Sulu
Sulu ships 2.6 and 3.0 in lockstep, and the 3.0 line still reads like a maintenance branch.
Comparison · Mkt Auto
WPForms vs Eleventy
A side-by-side editorial comparison of WPForms and Eleventy — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
WPForms vs Eleventy: at a glance
What is WPForms?
WPForms fills its feed with tutorials while signposting a v2.0 it has not shipped here.
WPForms publishes on a near-daily tutorial cadence, and the entire visible window is instructional: connecting forms to Make.com and Slack, assembling an applicant tracker out of forms and entries, and separating confirmations from notifications. A retrospective post frames the recent stretch of releases as the road to WPForms v2.0, but the feed carries no release notes for it. What is visible is documentation of existing capability, not new capability.
What is Eleventy?
The v4 canary line is being renamed Build Awesome while 3.x is kept on pure maintenance.
Two lines run in parallel. The 3.x branch gets dependency-only releases — 3.1.5 and 3.1.6 explicitly ship no core code changes, after 3.1.3 and 3.1.4 failed to publish and were left as immutable dead tags. The v4 alpha train, meanwhile, is where the work is: Node minimum raised to 22.15, page.inputPathDir and page.dir removed, batched incremental builds added, and a large refactor of the Nunjucks fork onto a fully-async prerelease. The releases themselves now carry the Build Awesome name and offer an @awesome.me/buildawesome install alongside @11ty/eleventy@canary.
WPForms vs Eleventy: editorial side-by-side
WPForms
5.0MKT AUTO
WPForms fills its feed with tutorials while signposting a v2.0 it has not shipped here.
◆ Current state
WPForms publishes on a near-daily tutorial cadence, and the entire visible window is instructional: connecting forms to Make.com and Slack, assembling an applicant tracker out of forms and entries, and separating confirmations from notifications. A retrospective post frames the recent stretch of releases as the road to WPForms v2.0, but the feed carries no release notes for it. What is visible is documentation of existing capability, not new capability.
◆ Where it's heading
The through-line across the tutorials is integration and routing — getting submissions out of WordPress and into the tools where work actually happens. Stacked with the v2.0 retrospective's claim that AI features have been accumulating quietly, the product is being positioned as a data-capture front end for other systems rather than a forms builder alone. The conversion-benchmarks post points the same way, toward measurement of what forms produce.
◆ Prediction
Given the v2.0 framing and the run of integration tutorials, the next substantive post is likely a v2.0 feature tour or another native integration walkthrough. The feed does not carry release notes, so any actual shipping detail will have to come from elsewhere.
Eleventy
5.0MKT AUTO
The v4 canary line is being renamed Build Awesome while 3.x is kept on pure maintenance.
◆ Current state
Two lines run in parallel. The 3.x branch gets dependency-only releases — 3.1.5 and 3.1.6 explicitly ship no core code changes, after 3.1.3 and 3.1.4 failed to publish and were left as immutable dead tags. The v4 alpha train, meanwhile, is where the work is: Node minimum raised to 22.15, page.inputPathDir and page.dir removed, batched incremental builds added, and a large refactor of the Nunjucks fork onto a fully-async prerelease. The releases themselves now carry the Build Awesome name and offer an @awesome.me/buildawesome install alongside @11ty/eleventy@canary.
◆ Where it's heading
v4 is accumulating breaking changes faster than it is stabilizing — three of the entries in this window announce removals or minimum-version bumps, and alpha.10 exists only to hotfix a regression alpha.9 introduced. The Nunjucks refactor is the biggest bet: making the fork fully async removes the need for async-specific template tags, but the release notes flag it as risky for existing Nunjucks users. The naming change is proceeding on the same timeline, so users tracking canary are absorbing an identity shift and an API shift at once.
◆ Prediction
Expect more v4 alphas carrying breaking removals before any beta, with the Nunjucks async refactor generating follow-up regressions; 3.x looks likely to keep receiving dependency-only patches with no core changes.
Alternatives to WPForms and Eleventy
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either WPForms or Eleventy.
Pimcore
Nearly every release in this window carries security hardening — Pimcore is working through an injection sweep.
Hugo
Steady feature-then-patch cadence, with security reports rising because AI tools are finding them
ClickFunnels
Measurement gets granular while the API quietly opens ClickFunnels up to outside agents
n8n
n8n's daily patch train hides the real work: hardening its MCP server into a proper auth resource.
OneSignal
OneSignal is arguing a new category into existence before showing the product behind it.
See all WPForms alternatives → · See all Eleventy alternatives →
Recent activity from WPForms and Eleventy
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoWPFormsHow to Connect WordPress Forms to Make.com
- 3d agoWPFormsHow to Send WordPress Form Entries to a Slack Channel
- 4d agoWPFormsHow to Build an Applicant Tracking System With WordPress Forms
- 8d agoWPFormsForm Confirmations vs. Notifications: What’s the Difference
- 10d agoWPFormsWhat’s a Good Form Conversion Rate? (2026 Benchmarks by Form Type)
- 11d agoWPFormsThe Road to WPForms v2.0: Every Step That Got Us Here
- 1mo agoEleventyNunjucks fork refactored onto a fully-async prerelease
- 1mo agoEleventyNode 22.15 minimum, page path properties removed
- 1mo agoEleventyHotfix for a layout cache invalidation regression
- 1mo agoEleventyEleventy v3.1.6: Everybody wants to do Maintenance
- 4mo agoEleventyCanary warns the Eleventy name is changing to Build Awesome ⚡
- 4mo agoEleventyDead tag: this release failed to publish, use 3.1.5
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between WPForms and Eleventy?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. WPForms and Eleventy are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is WPForms better than Eleventy?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. WPForms and Eleventy are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to WPForms?
Top WPForms alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "WPForms alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/wpforms for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Eleventy?
Top Eleventy alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Eleventy alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/eleventy for the full list with editorial commentary on each.