Web-based form design made easy. Wufoo maintains the forms and data.

Within 5 minutes of signing up, I built the database-linked Sign Up form below with name, address (including a country dropdown menu), phone, zip, and unwanted radio button. (When I tried to delete a test block of 3 radio buttons, nothing happened. The interface allowed me to eliminate only 2 out of 3. See the bottom of the graphic.)

Form in 5 Minutes

But Wufoo can handle much more. Wufoo’s creators suggest using it for mailing lists, surveys, job apps, event calendars, account management, bug trackers, invitations / RSVPs, online orders, wedding planners, address books, classifieds, personal journals, quizzes, and… Well, you get the idea. Pretty much everything.

They promise that your data’s safe, too. Offsite backup, big pipe, etc. You can even download it for use with Excel, or anything that can use comma-delimited text files.

But why would a professional network manager want to use a simple form designer like Wufoo? The developers say, “The process of creating a form and all the database structures and scripts necessary to make it work (not to mention useful) is a really tedious process that makes what should be a simple task (collecting and understanding information), not really worth the time, effort or cost of the endeavor. The entire process could take you or your IT person days, if not weeks. With Wufoo, you can skip all the hard stuff (because it does it all for you), and start getting things done.”

The answer is easier than that. Wufoo freely shares the generated code. If you want to simply link from your site to the form, the system offers up IFRAME code to plant on your web page. But Wufoo also generates full-page form code, or XHTML/CSS code only, at the click of a button.

So, you can use Wufoo as a lightweight form editor… tweak it any way you see fit… then hook it up to your own database.

Free sign up authorizes you to maintain three forms containing 10 fields apiece. The forms can be submitted up to 100 times per month. And Wufoo will let you analyze your data 3 times a month.

Nine bucks a month gets you more of everything… $24 buys you more than that… $69 is even better… and for $199, you get the kitchen sink: Unlimited everything (except storage… and fields, which max out at 100).

If you try it, let me know what you think.