Do you want to learn how to create a form in JavaScript? Forms are needed for almost every website. Therefore, it makes sense that a lot of free and paid services, plugins, and libraries are available to make it easy to create forms. In this post, I will list some tools, plugins, and libraries that you can use to create free forms online, without any knowledge of JavaScript. Some of these tools are completely free to use, while others are free up to a certain usage limit.
I will also list some useful libraries that can make it easier to create JavaScript-based forms if you have a basic knowledge of the language. The libraries are free to use, so you can create as many forms with them as you like.
Let's get started with the tools available online to create your own forms.
Free Tools to Create JavaScript Forms
Bootsnipp: Bootstrap CSS Form Builder and Generator
Bootsnipp is a tool that's completely free to use for everyone. You can use it to create as many JS forms as you want. It generates HTML that you can copy and paste to your own webpage.
The drag-and-drop form builder lets you drag the form components from the left side and drop them on the right side to create the form. Once you have dropped an input component, you can click on it to see a small form and fill out the id, label text, placeholder text, and other element-specific information based on the component.
Once you have created your JavaScript form, it's easy to get the generated HTML by clicking on the View HTML button. Give this tool a try if you want to create Bootstrap-based forms.
The Bootsnipp website actually also offers a few other tools that you might find useful, like a button builder and a page builder.
jQuery formBuilder
This jQuery-based form builder is also completely free and offers a very user-friendly drag-and-drop method for building forms. You just have to drag different form components from the list on the right and place them on the left side. Once you've done that, you will be able to click on the edit button in the top right corner of the form component to edit all its attributes like placeholder text, whether it's required, and much more.
Another great thing about this tool is that you can create your JavaScrip forms in any of 27 different languages.
Any JavaScript form templates that you create with this tool can be rendered easily using the formRender plugin. You can find more information about the form creation and render process on the official website.
pForm Free HTML JavaScript Form Generator
pForm is yet another free HTML-based form builder which allows you to create your own forms by following three simple steps.
You begin by choosing a color scheme for your JS form and then add some input fields. Once you've added the input elements to your JS form, you will be able to set the value of various attributes like the label text, field type, and other attributes.
After adding all the desired fields in the JavaScrip from generator, simply click the Save Form button to download the generated HTML. At this point, you'll also have the option to preview the form before either downloading or going back to edit the form input fields again.
Go ahead and use pForm, a JavaScript form creator—it's incredibly easy, and you also get to choose your own colors in the JavaScript form builder.
More Advanced JavaScript Form Builder Tools
The services featured in this section offer an easy way to work with JavaScript forms¡ templates, but their free plans offer only very limited features. If you want to create complicated JS forms, these tools are one way to do it. However, if you have a basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript, it might be cheaper and better for you to use one of the form plugins from CodeCanyon to create your forms.
JotForm: Form Generator HTML5
JotForm has a free starter plan which allows you to create up to five forms with their JavaScript form creator and have 100 monthly submissions. You also get about 1,000 monthly form views. What you create in this HTML5 form generator will contain JotForm branding if you use the free starter pack.
If you don't mind the JotForm branding and your usage stays within the limits, this tool is actually very easy to use. Once you have signed up, you can start using the templates to create your own forms. The templates address all kinds of needs, from payment and hotel booking forms to course and event registration.
Cognito JavaScript: Create Your Forms
Cognito Forms also offers a JavaScript form builder with limited features in its free plan. You will get Cognito Forms branding in the forms you create, but you can create as many forms as you like. Form submissions are, however, limited to 500 per month in the free plan. This is still five times the cap put in place by JotForm.
The form builder tool allows you to either create a form from scratch or use built-in templates. In either case, you will probably find it to be the most feature-rich and user-friendly of all the form builder tools listed so far.
Features:
- easily customize and filter the data or information you need
- customer's data and information are highly protected
- integrate third-party tools like Zapier
- payments can be accepted directly through your forms
Try creating a form using one of the Cognito form templates and see if it addresses all your needs.
Bitrix24
You can use this free JavaScript web form builder to create registration forms, collect feedback, and provide customer service. Bitrix24 features a live chat widget as well, and you don't need any coding knowledge to get started with it. Aside from creating forms, Bitrix24 provides several free features that other JavaScript form builders do not have.
Features:
- CRM integration is available for free
- 5 GB of free online storage
- completely customized
- fully responsive on all devices
- very supportive community
- quick response to questions from the team members
Accessify
Accessify is one great form builder which merges two older tools (a form builder and HTML5 form generator) into one much slicker process. You can create your form simply by entering the fields you want to capture in the form, defining each field type and its usage, and choosing some markup options. After following all these steps, you will have a fully accessible and valid form, including CSS to help you style it.
Zoho
Zoho is another excellent tool for creating online web forms, with a combination of design, questions, presentation, and a simple form-filling experience that ensures a near-perfect gathering of the data you need.
Features:
- elegant web forms with fully customizable themes
- smooth payment collection
- quick report and data analytics
Wufoo
This cloud-based form builder allows you to easily create registration forms, application forms, surveys, contact forms, and payment forms, among other things. It features a variety of plan options depending on what you need, as well as a free plan to get you started. Various businesses and millions of people use and trust this form builder.
With Wufoo, you can design beautiful forms that match the look and feel of your brand with no prior coding experience. What's more, you can easily process online payments with the popular payment gateway brands.
Form.io
Form.io is a popular JavaScript builder for managing API data. The tool makes it easier to link forms and APIs, allowing third-party suppliers and legacy systems to be integrated. It is very easy to set up and get started with Form.io.
Features:
- beginner-friendly drag-and-drop interface
- clear, beginner-friendly documentation
- fully responsive
Free Plugins and Form Generators in HTML5
If you don't mind writing a little code yourself to create your forms, you can take advantage of all the free JavaScript or jQuery plugins and libraries to create your own forms with the exact feature set you need for a particular project.
Here are some libraries to help you get started.
jQuery Validation Plugin
You can use the jQuery Validation Plugin to write your own custom validation rules and error messages, which can be easily integrated within existing forms. In fact, we also have a tutorial for jQuery-based form validation that uses this particular plugin. This should help you jump-start the form creation process.
Even if you have already created a basic HTML5 form, you can still use the plugin to add validation with a single line of code. It will greatly improve the user experience for people visiting your website. You have full control over the placement and styling of error messages, and the library makes sure that they are displayed in a non-intrusive manner.
Parsley
This library also allows you to integrate input validation in all your forms, but unlike the jQuery validation plugin, it uses HTML data attributes instead of JavaScript for validation. Adding validation to a form is as simple as including the data-parsley-validate attribute in the <form> tag.
You should take a look at some of the examples mentioned on the official website to get a good understanding of the working and features of the library.
Pickadate
Anyone who wants to add an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly, responsive, and lightweight jQuery-based date and time input picker would find Pickadate to be very useful.
It is both touch- and keyboard-friendly. The picker supports over 40 different languages, so you will probably be able to let people choose the dates in their native language.
The plugin offers a lot of customization options for both the date picker and the time picker.
Zxcvbn
This weirdly named password strength estimator is actually a great tool to let users know the relative strength of passwords that they want to use when signing up using a form that you created.
It relies on pattern matching and weighs around 30,000 common passwords, common names, surnames and patterns like dates or keyboard sequences like qwertyuiop etc. to determine if a password is strong enough. It is definitely worth checking out if you want to give your users a friendly way to determine their password strength.
FilePond
FilePond is a JavaScript library that allows you to implement file upload functionality in your forms with an impressive set of features. One of the things that you will instantly like about this plugin is its user-friendliness.
It will accept directories, files, blobs and much more as input. Any uploaded images are optimized, resized and cropped on the client side to dramatically improve upload speed and reduce server load at the same time.
The list of features does not end here! I strongly suggest that you check this library out if you are looking for a JavaScript library to facilitate user-friendly file upload in your forms.
Formidable Forms
Formidable is a terrific free form builder that allows you to perform complicated calculations and generate stunning reports based on the form submission data.
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is a one-of-a-kind plugin. It features a large add-on library that makes integrating third-party services and software much easier.
Ninja Forms
Ninja Forms is a simple and streamlined forms builder with powerful features and a premium extension library that extends its capability.
Now You Know How To Create a Form in JavaScript for Free!
In this post, we took a look at some of the popular form-building tools, plugins, and libraries that you can use to create feature-rich HTML forms in no time.
If you don't want to write any code, the free JavaScript form builder tools mentioned in the first half of the article will generate the HTML for you. All you have to do is drag and drop the components that you want to include in your JS forms. Some dedicated form building services will also give you a lot of other features, but they are generally paid, and the free version will give you access to limited functionality.
The plugins and libraries mentioned later in the article will be helpful for those people who want to create their own JavaScript forms with the exact functionality they need. These libraries will just make it easier for them to add the required functionality while giving them a lot of control over the way the forms look and behave.
You can also take a look at different plugins and scripts available on CodeCanyon to help you create all kinds of forms with ease. They are a good option for people who don't want to code everything from scratch but still want control over the forms compared to third-party services.
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This post has been updated with contributions from Ezekiel Lawson and Gonzalo Angulo. Ezekiel is a front-end developer who focuses on writing clean, maintainable code with web technologies like JavaScript, Vue.js, HTML, and CSS. Gonzalo is a staff writer with Envato Tuts+.
