Open source Formspree alternative

Formspree offers form backend as a service. It makes it very easy to receive and manage form submissions. It’s particularly useful for static pages. We offer a similar functionality with Formbricks - find out more!

What is Formspree?

A form or survey always consists of two parts: The form facing your respondents and all the logic that happens after they hit “Submit”. This logic runs in a backend and in some cases, it is not worth setting up and maintaining a full backend for a couple of forms. Intro: “Backend-as-a-Service”

Backend-as-a-Service for forms and surveys

Our React Form Builder makes it super easy to build custom forms rapidly with. Today, we’ll talk about how the Formbricks Core API + Formbricks HQ completely eliminate the need to setup your own backend to receive, manage and analyze submissions from forms and surveys.

How to receive form responses without a backend

To start off, let’s quickly have a look at how this works generally. It’s pretty simple: Just add the API endpoint in the action of your form, like so:

<Form action="https://formbricks.com/f/{form_id}" method="post">

If the respondent hits “Send”, your form sends all the collected data to the API endpoint in the “action” tag. The API receives it and displays it in your Formbricks HQ dashboard. Super easy!

Formbricks vs. Formspree

Now, which solution should you use to receive form submissions without setting up a backend? Today, we’ll compare the very popular Formspree with Formbricks, the open source alternative.

We compare Formbricks and Formspree on these aspects:

• On pricing
• On functionality
• On data privacy aka. can I legally use it in the EU?

Pricing: Free doesn’t always mean free

The most obvious difference is that Formbricks offers a generous freeplan, including all pro features for up to 500 submissions / month.

Formspree’s personal plan starts at $8 / month (there is a free plan for testing and development capped at 50 submissions / month).

Here a detailed overview of both free plans. It’s pretty obvious:

	Formbricks Free Plan	Formspree Testing & Dev plan
Free submissions / month	500	50
Forms	unlimited	unlimited
Submission Archive	unlimited	30 days
Linked Emails	unlimited	2
Auto Responder	⚙️	❌
Multiple Email Recipients	✅	❌
Custom Email Templates	⚙️	❌
File Uploads	10MB	❌
Submission Export	CSV	❌
Airtable Integration	⚙️	❌
Google Sheets Integration	⚙️	❌
Zapier Integration	⚙️	❌
API Access	✅	❌
Workflows	✅	❌
Self-hosting	✅	❌

Functionality

Formspree offers a wide range of functionality, a lot of which is only accessible in the paid Professional or Business plan. Formbricks on the other hand is still a young solution, with lots of features in development. Here is a comparison of what’s available right now:

Feature	Formbricks	Formspree
Forward Form Data via Email	✅	✅
Multiple To Emails	✅	from 18$ / mo
Webhooks	✅	❌
3rd Party Integrations	⚙️	from 8$ / mo
File Uploads	⚙️	from 8$ / mo
Export submissions	✅	from 8$ / mo
Search submissions	⚙️	from 18$ / mo
reCaptcha	⚙️	✅
Restrict to domain	⚙️	✅
Custom Redirect	⚙️	from 18$ / mo
Email Auto Response	⚙️	from 18$ / mo
Custom Email Domain	⚙️	from 85$ / mo
Automated Workflows	⚙️	from 85$ / mo
Team Functionality	⚙️	from 8$/ mo

As of today, Formspree is the much more comprehensive solution.

Data Privacy: Can I legally use Formspree in the EU?

Data ownership is not only important since GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and other data privacy regulation. But since the Privacy Shield has been removed, many European companies cannot use US-american Software-as-a-Service offerings legally anymore. How do Formbricks and Formspree compare on data privacy?

Formbricks

✅ Offers self-hosting, very easy compliance with all privacy regulation

✅ Offers cloud service hosted in Germany, easy compliance for all companies

Formspree

❌ Companies in the EU should not use Formspree. Processing personal data via a US-based company creates a considerable legal risk for EU companies. From the Privacy Policy of Formspree:

“By using the Services, you acknowledge that Formspree will use your information in the United States and any other country where Formspree operates. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries, including the rights of authorities to access your personal information, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside.” — Formspree Privacy Policy, updated April 24, 2022

Result: Do we have a winner?

As of now, Formspree offers a more comprehensive set of features. However, for the really useful functionality you have to pay $18 / month. Formbricks on the other hand is the new kid on the blog with many cool features in development. The option to easily self-host makes the difference for many engineers.