Free and Easy Web Forms with Form Assembly
Need forms for your site? Of course, I'd be the first person to encourage you to do it the old fashioned way and build your forms yourself, but that's not always the most viable option. Platform limitations, security needs and ever-present time constraints will get in the way every time. I will direct your attention to the Form Assembly, a site for those in need of web forms that work — stat.
You can go to Form Assembly and create web forms from scratch using their web-based tool. Creating and hosting forms is free. They also provide some nice reporting and storage features. For example, Form Assembly will store your responses for you so you don't have to build your own database. They will also send your form responses to you via email, in an RSS feed or in a packaged data set that can be opened in your various office tools.
Here's the catch: the service is free except for that last bit. If you want exportable data from your forms, or if you want to run secure systems, you have to pay. There's a pay-as-you-go option, or you can pay a flat monthly fee of $9.00 that covers all of the bases. If you pay, your forms will be served ad-free. Form Assembly collects ad revenue from the forms if you're a non-paying customer. It's still a fairly cheap option if you need to collect user information in a secure environment and you don't have any resources to develop and maintain a secure server.
If you're not up for building your own form (though the tool, shown above, is easy to use and not at all intimidating) Form Assembly also offers several pre-built templates for specific tasks. The nice part is that everything they provide is built in XHTML and CSS, so if there are elements you don't like or colors you're not cool with, you can code them out. Other features: Built-in input validation, localized error messages for 17 languages, and optional free hosting. Check out Form Assembly's service overview as well as their free form library and stylesheet depository.
