Contact Form 7
by Rock Lobster
The original WordPress contact form plugin: markup driven, extremely light and free with no entry limits.
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What Contact Form 7 does
The original WordPress contact form plugin: markup driven, extremely light and free with no entry limits.
It sits in the forms part of a WordPress stack and is sold by Rock Lobster on a free basis. We recommend it in our forms guides because it does that one job well without asking you to rebuild the rest of the site around it.
Every plugin adds work to a page request, so treat this as a decision with a cost. Record a speed test before you install it and run the same test afterwards, on the same page, so you know exactly what it charged you.
Real user ratings
Score
4/5
Reviews
2,179
Active installs
10,000,000+
Downloads
423.8M
Latest version
6.1.7
Last updated
2026-08-17
These figures come straight from the public WordPress.org plugin directory API for version 6.1.7, not from us. Check them yourself on the WordPress.org listing. Our own editorial score is 4.0/5.
Where Contact Form 7 ranks elsewhere
| Publisher | List | Position |
|---|---|---|
| WPBeginner | Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress | #4 of 4 |
| Themeisle | Best WordPress Plugins | #6 of 22 |
Positions are read from the published articles themselves, so they reflect that publisher's order rather than ours. Lists get re-ordered over time, so follow the link if you want the current version.
What changed in the latest version
- https://contactform7.com/contact-form-7-617/
- https://contactform7.com/contact-form-7-616/
- https://contactform7.com/contact-form-7-615/
Release notes are the developer's own words, published on WordPress.org. Read the full changelog
Pros and cons
- Almost no front-end weight compared with visual builders
- Free with no licence to renew
- Actively maintained and used on production sites we test
- Setup is markup based and entries are not stored without an add-on
- Support is community-led rather than guaranteed
How to use it
- 1Start from a template close to the form you need.
- 2Add only the fields you will act on, and mark the rest optional.
- 3Set up notification and confirmation emails, then send a real test.
- 4Add conditional logic so long forms only show relevant questions.
- 5Pair it with an SMTP plugin so notifications actually arrive.
How it compares
Other forms plugins we recommend, with their rating and pricing model.
| Plugin | Our rating | WordPress.org | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact Form 7 | 4.0 | 4 (2,179) | Free | Almost no front-end weight compared with visual builders |
| Everest Forms | 4.6 | 4.9 (375) | Freemium | Very light on the frontend |
| Fluent Forms | 4.7 | 4.8 (795) | Freemium | Lots of features per pound |
| Formidable Forms | 4.6 | 4.8 (1,382) | Freemium | Calculations and front-end views |
| Formidable Forms Twilio | 4.2 | 4.8 (1,382) | Premium | Conditional SMS triggers |
| Forminator | 4.5 | 4.8 (2,123) | Freemium | Quizzes and polls free |
Alternatives
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Formidable Forms
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