65
Contact Form 7
A reliable old workhorse that trades modern polish for lightweight simplicity.
Declining
65/100
It is a lightweight and reliable staple for developers that lacks modern polish and easy interfaces.
Active installs
~15 million
our estimate · wp.org shows 10M+
Rating
4.0★
2,178 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-7%
Declining
38,261 → 35,655 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MAJORsudden recent review surge
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining · -7% in the last year
38,261/day a year ago→35,655/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayContact Form 7 is a long-standing, widely-used free contact form plugin respected for its simplicity and reliability, but it shows its age with an outdated UI and a lack of modern conveniences like drag-and-drop building.
What people like
- +Free and lightweight with no performance bloat×4
- +Quick to get a basic contact form running via shortcode×7
- +Reliable email delivery once configured×3
- +Stable long-term — trusted on client and production sites×3
Common complaints
- −UI and settings look outdated compared to modern plugins×6
- −No drag-and-drop builder; requires basic code knowledge, making it less beginner-friendly×4
- −Built-in Cloudflare Turnstile integration fails on Safari, Firefox, and Brave, requiring a separate plugin as a workaround
- −Spam protection is insufficient out of the box, requiring an additional captcha plugin×2
- −Styling requires extra plugins or custom CSS×2
Review trustMixed — some inflation
- 4.13★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.00★
- 8%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- recent spikeReview timing — up to 13% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2024-08-132025-07-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 2,178 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-06-04★★★★★Old But Still Workshansine561-shot
- 2026-06-03★★★★★Don't use Cloudlare turnstile integrationiroshiva1-shot
- 2026-06-03★★★★★Just works istgsandra451-shot
- 2026-06-01★★★★★Handles Multiple Forms Wellgarvin89
- 2026-05-25★★★★★Old School But Worksalenaalan
- 2026-05-21★★★★★Works But Plainmary944
- 2026-05-18★★★★★Just Use Itkaiasteffen
- 2026-05-15★★★★★Solid Free Pluginadina89
- 2026-05-13★★★★★Simple & Reliablehouston2
- 2026-05-12★★★★★Old but goldalexa793
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNAlternatives to Contact Form 7
Top Forms plugins, ranked by score.For developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
67,704
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
35,698
Prior 7-day baseline
52,326
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
1,157,174
Mean release-day peak (30d)
61,774
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+89.7%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
13%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
0.70
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
60%
5★ share in analyzed sample
8%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
+95%
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.12 → 4.13★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered