provides extensive developer documentation and APIs for further customization and integration. In contrast, while Vue Formulate supports integration with other Vue.js components and libraries, it may require more manual setup and implementation compared to Gravity Forms.

3. Validation and Error Handling: Gravity Forms has a robust validation system built-in, allowing users to easily configure and validate form inputs to ensure data accuracy. It also provides in-built error handling mechanisms and customizable error messages. Vue Formulate, on the other hand, provides a similar validation system but offers more flexibility and control over the validation rules and error messages through its powerful schema-based API.

4. Dynamic Form Behavior: Gravity Forms allows users to create complex forms with dynamic behavior, such as conditional logic and dynamic field population. These features enable users to create smart and interactive forms that adapt based on user input. In comparison, Vue Formulate leverages the power of Vue.js reactivity, allowing for more dynamic and reactive forms by combining form inputs with computed properties and watchers.

5. Accessibility Support: Gravity Forms focuses on ensuring WCAG 2.0 compliance and provides built-in features and options to improve form accessibility. Users can easily add aria-labels, specify input types, and use accessible form field features. Vue Formulate also supports WCAG 2.0 compliance, but being a Vue.js component library, it provides additional accessibility benefits through the platform's built-in accessibility features and best practices.

6. Pricing and Licensing: Gravity Forms follows a subscription-based pricing model, with various plans available depending on the user's needs. A single license covers an unlimited number of forms and entries, with annual renewal required for ongoing support and updates. Vue Formulate, on the other hand, is an open-source library and can be used for free, extending the flexibility to customize and modify the codebase as needed without any additional cost.

In summary, Gravity Forms and Vue Formulate differ in terms of design and customization options, integration capabilities, validation and error handling, dynamic form behavior, accessibility support, and pricing/licensing. While both platforms offer form-building capabilities, the specific needs and requirements of the website or project should be considered when selecting the most suitable tool.