One Hack Closer to Free Web Form Back Ends
Posted2 months ago
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The author released an update to FormZero, a free and self-hostable form backend, adding email notification feature, and is discussing implementation details with the community.
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Nov 10, 2025 at 5:56 AM EST
2 months ago
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My first idea was to ask users to set up a free Resend account and use their API key to send emails. While free, this requires users to at least own a domain and definitely goes against my claim for one-click self hosting.
Then I realized that every user already has their personal email address. If only FormZero could send emails from it in a secure way.
SMTP to the rescue - it's the protocol your email client (Apple/Notion/Outlook) uses to send mail from your email address. The fact that it's a standard protocol allows users to connect to any email provider - Gmail, Proton, Outlook, iCloud or even Resend - just bring your sweet SMTP password with you.
This makes FormZero one more step closer to matching paid services in functionality. Next weekend: Captcha and spam protection.
FormZero: https://github.com/BohdanPetryshyn/formzero - use it for your next web form!