EmailJS Alternative: Why Developers Switch to splitforms

How EmailJS works (and where it hurts)

EmailJS connects your frontend form directly to your email service provider (Gmail, Outlook, SendGrid, etc.) via their JavaScript SDK. You install the @emailjs/browser package, configure a service ID, template ID, and public key, and EmailJS routes form submissions through your email provider.

The architecture sounds elegant — until you hit the friction points:

• You manage the email credentials. If your Gmail App Password expires, your Outlook token rotates, or your SendGrid API key changes, forms silently break and you find out from angry users.
• No submission storage. EmailJS sends the email and forgets. There is no dashboard, no searchable archive, no export. Lose the email? The submission is gone.
• No spam filtering. EmailJS relies on your email provider's spam filter. Bot submissions flood your inbox.
• 200 emails/month on free. That's the free tier. Compare to splitforms' 500/month free.
• Templates are rigid. You design email templates in the EmailJS dashboard with their variable interpolation. Complex formatting or conditional content is painful.

What splitforms does differently

splitforms flips the model. Instead of connecting to your email service, splitforms is the email service — plus a full submission management platform.

1. Zero email config. No SMTP credentials to manage. No service IDs, template IDs, or public keys. Just one access key and one endpoint.
2. Submissions are stored. Every submission lands in a searchable dashboard with timestamps, IP, user agent, and spam score. Export to CSV anytime.
3. AI spam filtering built in. Every submission is classified by an AI model trained on millions of form submissions. Bots are filtered before they reach your inbox.
4. Webhooks on Starter ($1/mo). Forward submissions to Slack, Discord, Notion, Zapier, or your own API endpoint.
5. Autoresponders. Send a confirmation email back to the person who filled the form — no template engine to learn.

Side-by-side comparison

Code comparison

EmailJS requires a client SDK and configuration objects:

// EmailJS — requires SDK + config
import emailjs from '@emailjs/browser';

emailjs.sendForm('SERVICE_ID', 'TEMPLATE_ID', formRef.current, {
  publicKey: 'YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY',
})
.then(() => alert('Sent!'))
.catch((err) => alert('Failed: ' + err.text));

splitforms is just HTML. No SDK, no build step, no client-side JavaScript:

<!-- splitforms — plain HTML, no SDK needed -->
<form action="https://splitforms.com/api/submit" method="POST">
  <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY">
  <input type="text"  name="name"    required>
  <input type="email" name="email"   required>
  <textarea           name="message" required></textarea>
  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>

That's it. No npm install, no service ID, no template variable mapping. The form works on any static host — GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, S3 — with zero JavaScript.

When EmailJS still makes sense

To be fair, EmailJS isn't bad software. It's a good choice if:

• You already have a configured email service (SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark) and want to keep using it directly.
• You need to send transactional emails (not just form submissions) and EmailJS is your transport layer.
• You're deep in the EmailJS ecosystem and migration cost outweighs the benefits.

For everyone else — especially developers building contact forms, lead capture forms, or newsletter signups on static sites — splitforms offers more features at a lower price with less configuration.

How to switch from EmailJS (5 minutes)

1. Create a free account at splitforms.com/login
2. Copy your access key from the dashboard
3. Remove the @emailjs/browser SDK calls from your form
4. Set your form's action to https://splitforms.com/api/submit
5. Add <input type="hidden" name="access_key" value="YOUR_KEY">
6. Deploy. Test. Done.

Your field names stay identical — name, email, message all pass through to the same template variables you used in EmailJS. The migration is a find-and-replace, not a rewrite.

FAQ