The lightest contact form for WordPress. It's so essential you'll either love it or hate it. Ultra lightweight and no spam.

Jose Mortellaro

Looking for a no-fuss, ultra-lightweight contact form that just works? Essential Form gives you exactly what you need — no more, no less.
Use the shortcode <code>[essential_form]</code> wherever you want a simple contact form with the following fields:
<ul>
<li>Name</li>
<li>Email</li>
<li>Message</li>
<li>Agreement checkbox</li>
</ul>
That’s it. No extra fluff, no performance hit.
<h4>⚡ Zero Bloat. Zero Requests. Zero Spam.</h4>
Essential Form adds no HTTP requests, loads no external libraries, and runs on pure Vanilla JavaScript — only 1 kB of inline script, injected only on pages with a form. When we say it’s the lightest contact form ever made, we mean it. The entire plugin zip is just 14 kB.
<h4>🛡️ Anti-Spam, Reinvented (No Captchas, Ever)</h4>
Our invisible anti-spam system blocks all automated bots — no annoying captchas, no puzzles, no headaches. Here’s how it works:
<ul>
<li>Each form submission uses a unique, random token</li>
<li>20 random security keys are generated per site</li>
<li>AJAX actions have unpredictable names like <code>essential_form_fbe52b696</code></li>
<li>Robots can’t guess or simulate a valid submission</li>
</ul>
The result? Only real humans get through. Bots don’t stand a chance.
<h4>🧘‍♀️ Keep It Simple</h4>
Most of the time, all you need is a name, email, message, and a simple checkbox. That’s exactly what Essential Form gives you. If you need complex forms with extra fields or logic, this plugin isn’t for you — try Contact Form 7 instead.
But if you want something fast, clean, and incredibly secure, Essential Form is for you.
Try Essential Form today — and enjoy a faster, cleaner contact form experience.
<h3>How to add a contact form on the page</h3>
<ul>
<li>Add the shortcode [essential_form]</li>
<li>Done!</li>
</ul>
<h3>Features of the Contact Form</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Extremely lightweight – The plugin inlines about 1 kB of pure Vanilla JavaScript (even smaller when compressed) only on the page where you use the shortcode — and never above the fold. On all other pages, it doesn’t exist at all. You could say it only “exists” on a page because the form is visible — otherwise, you’d never know the plugin is there. No tool will be able to measure any meaningful resource usage caused by this plugin.
</li>
<li>
The contact form includes only four fields: name, email, message, and an agreement checkbox. Nothing else. If you need more fields, this plugin isn’t for you. But if that’s all you need — you’ll love how simple and fast it is.
</li>
<li>
It inherits your theme’s styles automatically. If you want custom styling, you can add your own CSS — or use a different plugin if you need more built-in design options.
</li>
<li>
It includes a powerful, invisible anti-spam system. Bots won’t be able to send messages through your form. Only real humans can submit it — and if you ever get spam, it will be from a human doing it manually.
</li>
<li>
No captchas, no puzzles, no user frustration. The anti-spam system works entirely behind the scenes — quietly and effectively.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Shortcode Parameters</h3>
You can customize the form labels and messages using these shortcode parameters:
<ul>
<li><code>label_email</code></li>
<li><code>label_message</code></li>
<li><code>button_text</code></li>
<li><code>agreement_text</code></li>
<li><code>success_message</code></li>
</ul>
Example usage:
<pre><code>[essential_form label_email="Your email" label_message="Your message" button_text="Send" agreement_text="You agree with our privacy policy" success_message="Thank you for your message!"]
</code></pre>
If you don’t provide these parameters, the plugin will use the default values.
<h3>How to customize the contact forms</h3>
You can also customize the contact forms throught the filter hook ‘essential_form_settings’.
Here an example.
<pre><code>add_filter( 'essential_form_settings',function( $options ){
 return array(
 'email_from' => 'youremail@mail.com',
 'email_to' => 'youremail@mail.com',
 'email_subject' => sprintf( esc_html__( 'Message from %s','your-domain' ),get_bloginfo( 'name' ) ),
 'label_name' => __( 'Name','your-domain' ),
 'label_email' => __( 'Email','your-domain' ),
 'label_message' => __( 'Message','your-domain' ),
 'button_text' => __( 'Send','your-domain' ),
 'agreement_text' => __( 'By submitting this form I agree with the privacy policy','your-domain' ),
 'success_message' => __( 'Form submitted successfully! Thank you for your message!','your-domain' ),
 'name_missing_error' => __( 'Name is a required field!','your-domain' ),
 'email_missing_error' => __( 'Email is a required field!','your-domain' ),
 'email_not_valid_error' => __( 'Email not valid!','your-domain' ),
 'message_missing_error' => __( 'Message is a required field!','your-domain' ),
 'message_too_long_error' => __( 'This message is too long! Please, write not more than 50000 characters.','your-domain' ),
 'missing_agreement_error' => __( 'You have to agree with our privacy policy to submit the form.','your-domain' )
 );
} );
</code></pre>
If you need to do a custom action after the sending of the email, you can use the action hook ‘essential_form_after_sending’.
Here an example.
<pre><code>add_action( 'essential_form_after_sending',function( $name,$email,$message,$post_id ){

 //$name is the name of the user who submitted the contant form
 //$message is the message which is sent through the contact form
 //$post_id is the ID of the page where is included the contact form

 //Your code here

},10,4 );
</code></pre>
If you need to customize the message that is included in the email, use the filter hook ‘essential_form_message’.
Here you have an example.
<pre><code>add_filter('essential_form_message',function( $message,$name,$email,$post_id ){
 if( isset( $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ) ){
 $message .= 'IP: '.sanitize_text_field( $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] ).'';
 }
 return $message;
},10,4 );
</code></pre>
If you need to customize the agreement text, use the filter hook ‘essential_form_agreement_text’.
Here you have an example.
<pre><code>add_filter( 'essential_form_agreement_text',function( $text ){
 return 'By submitting this form I agree with the <a href="https://yourdomain.com/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy</a>';
} );
</code></pre>
<h3>Limitations</h3>
The limits of <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/essential-form/" rel="ugc">Essential Form</a> are many, but they are what make this plugin the best if you need a ultra-lightweight contact form with just name, email, comment, and privacy agreement. 
If you need more, you can always install more complete but also heavier contact forms like:
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/" rel="ugc">Contact Form 7</a> 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpforms-lite/" rel="ugc">WPForms</a> 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/forminator/" rel="ugc">Forminator</a> 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/formidable/" rel="ugc">Formidable Forms</a> 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ninja-forms/" rel="ugc">Ninja Forms</a>
and many other amazing plugins for contact forms.
<h3>How to speed up the form submission and avoid conflicts with other plugins</h3>
<ul>
<li>Install and activate <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/freesoul-deactivate-plugins/" rel="ugc">Freesoul Deactivate Plugins</a></li>
<li>Go to Freesoul Deactivate Plugins => Plugin Manger => Actions => Essential Form</li>
<li>Deactivate all the plugins for the actions “Getting secret key during submission” and “Form submission”</li>
</ul>
By using <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/freesoul-deactivate-plugins/" rel="ugc">Freesoul Deactivate Plugins</a> to clean up all the other plugins, the form submission will be faster and without any conflict with third plugins.
<h3>Demo</h3>
You can see <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/essential-form/" rel="ugc">Essential Form</a> in action on my blog post <a href="https://josemortellaro.com/the-lightest-contact-form-plugin-ever/" rel="nofollow ugc">The Lightest Contact Form Plugin Ever</a> 
You don’t need any demo for the backend, because there are no settings for this plugin. Just use the shortcode [essential_form] where you want to add the form, and customized as mentioned in the description.
<h4>I need this plugin to do something custom</h4>
If you want to integrate this plugin with other tools or workflows, I offer a custom development service for WordPress plugin integrations and feature extensions. 
Learn more about <a href="https://josemortellaro.com/advanced-functionality-for-wordpress/" rel="nofollow ugc">advanced custom functionality for WordPress</a>.

Essential Form – The lightest plugin for contact forms, ultra lightweight and no spam


I'm the author, but also a user of this plugin. I love it because It is the lightest contact form plugin imaginable.



It adds just 1 kilobyte, and only to the page where you have the contact form. 



It's so light and in the same time you can get rid of spam without disturbing captcha.


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