Free Plugin Declaration: Contact Form 7 is Free

Post author By Takayuki Miyoshi
Post date April 28, 2012
14 Comments on Free Plugin Declaration: Contact Form 7 is Free

Before I started developing Contact Form 7 in 2007, I was an avid user of Ryan Duff’s WP Contact Form and Chip Cuccio’s Contact Form ][. I learned how to implement contact forms as WordPress plugin by looking at their code. These developers were like teachers. If they didn’t publish their plugins for free, Contact Form 7, which has been downloaded more than 6 million times, might not exist.

Open-source code is the best educational material for developers. Open-source community is invaluable for the new generation of developers. The community grows by bringing new members constantly; I believe this is also how the WordPress community has grown.

The current trend is selling WordPress plugins and themes. Even if their license is compliant with GPL, wouldn’t it be difficult for developers to learn from them? This trend could weaken the WordPress community over time.

I don’t like to follow this trend. Now I’d like to repeat, I will keep publishing Contact Form 7 as a free plugin forever.

Also, I’d like to show my appreciation to everyone who has donated to plugin developers. With your support, we can continue development of free plugins. Your contribution defends the philosophy of the open-source community. Please keep supporting. As a member of WordPress community, I’m proud of you.

Tags GPL, Open Source, Plugin, WordPress

14 replies on “Free Plugin Declaration: Contact Form 7 is Free”

This is by far the single most important plugin for your WordPress site. I have built more than 60 sites with WordPress, and this is the only plugin I have used in all of them. Simple, fast, and powerful, Contact Form 7 is the form-builder plugin.

Thanks for the great tool,
Karl A. Krogmann

We are proud of you too.

We are using your plugin for our tourism website here in Chiang Mai and i recognize it s very useful.

You said keep it free yes you are right, but why are you not thinking of a backoffice data collection management? That oneapartments for rent in bangkok sukhumvit can be a pay version and help you to support all your work.

If you pass by Chiang Mai you can stay in our guesthouse for free.

Cheers, Xavier

Thank you for this plugin, Miyoshi-sama. Do you need donations to continue development?

Awesome!

I just want to thank you.

I have recently started using WordPress and I used Contact Form 7 and Really Simple Captcha in my first project. I was so amazed by the elegance and practicality of both of the plugins. I learned a lot from your code.

I also added my own modules to add some short codes for extra field types that I needed and their validation. Works like a charm.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thanks a lot for this awesome and simple plugin. Use it and love it so much. Be blessed and keep doing such a great work :)

You are amazing! I love you man!

[…] over 17 million downloads to date and over 1600 5-star reviews. Its author, Takayuki Miyoshi has declared it will always be free, because he believes in the philosophy and strength of keeping things open source for everyone to […]

Great thoughts. Appreciated.
I do use some premium theme now and then and all of them seems to have one plugin in common ie Contact Form 7.
Keep up the good work. Cheers.

Thanks for this great plugin and for donating it to us. I use it on all of my pages and it works perfectly.

Thank you so much. I actually came to your website looking for a place to donate to YOU. I have also used Contact Form 7 on every single website I have ever built. It is light and flexible and easy to use. Wonderful! Please let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you.