Compare · Basin
Formward vs Basin
Basin is a straightforward form backend that collects submissions and emails them to you. If you are an EU business, or you simply want your form data to stay in the EU with the GDPR paperwork handled for you, the deciding factors are usually data residency and the consent / erasure tooling built in. Formward self-hosts in Sweden, captures consent with stored proof, and ships a DSAR console. Here is an honest, factual look at how the two compare.
We keep the Basin column qualitative on purpose. Their feature set and pricing change over time, and we will not present a competitor snapshot as fixed fact. The numbers in the Formward column are our real, current numbers. Where we are unsure of a Basin specific, we say to check their site.
The core difference: EU residency + GDPR tooling
Formward
- Self-hosted in Sweden; EU sub-processors for all form data.
- Your form-submission data never leaves the EU/EEA by default.
- GDPR consent capture with stored proof.
- DSAR console for export and cross-form erasure.
- Submitter IPs pseudonymised (salted HMAC) on receipt.
- Billing runs through Stripe (like most EU SaaS); Stripe never sees your form data.
Basin
- US-based form backend.
- A capable, simple product; for EU residency and GDPR-specific features, check their current documentation.
- For EU users the trade-off is usually data location and transfer governance.
What Formward does
This table marks the capabilities Formward provides. We are not asserting what Basin does or does not include, since that can change; the column reflects Formward only.
| Capability | Formward |
|---|---|
| EU data residency for form submissions (Sweden) | ✓ |
| All form-submission sub-processors in the EU | ✓ |
| Your form-submission data never leaves the EU/EEA | ✓ |
| GDPR consent capture with stored proof (text + timestamp) | ✓ |
| DSAR console: export + erase a subject across all forms | ✓ |
| Submitter IPs pseudonymised on receipt (salted HMAC) | ✓ |
| Self-host option (open infrastructure) | ✓ |
| Framework-agnostic HTML form endpoint | ✓ |
| Spam filtering + honeypot + optional Turnstile | ✓ |
| Free tier50 submissions / month | ✓ |
Formward pricing
Our real, current prices. Yearly billing is cheaper per month than the monthly figures shown.
| Plan | Per month | Submissions / mo |
|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | 50 |
| Personal | €15 | 200 |
| Professional | €30 | 2,000 |
| Business | €90 | 20,000 |
Higher volume or custom requirements? See all plans.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Formward a drop-in alternative to Basin?
- Yes. Like Basin, Formward gives you an HTML form endpoint that accepts a standard POST, so you point your existing <form action> at a Formward URL. There is no SDK and it is framework-agnostic.
- What is the main difference from Basin?
- Jurisdiction and GDPR tooling. Formward self-hosts in Sweden with EU sub-processors for all form-submission data, captures GDPR consent with stored proof, and includes a DSAR console to export or erase a person across all your forms. (Billing is handled by Stripe, as with most EU SaaS; Stripe never receives form data.) Basin is a US-based service; for EU-specific details about their setup, check their site.
- Why does EU hosting matter for forms?
- Form submissions usually contain personal data such as names, emails, and messages. Keeping that data inside the EU/EEA reduces the legal complexity of international transfers and is often the simplest path to a clean GDPR posture for an EU business.
- How does consent capture work?
- You can enable a consent checkbox per form. When a visitor submits, Formward snapshots the exact consent text they agreed to plus a timestamp onto the submission as proof. The consent text is taken server-side from the form, never trusted from the client.
- How are submitter IP addresses handled?
- We pseudonymise submitter IPs with a salted HMAC immediately on receipt and never store them raw. They are used for abuse protection and rate limiting, not tracking.
- How much does Formward cost?
- Formward starts free with 50 submissions per month. Paid plans start at EUR 15/month (Personal), with Professional at EUR 30/month and Business at EUR 90/month. Yearly billing is cheaper per month.
Keep your form data in the EU
Start free with 50 submissions a month. No card required, GDPR-clean from the first submission.