Towards a strong, modern form plugin for WordPress

Building a form builder for WordPress in 2026 is a balancing act: you want the seamless experience of modern tools, without losing the predictability and deep integration of native WordPress interfaces.

With Sobi Forms 1.7.1, I took a major step forward in making form creation intuitive, clean, and rock-solid. Here is a look at what’s new and what’s next.

1. Flexible Checkboxes: Mandatory or Optional

Checkbox fields often serve distinct purposes, from acknowledging terms of service to opting into a newsletter.

In this update, I’ve refined checkbox behavior so you can explicitly toggle whether a field is mandatory (required) or optional. A small but critical update.

2. A Cleaner, Highly Scannable Settings UI

I overhauled the form settings sidebar to give you maximum context at a glance. By taking inspiration from native WordPress component patterns and pairing them with smart defaults, the settings are now easier to scan and navigate.

3. What’s Next: Custom Email Notifications & Subject Lines

The logical next step for Sobi Forms is allowing complete customization of email notification subjects and body content (for both site admins and form visitors). I’ll be working next on this feature, and you can expect it to land in the next few weeks.

Reaching Product Maturity

I feel like Sobi Forms has reached a fair level of product maturity in just a few short months. It will be a solid form plugin for WordPress. Obviously, a lot more can be added to further enhance it, but it’s already a strong product: great UX, powerful options, native SMTP, strong spam protection, great inbox, and super lightweight!

Is there a specific feature or workflow you’d love to see next? Drop a comment below and let me know.