If you've ever spent hours wrestling with complex forms in React, struggling with validation, localization, or custom components, FormEngine is here to transform your workflow. This powerful tool combines an intuitive visual designer with a flexible, code-first library, enabling you to create any form, from simple to dynamic, data-driven ones, with ease. Born from our team's real-world challenges, FormEngine empowers solo developers and enterprise teams alike to save time and scale projects effortlessly. Curious about how it became a game-changer for developers? Read on to dive into the full story!
Your Ultimate Solution for Building Forms in React.
Here’s a little story about how it all became possible. We began developing FormEngine in early 2023 to address our own internal needs, driven by the immaturity of the React form library ecosystem both in terms of backend-driven form generation and visual form designers. Our goal was to replace our outdated FormBuilder.dev, with a more modern and developer-friendly form builder built for React.
After a thorough investigation, we hoped to find an open-source library we could build on something robust enough to support our team and integrate seamlessly into our commercial products: Optimajet Workflow Server and form-related plugins for WorkflowEngine.
We evaluated the most popular MIT-licensed libraries and have great respect for React Hook Form, Formik, React Final Form, and SurveyJS, each of which has made a significant contribution to the React ecosystem.
When tested against the strict internal requirements of the Optimajet development team, none could fully deliver the flexibility, integration depth, and scalability needed for our enterprise-grade use cases.
One of the key requirements especially for large teams in big tech companies or custom software development firms is the ability to easily and quickly integrate custom components. We recognized that this was a common pain point across the industry, and we had the expertise to solve it.
That insight led us to a bold decision: to build the best React-based FormBuilder from scratch-first and foremost, for ourselves. We surveyed our enterprise customers and small teams building business applications for workflow automation. Based on their feedback and requirements, we formed the foundation for what we believe to be an ideal form library one that supports code-first form creation in React, and serves as the engine behind a low or no-code visual form designer.
Here is the list of requirements and brief explanations that guided the Optimajet team when we started developing FormEngine Core.
- Lower learning curve: Easily create forms using typed FormEngine Core functions, without writing components or learning complex React concepts. JSON representation of the form is also supported for configuration-driven use.
- Built-in form validation: Data validation works out of the box with no extra code. Required fields, error messages, and rules are defined directly in code or JSON. Easily integrates with third-party validation libraries.
- Built-in localization: Forms are ready for multi-language support out of the box. Third-party localization libraries can be integrated if needed.
- Dynamic CSS and responsive layout support: Forms automatically adapt to different devices and styles no additional layout code needed.
- Built-in actions: Forms support actions like submit, reset, and external calls out of the box. Define only what you need in code or JSON and it’ll just work.
- Reusable forms across apps: Cross-project compatibility just copy and use forms are easily portable between applications with minimal effort. A single JSON object contains the full structure, logic, styles, validation, and actions.
- Programmatic form creation and dynamic generation: Build or modify forms in real time using code or external data sources.
- Ready-to-use component library: Includes built-in components and supports easy integration of custom ones. Get started fast without sacrificing flexibility.
- Easy custom component integration: Quickly define your own component by specifying its name, type, and props.
- Ready to use with popular frameworks: Works seamlessly with Next.js, Remix, and other modern React stacks no special setup needed.
- High performance and lightweight: Fast load times, smooth rendering, and minimal impact on app performance.
On October 31, 2023, we released FormEngine 0.0.13 our new standalone commercial product. Release notes →
This marked the beginning of a journey to bring to life everything our development team had envisioned for the platform. And right from day one, the results confirmed we were on the right track.
We delivered a complete, time-saving tool for development teams something that works just as well for solo developers as it does for large projects. Whether you're building a few simple forms or managing hundreds or thousands of dynamically generated ones from a backend FormEngine just works.
The initial sales were strong, and as demand grew, we even experimented with pricing tiers and product options to better understand what triggered the “Aha!” moment for our users.
That moment where everything clicks and the value is obvious.
We’re still searching for a definitive answer to what exactly made the product such a commercial success, especially among enterprise teams. But one thing is clear: we hit a real need, and we’re excited to keep building on it.
Thanks to the commercial licenses issued to our partners custom software companies we’ve been improving the FormEngine libraries day by day, with one clear goal:
To create the best React-based form solution on the market for developers and businesses who want powerful forms without the usual complexity.
We give developers everything they need to build real, working forms without the usual mess of extra tools, boilerplate, and setup.
@react-form-builder/core Community MIT Open Source Form Library for React
@react-form-builder/components-rsuite Form Components Library
@react-form-builder/designer Premium Drag-and-Drop Form Builder, also known as the Visual Form Designer
Why FormEngine Core is Now Open Source?
Many of our partners, who use FormEngine as part of their business process automation and approval workflow applications, asked us to open up the core Formengine so they could deeply integrate it into their systems and even extend its functionality where needed.
And now, after nearly two years of development and five major releases, the time has come.
On 26 June 2025, we are proud of the quality, stability, and architecture of our code, and we are ready to share it. By open-sourcing the FormEngine Core library, we make this technology freely available to the global developer community, fostering innovation, transparency, and long-term adoption.
Your support means the world to us, and we’d love for you to be part of this exciting new chapter for FormEngine.
If you find value in what we’re building, consider giving us a ⭐️ on GitHub it helps more amazing developers like you discover FormEngine Core.
Open source thrives on collaboration, and we warmly welcome contributors who want to join us on this journey. Whether it’s contributing code, sharing ideas, or spreading the word, your involvement will help FormEngine, and our growing community thrive.
With gratitude and excitement, The Optimajet Developers Team
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