OpenStation vs FlowForms – Conversational Form Builder

wp-admin forgets. OpenStation doesn’t. You know the moment. You’re deep in a post and you need one image from the Media Library. You click over, find it, click back, and everything you had going is gone. Your scroll position, your half-typed thought, the three other things you had queued up in your head. That’s not a bug you hit. That’s the design. wp-admin shows you one screen at a time, and every navigation throws the last one away. It has worked this way since 2003, like a fridge that empties itself every time you close the door. WordPress has rebuilt almost everything else. The editor, the site editor, the patterns, the styles. The admin’s one-screen-at-a-time model is the layer nobody touched. OpenStation touches it. Install it and admin screens become draggable, resizable windows. Edit a post while the Media Library sits open next to it. Drag an image from one window straight into the other. Keep comments open in the corner. Reload the browser and your window layout — open pages, positions, sizes, and window states — comes back where you left it. OpenStation itself is free, GPL, and opt-in per user. One click in the admin bar turns it on for you. One click turns it off. Nobody else on your site sees anything change, and deactivating the plugin restores the classic admin exactly. No Core patches and no lock-in. Optional AI providers may charge for their service. Built and maintained by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Tumblr. Work on more than one thing at once Admin pages open as windows, including pages added by most other plugins. Drag them, resize them, snap them, tile them, minimize them to a taskbar. The admin menu becomes a dock of icons. Two editors open at once is one click away. Never lose your place Moving between open windows leaves each page in place. Across reloads, OpenStation remembers your open pages, window positions, sizes and states, virtual desktops, and focus. Closing a window with unsaved changes warns you first. A desk you can actually put things on Drop posts, media, and links right onto the wallpaper. Sort them into folders. Trash them to a Trash that actually holds things. The stuff you’re working on this week can just sit out where you can see it. One desktop per job Virtual desktops, the way your operating system does them. One for writing. One for the store. One for comment triage. One for that redesign you keep poking at. Switch between them without closing anything. Find anything with Cmd+K The full WordPress command palette, plus slash commands from your plugins, all under one keystroke. Turn on the optional AI assistant and you can ask it things like “which post had the comment asking for the recipe?” and it searches your own content to answer. (Requires an AI provider configured in Settings → Connectors on WordPress 7.0+. Details under “External services” below.) See how your site fits together The Corkboard is an interactive, zoomable map of how your posts, pages, and products link to each other. Pan around it. Find the orphans. Find the hubs. Running a store? Orders, Products, Coupons, and Customers become browsable folders with stock and sale ribbons. Open a customer to see their lifetime spend and what they buy most. Follow a product to its buyers, or a coupon to who redeemed it. Make it yours Wallpapers, from color presets to animated scenes to your own photo. Live widgets pinned to the desktop: drafts, stats, recent comments, a focus timer. Uploadable desktop themes, including a built-in Legacy theme that brings the old WordPress blue back in one click. And Mio, a soft-body desk companion that drifts across your wallpaper and gets bumped around by your windows. Off by default. You’ll turn it on. For developers Extend OpenStation through documented PHP and JavaScript APIs. Register windows, icons, wallpapers, widgets, commands, and settings tabs through stable openstation_register_* PHP APIs and a typed JavaScript API; customize dock items through documented hooks; add AI tools with the WordPress Abilities API. Copy-paste examples live in the developer docs on GitHub. External services No external service is required for OpenStation’s desktop interface. The optional AI Assistant and two user-initiated enrichment features make the external requests described below. AI Assistant The optional AI Assistant sends data to the AI provider you configure in WordPress’s Settings → Connectors (for example OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google). Generation is routed through WordPress 7.0’s built-in AI Client, which supplies the credentials stored in Connectors. The plugin never handles an API key itself. With no provider configured in Connectors, no external AI requests are made. When the AI Assistant is enabled and a user invokes it (via Cmd+K or the slash-command palette): What is sent: the user’s prompt, the conversation history for the active session, and tool-call metadata. The plugin’s built-in tools (search_posts, search_pages, search_comments) run WordPress’s native keyword search and may include excerpts of the matching posts/pages/comments in tool results, which are then sent back to the provider as part of the agentic loop. When it is sent: on user-initiated AI requests, and (if an administrator enables “Score new comments with AI”) on comment-save hooks for spam analysis. Posts, pages, and taxonomy terms are not sent automatically. Why it is sent: to obtain model completions and tool-call decisions that drive the AI Assistant. Who provides the service: whichever provider you configured in Settings → Connectors. Which provider (and endpoint) receives the data depends entirely on that configuration. Review the chosen provider’s own terms and privacy policy (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google). URL shortcut favicons When an authorized user creates a desktop shortcut to an external URL, OpenStation asks that URL for its page HTML and favicon so the shortcut can display the site’s icon. The request is made from your WordPress server and sends the requested URL, the server’s IP address, an OpenStation user-agent string, and normal HTTP request metadata to the operator of that site. This happens only when a user creates the shortcut. The destination site’s terms and privacy policy apply. WordPress.org plugin information When an authorized user opens or refreshes parts of OpenStation’s Plugins window, OpenStation may request public plugin details, update metadata, and review excerpts from WordPress.org. These requests send plugin slugs, the site’s locale, and normal HTTP request metadata to WordPress.org. This information is used only to display and manage plugins. Review the WordPress.org Privacy Policy. OpenStation’s OAuth relay does not contact a service by itself. Third-party plugins that configure the relay may contact their own providers and are responsible for disclosing those services. Credits OpenStation is brought to you by Automattic. The plugin is open source under GPLv2-or-later; contributions are welcome on GitHub. Third-party libraries The plugin bundles the following third-party JavaScript library, loaded on demand only when a feature that needs it is in use: PixiJS (MIT License) — used by the Corkboard window, built-in canvas wallpapers (e.g. the animated WordPress logo), the Mio desk companion, and the Inkfall typing game. PixiJS is loaded from the plugin’s own assets/vendor/ directory; no CDN requests are made. Data files The Inkfall game’s word list (assets/games/inkfall/words.txt) is generated from the following sources (attribution also ships in the file’s header): FrequencyWords by Hermit Dave (CC-BY-SA 4.0) — English word-frequency ranking derived from the OpenSubtitles corpus. english-words by dwyl (Unlicense) — used as a validity filter. LDNOOBW English list (CC-BY 4.0) — used as an exclusion filter.

FlowForms is a self-hosted conversational form builder for WordPress. Most contact form plugins give you a wall of fields. FlowForms gives your visitors a conversation. One question at a time, guided and focused — the result is higher completion rates, better responses, and a user experience that feels modern and intentional. Whether you’re collecting leads, running surveys, gathering testimonials, or building customer feedback forms, FlowForms delivers an interactive form experience that lives on your server, under your control, with no monthly subscription. View Demo | Templates Conversational, Step-by-Step Forms Our conversational form plugin enables you to create engaging, Typeform-style interactive forms that guide users through a seamless question-by-question experience. This reduces overwhelm, keeps respondents focused, and improves form completion rates compared to traditional multi-field forms. Every form flows through three stages: Welcome Screen — customisable title, description, start button, and background image Questions — any combination of 8 field types, drag-to-reorder Thank You Screen — closing message with optional redirect URL, delay, and social share buttons Drag & Drop Form Builder Build any form in minutes without touching a line of code. The intuitive React-powered drag-and-drop builder lets you add, reorder, and configure questions visually. What you build is exactly what your visitors see. 8 Ready-to-Use Field Types FlowForms ships with all the essentials: Short Text — single-line text input Long Text — multi-line paragraph / textarea Multiple Choice — single-select with optional “Other” answer Checkboxes — multi-select with min/max limits and optional “Other” answer Rating — star rating with configurable max stars and shape Yes / No — two-button question with customisable labels Email — with format validation and optional confirm-email mode Number — numeric input with optional min/max validation Beautiful Design Customisation Every form is independently styled with a live design panel. Customise: Background colour Title, description, answer, hint, field, and button colours Button hover colour and text Star rating colour Layout alignment: left or centered Border radius: angular, rounded, or full Google Fonts Font size: small, regular, or large Forms look great on every device — FlowForms is fully responsive and mobile-ready. Flexible Embed Options Embed your forms anywhere in WordPress using your preferred method: Shortcode: [flowform id="123"] Gutenberg Block: native FlowForm block — drag it straight into the editor Full-Page URL: /flowform/{id} — share a direct link to a distraction-free form page Pre-Built Form Templates Get started in seconds with 4 ready-to-use templates: Contact Form Lead Generation Survey Customer Feedback Testimonial Form Submission Management Every submission is stored securely in your WordPress database. The built-in entries dashboard gives you full control: Paginated list with search and sorting Individual entry detail view Bulk actions: mark read/unread, star, trash, delete permanently Status filters: All, Starred, Spam, Trash Unread count badge in the admin menu Email Notifications Get notified the moment someone submits your form. Configure the recipient, subject, sender name, reply-to address, and message body — all with smart tag support. Available smart tags: {admin_email}, {site_name}, {form_name}, {all_fields} Built-In Spam Protection Three layers of anti-spam run automatically on every submission — no CAPTCHA plugins required: Honeypot field — invisible to humans, catches bots Rotating server-side token — tied to each form, refreshed daily Akismet integration — if Akismet is active, submissions are checked automatically; spam entries are flagged and saved for review Multilingual Ready Every user-facing string — button labels, validation messages, placeholders, error messages — is customisable from the Global Settings panel. No translation plugin needed to adapt FlowForms for any language. FlowForms Pro (Coming Soon) We are actively researching the features users most want. The Pro version will be a self-hosted annual licence that extends the free plugin without replacing it. Candidate Pro features under research: Conditional logic (show/hide questions based on answers) Multiple email notifications and respondent confirmation emails Email marketing integrations (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, and more) File upload field Stripe payment field CSV / Excel entry export Opinion scale / NPS field Date & time picker field Phone number field with country code GDPR consent checkbox field Form scheduling (open/close at a specific date) Submission limits (cap responses at a set number) Zapier / webhook integrations Calculator & quiz scoring Extended pro template library Want to influence what we build first? Request a feature and tell us which feature matters most to you. Self-Hosted and Private Your own server: All data stays in your database Your own data: No third-party servers, no vendor lock-in Native integration: Gutenberg block, shortcode, full-page URL Conversational UX: One question at a time Full Feature List Drag-and-drop conversational form builder 8 field types: short text, long text, multiple choice, checkboxes, rating, yes/no, email, number Welcome screen and thank you screen for every form Redirect on completion with configurable delay Social share buttons on thank you screen Live design customisation — colours, fonts, layout, border radius Google Font supported Layout alignments: left and center Progress bar (show/hide) Navigation arrows (show/hide) Gutenberg block embed Shortcode embed Full-page form URL 4 free starter templates Submission entries database with full admin management Read/unread, star, trash, spam entry statuses Unread count badge in WordPress admin menu Email notifications with smart tags Honeypot, token, and Akismet spam protection Customisable user-facing strings GDPR-friendly — all data stored on your own server 100% mobile responsive Developer hooks for extensibility Source Code The full source code, including all JavaScript source files and build configuration, is publicly available on GitHub