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Ask HN: Is there a back-end HTML form processing service?

6 points by JoshConley ↗ HN
Is there a service that can handle all the back-end stuff of HTML forms? Like Wufoo without the front-end HTML/CSS/Javascript.

The reason I'm asking is because I recently made a conference sign up form using Wufoo but I couldn't customize the form as much as I'd like to. I wanted to have the form prevent users from selecting an event that has already had a certain amount of people sign up.

Does anyone else here feel the need for a service like this? Or would you prefer to create the back-end from scratch? I was going to but I only had a few hours to create it.

9 comments

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timjahn
There are a bunch of other form builders out there like FormStack[1], Zoho[2], etc. I haven't used those 2 personally (only Wufoo) but I'd imagine some of them have some more advanced functionality with their more advanced plans.

[1] http://www.formstack.com/ [2]http://www.zoho.com/creator/online-form-builder/

JoshConley
Thanks for sharing. I've briefly examined the features of both services as well as other similar ones, but they all mostly focus on the front-end side and tightly integrate with the back end. I'm sure it's possible to hack together your own version of the font-end. However, that still wouldn't let me, for example, limit the number of sign ups for a certain event.
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catch404
Is http://getsimpleform.com/ too basic? No affiliation, I came across it when making something similar
JoshConley
That's a good start, but as you said is very basic. The JSON data would be useful for determining if a spot is taken but it doesn't have a nice way to view all the entries (without building that yourself).
sorich87
I am building a service to handle the backend of any HTML page. I think it will handle your use case just fine. http://www.steveapp.com/
JoshConley
Thanks. I will request an invite to try it out.