MC4WP vs Essential Form – The lightest plugin for contact forms, ultra lightweight and no spam

Looking for a no-fuss, ultra-lightweight contact form that just works? Essential Form gives you exactly what you need — no more, no less. Use the shortcode [essential_form] wherever you want a simple contact form with the following fields: Name Email Message Agreement checkbox That’s it. No extra fluff, no performance hit. ⚡ Zero Bloat. Zero Requests. Zero Spam. Essential Form adds no HTTP requests, loads no external libraries, and runs on pure Vanilla JavaScript — only 1 kB of inline script, injected only on pages with a form. When we say it’s the lightest contact form ever made, we mean it. The entire plugin zip is just 14 kB. 🛡️ Anti-Spam, Reinvented (No Captchas, Ever) Our invisible anti-spam system blocks all automated bots — no annoying captchas, no puzzles, no headaches. Here’s how it works: Each form submission uses a unique, random token 20 random security keys are generated per site AJAX actions have unpredictable names like essential_form_fbe52b696 Robots can’t guess or simulate a valid submission The result? Only real humans get through. Bots don’t stand a chance. 🧘‍♀️ Keep It Simple Most of the time, all you need is a name, email, message, and a simple checkbox. That’s exactly what Essential Form gives you. If you need complex forms with extra fields or logic, this plugin isn’t for you — try Contact Form 7 instead. But if you want something fast, clean, and incredibly secure, Essential Form is for you. Try Essential Form today — and enjoy a faster, cleaner contact form experience. How to add a contact form on the page Add the shortcode [essential_form] Done! Features of the Contact Form Extremely lightweight – The plugin inlines about 1 kB of pure Vanilla JavaScript (even smaller when compressed) only on the page where you use the shortcode — and never above the fold. On all other pages, it doesn’t exist at all. You could say it only “exists” on a page because the form is visible — otherwise, you’d never know the plugin is there. No tool will be able to measure any meaningful resource usage caused by this plugin. The contact form includes only four fields: name, email, message, and an agreement checkbox. Nothing else. If you need more fields, this plugin isn’t for you. But if that’s all you need — you’ll love how simple and fast it is. It inherits your theme’s styles automatically. If you want custom styling, you can add your own CSS — or use a different plugin if you need more built-in design options. It includes a powerful, invisible anti-spam system. Bots won’t be able to send messages through your form. Only real humans can submit it — and if you ever get spam, it will be from a human doing it manually. No captchas, no puzzles, no user frustration. The anti-spam system works entirely behind the scenes — quietly and effectively. Shortcode Parameters You can customize the form labels and messages using these shortcode parameters: label_email label_message button_text agreement_text success_message Example usage: [essential_form label_email="Your email" label_message="Your message" button_text="Send" agreement_text="You agree with our privacy policy" success_message="Thank you for your message!"] If you don’t provide these parameters, the plugin will use the default values. How to customize the contact forms You can also customize the contact forms throught the filter hook ‘essential_form_settings’. Here an example. add_filter( 'essential_form_settings',function( $options ){ return array_merge( $options, array( 'email_from' => '[email protected]', 'email_to' => '[email protected]', 'email_subject' => sprintf( esc_html__( 'Message from %s','your-domain' ),get_bloginfo( 'name' ) ), 'label_name' => __( 'Name','your-domain' ), 'label_email' => __( 'Email','your-domain' ), 'label_message' => __( 'Message','your-domain' ), 'button_text' => __( 'Send','your-domain' ), 'agreement_text' => __( 'By submitting this form I agree with the privacy policy','your-domain' ), 'success_message' => __( 'Form submitted successfully! Thank you for your message!','your-domain' ), 'name_missing_error' => __( 'Name is a required field!','your-domain' ), 'email_missing_error' => __( 'Email is a required field!','your-domain' ), 'email_not_valid_error' => __( 'Email not valid!','your-domain' ), 'message_missing_error' => __( 'Message is a required field!','your-domain' ), 'message_too_long_error' => __( 'This message is too long! Please, write not more than 50000 characters.','your-domain' ), 'missing_agreement_error' => __( 'You have to agree with our privacy policy to submit the form.','your-domain' ) ) ); } ); If you need to do a custom action after the sending of the email, you can use the action hook ‘essential_form_after_sending’. Here an example. add_action( 'essential_form_after_sending',function( $name,$email,$message,$post_id ){ //$name is the name of the user who submitted the contant form //$message is the message which is sent through the contact form //$post_id is the ID of the page where is included the contact form //Your code here },10,4 ); If you need to customize the message that is included in the email, use the filter hook ‘essential_form_message’. Here you have an example. add_filter('essential_form_message',function( $message,$name,$email,$post_id ){ if( isset( $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ) ){ $message .= ' IP: '.sanitize_text_field( $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ).' '; } return $message; },10,4 ); If you need to customize the agreement text, use the filter hook ‘essential_form_agreement_text’. Here you have an example. add_filter( 'essential_form_agreement_text',function( $text ){ return 'By submitting this form I agree with the Privacy Policy '; } ); Limitations The limits of Essential Form are many, but they are what make this plugin the best if you need a ultra-lightweight contact form with just name, email, comment, and privacy agreement. If you need more, you can always install more complete but also heavier contact forms like: Contact Form 7 WPForms Forminator Formidable Forms Ninja Forms and many other amazing plugins for contact forms. How to speed up the form submission and avoid conflicts with other plugins Install and activate Freesoul Deactivate Plugins Go to Freesoul Deactivate Plugins => Plugin Manger => Actions => Essential Form Deactivate all the plugins for the actions “Getting secret key during submission” and “Form submission” By using Freesoul Deactivate Plugins to clean up all the other plugins, the form submission will be faster and without any conflict with third plugins. Demo You can see Essential Form in action on my blog post The Lightest Contact Form Plugin Ever You don’t need any demo for the backend, because there are no settings for this plugin. Just use the shortcode [essential_form] where you want to add the form, and customized as mentioned in the description. I need this plugin to do something custom If you want to integrate this plugin with other tools or workflows, I offer a custom development service for WordPress plugin integrations and feature extensions. Learn more about advanced custom functionality for WordPress.

Allowing your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter should be easy. With this plugin, it finally is. This plugins helps you grow your email list in Mailchimp. You can use it to create good looking and accessible sign-up forms or integrate with any other existing form on your WordPress site, like your contact, comment or checkout form. Some (but not all) features Connect with your Mailchimp account in seconds. Sign-up forms which are good looking, user-friendly and mobile optimized. You have complete control over the form fields and can build your forms using native HTML. Seamless integration with the following plugins: WordPress Comment Form WordPress Registration Form Contact Form 7 WooCommerce Gravity Forms Ninja Forms 3 WPForms BuddyPress MemberPress Events Manager Easy Digital Downloads Give UltimateMember HTML Forms AffiliateWP Is the plugin you want to integrate with not listed above? You can probably still use our custom integration feature. Alternatively, the plugin comes with a PHP API to programmatically add a new subscriber to Mailchimp. Mailchimp for WordPress Premium: Send your WooCommerce orders to Mailchimp so you can see exactly what each subscriber purchased and how much revenue your email campaigns are generating. A multitude of available add-on plugins and integrations: Mailchimp for WordPress Premium Mailchimp Top Bar Boxzilla Pop-ups Well documented through our knowledge base. Developer friendly. For some inspiration, check out our repository of example code snippets. Ready for PHP 8.5, but backwards-compatible all the way down to PHP 7.4. What is Mailchimp? Mailchimp is a newsletter service that allows you to send out email campaigns to a list of email subscribers. It is free for lists with up to 500 email subscribers, which is why it is the newsletter-service of choice for thousands of small businesses across the globe. If you are not yet using Mailchimp, creating an account is 100% free and only takes you about 30 seconds. Support If you need some help in setting up the plugin, you have various options: Search through our knowledge base. Open a topic in the WordPress.org plugin support forums If you’re a premium user, send an email to the email address listed inside the plugin. Translations You can help translate this plugin into your language using your WordPress.org account. Development This plugin is being developed on GitHub. If you want to collaborate, please look at ibericode/mailchimp-for-wordpress. Customizing the plugin The plugin provides various filter and action hooks that allow you to modify or extend the default behavior. We’re also maintaining a collection of sample code snippets.