[HN Gopher] Self-Hostable Form Back End - OSS Alternative to For...
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       Self-Hostable Form Back End - OSS Alternative to Formspree
        
       Author : Oia20
       Score  : 44 points
       Date   : 2025-01-06 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | n3storm wrote:
       | We have really easily implemented this service with Nocodb. I
       | think the only feature missing would be the pow catpcha.
       | 
       | I would like to have a moment in my life to write down how we
       | have done it.
        
         | Oia20 wrote:
         | Nice! I've used Nocodb quite a bit myself, a big fan of it,
         | especially as a free self hostable alternative to Airtables
         | (which is way overpriced imo).
         | 
         | You have the form data being placed into a table, or being sent
         | somewhere external?
        
           | n3storm wrote:
           | We store submitted data for a while and purge periodically.
           | 
           | We have implemented a multitenant table for multiple
           | websites, depending on which site has been contacted a
           | different webhook is triggered for notification.
        
             | Oia20 wrote:
             | very cool setup, I would be interested to read more into it
             | if you do get around to writing it down!
        
           | n3storm wrote:
           | Also, we have tried in the past a Nocodb json field but was
           | buggy. Nocodb 0.260 has been recently released and we would
           | like to give it a try again to store extra data in some
           | forms, like "Type of enquiry" or Support like contact forms,
           | without having to create a table for each case.
           | 
           | We are succesfully using Nocodb as a Headless CMS too (for
           | +10 microsites)
        
       | satvikpendem wrote:
       | This used to be what StaticKit did...until they were acquired by
       | Formspree.
        
         | Oia20 wrote:
         | interesting, I hadn't heard of StaticKit, looks like they were
         | acquired by FormSpree in 2020, as I write this I realize that's
         | now 5 Calendar years ago... Time is flying lol
        
           | satvikpendem wrote:
           | The founder was one of the cofounders of Drip, and now he
           | runs SavvyCal. Apparently StaticKit wasn't profitable enough
           | to run as a viable business.
        
             | Oia20 wrote:
             | Did statickit function as more than just a form backend? I
             | do feel like a form backend alone is hard to run as a
             | viable business, but I find it to be an interesting enough
             | problem to maintain an open source solution for.
        
               | satvikpendem wrote:
               | Only a backend with some frontend React components if I
               | remember correctly
        
       | alin23 wrote:
       | In case others are looking for a cheaper alternative to
       | Formspree, I've been using https://formspark.io/ for all my
       | websites [1] [2] [3]
       | 
       | I paid $25 a few years ago (can't even remember when) and I still
       | have 47k out of the 50k submission credits I bought.
       | 
       | But I love to see a self-hostable alternative available,
       | especially one that's as easy to use as running a `docker-
       | compose` command. Sometimes you just need that control.
       | 
       | For example in my case, I would get app support emails all day
       | and night, and even if I had DND enabled, I would wake to 3-6
       | emails that accumulated over night and my mornings would get
       | hectic instantly. I would forget to eat for a long time and my
       | mood would be irritable all day.
       | 
       | I had to place my own small API in front of Formspark to delay
       | the emails for specific times of the day to avoid this. Something
       | like FormBee would allow me to alter this in the server code
       | directly instead of building yet another API.
       | 
       | [1] https://lowtechguys.com/contact
       | 
       | [2] https://lunar.fyi/contact
       | 
       | [3] https://alinpanaitiu.com/contact
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-06 23:00 UTC)