Leave Netlify or stay: your forms keep working either way

What Netlify Forms is

Netlify Forms is built into Netlify hosting. When you deploy, Netlify’s build system parses your HTML, finds forms marked with a netlify or data-netlify="true" attribute, and starts collecting their submissions in your Netlify site admin. There is no API call or extra JavaScript to add.

What to know before you choose

• Netlify finds forms “by parsing the HTML of your site when the build completes”, so detection is tied to deploying on Netlify.
• Forms rendered by JavaScript are not in the built HTML. Netlify’s docs suggest adding a hidden HTML copy of the form so the build can detect it.
• On credit-based plans Netlify says forms are free and unlimited. Legacy plans have their own submission limits.

Netlify Forms vs FormRill

Sources, checked 3 November 2026: Netlify docs: Forms setup, Netlify docs: Forms usage and billing. FormRill details come from our pricing page.

What FormRill gives you

• Never lose a submission. Every submission is saved before anything is delivered, so a failed email or webhook can’t lose it. Every delivery is logged, failures email you, and failed deliveries are retried automatically for about a day, or whenever you press Retry now. Free on every plan.
• One click to email. Your first form already sends to your inbox. If your form has an email field, Reply goes straight to the visitor.
• Route it anywhere. Telegram is free. Google Sheets, WhatsApp, webhooks, n8n and your CRM are Pro features, free during the beta.
• No CAPTCHA. A hidden honeypot field catches bots and keeps them in a Spam folder, out of your inbox.

Switching from Netlify Forms

The change is in your form’s opening tag. Your fields stay as they are.

<form name="contact" method="POST" data-netlify="true">
  <input type="hidden" name="form-name" value="contact" />
  <!-- your existing fields -->
</form>

<form action="https://api.formrill.com/YOUR_FORM_ID/submit" method="POST">
  <input type="checkbox" name="botcheck" hidden />
  <!-- your existing fields -->
</form>

1. Create a free FormRill account. Your first form already emails you. Copy its form URL.
2. Remove the netlify or data-netlify attribute and the hidden form-name input.
3. Set the form’s action to the FormRill form URL and method to POST. For JavaScript forms, POST the same fields with fetch.
4. Add the hidden honeypot field: <input type="checkbox" name="botcheck" hidden>.
5. Deploy anywhere, including Netlify, and send a test submission.

Questions

When Netlify Forms is the better fit

• Your site is deployed on Netlify and will stay there. Forms are built in, and on Netlify’s credit-based plans they are free and unlimited.
• You want submissions to live next to your deploys in one dashboard.

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