Show HN: Typeform alternative, turns Markdown to forms

Very good work, especially for a solo developer. Feedback:

1. Design language of the forms feels too much like Typeform, you're a talented designer: differentiate the design to establish your own identity. If the forms look like Typeform, form-fillers are not going to investigate what form software it is and use it -- which was a big part of why Typeform grew.

2. The name is terrible. Blocks? The name sounds like you decided on it for a different project (some sort of component framework using Markdown?) and then reused it for this. The domain forms.md is available to register. Anything that include "form" in the name would be a significant improvement.

I don’t understand the license here https://github.com/blocksmd/blocksmd?tab=License-1-ov-file#r...

It says Business Source License 1.1 which basically means I’m free to use as long as I don’t use it to build a competitive offering. Fair enough.

But it changes to AGPL-3.0 on 2028-07-01, what? Basically now I need to open source my entire stack that has any connection to the form? Why would you change it to a more restrictive license (for anyone not looking to build a competitive offering) after a few years?

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Unrelated, I find the DSL increasingly unwieldy as you get to more advanced features (especially styling). Might want to consider offering a JSX/TSX alternative for more advanced use cases.

This style of form is aggravating to fill out, but kudos on making it beautiful.

If you want to be kind to your users, allow them to scroll through the entire form, see it on one screen and ideally skip ahead without filling out required options but block submission.

It looks like it could be made leaner.

This:

    name* = TextInput(
        | question = What is your name?
        | description = 
          Let's get started with the survey. First, please tell
          us your full legal name according to your passport.
    )

Could be just this:

    name* = TextInput
        # What is your name?
        Let's get started with the survey. First, please tell
        us your full legal name according to your passport.

This is more like a DSL with Markdown embedded for the textual parts, but still cool.

An actual Markdown syntax extension for forms would be interesting. [_____] for text fields?

I feel like this falls into an uncanny valley between requiring the skill to cognitively model forms in your mind as text, which is fairly close to coding and using a form builder UI.

nice product. but prohibitively expensive. 60$ and even more concerning "Varies" price for actual use is pretty much no-go for this product.

if you are small startup this is too expensive, if you are big company, you might as well built it yourself. got to be cheaper!

UPD: typeform charge more but they provide hosting and analytics, very convenient for people who don't want/cant to code anything. this library is "bring your own backend, analytics, etc.", need coding too, but prices are nearly same ballpark. too expensive.

Hey builder of this thing here. This blew up like crazy! Thanks for all of the feedback everyone. I'll try to reply to all of them, I think most of it is very valid. In case someone wants to reach out for questions, my email is tahmid(dot)hm(dot)dev(at)gmail.com.

Looks interesting, but I’m having a hard time seeing why a team would adopt this over something like MDX. A comparison page between the two would be great!

I could definitely see this being useful if you could easily integrate it into a static site generator pipeline like Hugo or Jekyll.

Great alternative. I'm the founder of Buildform.ai which is an AI first typeform alternative. With buildform, it's faster and easy to build high-conversion conversational forms and analyze and use the data you collected.

Oh this is right up my alley. Love it! Some really good design decisions.

My user test: https://www.loom.com/share/9287cfe4e7024330bfe752ef8b9ad9bd

Nice product, I also built a typeform alternative which is easier to use and offers life time deal

https://formlick.com

Cool! How could I install it in Jekyll ? It could be use for landing page form, newsletter form or custom form calculator where html is not allowed.

This syntax would be just nice to plug into WordPress Contact Form 7 plugin which is also a feasible FOSS alternative in itself.

why would someone self host? There is always resistance in managing server on our own. So only people will buy such self hosted typeform alternatives are maybe the one who are using typeforms at scale, large businesses.

Nonetheless great design!

Why is better than just a simple spreadsheet as input? Spreadsheets are still somehow very underrated

The telephone input takes text input?

It looks interesting. Do you not have a free plan or even a trial?

Nice Design, however:

1. I don't understand why there's a pricing model for some CSS on forms. if I'm hosting the form & submission endpoint why do I need your backend (? not even sure what your role is here) 2. why not make it into a selfhosted typeform alternative; would be cooler than this saas bs

Looks nice! I was using typeform to collect surveys but found the UX weird so I switched to Google Forms. Found we got more conversions too, it's just simpler to use. The one thing missing was I wanted a way to redirect someone after they completed the form. That wasn't supported so if there is anyone else in a similar boat, I made this (free) service: https://www.gfrdr.com.

Why are you using Paddle? Using a MoR for a product like this is really dumb.

MoRs are common in very shady areas (gambling, adult, etc.) where getting credit card processing approval is difficult.

Yet some marketing genius has decided he can hoodwink indiehackers into giving him 12% of his revenue, while also hurting the indiehacker's sales.

This is awesome!