Forms can be a pain for both users filling out the form and coders. There an even bigger pain to build. The most difficult challenges that a developer has to take on, when it comes to forms, is not only how to build a form that is simple and quick for the user to use, but also make it user friendly as possible.

In this post we have collected some of the best jQuery plugins to help you build powerful forms on your website or blog. If you are looking for solutions to any form issue, you will find the jQuery plugin to be very helpful.

Form Functionality Plugins

Elastic – Make your textareas grow

This jQuery plugin makes your textareas grow and shrink to fit it’s content. It was inspired by the auto growing textareas from Facebook.
Elastic – Make your textareas grow »

jQuery “Highlight” Plugin

Highlight increases usability of forms by highlighting the elements as you interact with the page. Its primary use is for forms, but it can also be used for tables, lists, or any element that you specify.
jQuery “Highlight” Plugin »

Autotab: jQuery Auto-Tabbing and Filtering

Autotab is a jQuery plugin that provides auto-tabbing and filtering on text fields in a form. Once the maximum number of characters has been reached within a defined text fields, the focus is automatically set to the defined target of the element.
Autotab: jQuery Auto-Tabbing and Filtering »

Ajax Fancy Captcha

Ajax Fancy Captcha helps you protect your web pages from bots and spammers by using a new, intuitive way of completing “verify humanity” tasks. In order to do that you are asked to drag and drop a specified item into a circle.
Ajax Fancy Captcha »

jQuery NobleCount

NobleCount gives you a dynamic display of the number of characters remaining in a textarea, Twitter-style.
jQuery NobleCount »

Password Strength Indicator and Generator

The Password Strength Indicator and Generator plugin lets you set the class of an element so that you can do a graphical representation of the strength.
Password Strength Indicator and Generator »

FormToWizard Plugin

The FormToWizard plugin allows you to turn any form into a powerful wizard with jQuery with “steps left” information.
FormToWizard Plugin »

Sliding Labels – jQuery Form Plugin

Sliding Labels – jQuery Form Plugin »

ToggleVal

ToggleVal gives you the option to populate the default text of form fields (in a few different ways), and will then toggle the default value when the field receives and loses keyboard focus.
ToggleVal »

jQuery AlphaNumeric

jQuery AlphaNumeric is a javascript control plugin that allows you to limit what characters a user can enter on textboxes or textareas.
jQuery AlphaNumeric »

Form Encyription and Password Security

jCryption

jCryption is a JavaScript HTML-Form encryption plugin, which encrypts the POST/GET data submitted by forms.
Normally, when you submit a form, data will be sent in plain text if no SSL is used. But SSL is not supported by every webhost nor it’s easy to install/apply at times. So in this situation the jCryption plugin helps you to encrypt your data with ease.
jCryption »

Password Validation Plugin

This plugin offers a function that rates passwords for factors like mixed upper/lower case, mix of characters (digits, special characters), length and similarity to a username (optional) and gives a custom method for the validation plugin that uses the rating function to display a password strength meter, requiring the field to have a “good” rating.
Password Validation Plugin »

Password Strength – Estimates brute force time

Password Strength tries to calculate how many possibilities the hacker needs to try to guess your password. It makes the assumption that it is possible to test 2800 million passwords per second.
Password Strength »

Password Strength Meter v2

The Password Strength Meter works by presenting a global variable score and at the end of the algorithm the plugin will decide the passwords strength according to the score value.
Password Strength Meter v2 »

Form Mask Plugin

Masked Input Plugin

The Masked Input Plugin allows a user to easily enter fixed width input fields where you would like them to enter the data in a certain format (dates,phone numbers, etc).
Masked Input Plugin »

autoNumeric()

autoNumeric() is a flexible International numeric formatter, that will automatically place a thousand separator as you type and supports nine different rounding methods.
autoNumeric() »

Form Upload Plugins

AJAX Upload

AJAX Upload allows you to easily upload multiple files without refreshing the page and can use any element to show the file selection window.
AJAX Upload »

jqUploader: jQuery Plugin for File Upload and Progressbar

jqUploader is a plugin that substitutes the html file input fields with a flash-based file upload widget, allowing you to display a progressbar and percentage.
jqUploader »

Uploadify

Uploadify is a plugin that allows the easy integration of a multiple (or single) file uploads on your website. It requires Flash and any backend development language. An array of options allow for full customization for advanced users, but basic implementation is so easy that even coding novices can do it.
Uploadify »

jQuery Uploadprogress Plugin

This plugin will augment a standard file upload form with a transparent background upload and add a progress meter that will keep you graphically informed.
jQuery Uploadprogress »

Form Skinning and Customisation

jQuery Checkbox

The jQuery Checkbox plugin is a lightweight custom styled checkbox implementation that can also work with radio buttons.
jQuery Checkbox »

Jqtransform – jQuery form plugin

This plugin is a jQuery styling plugin which allows you to skin form elements with relative ease.
Jqtransform »

In-Field Labels jQuery Plugin

This is a simple plugin that turns properly formatted HTML forms into forms with in-field label support. Labels fade when the field is focussed and disappear when text entry begins. Clearing a field and leaving brings back the label.
In-Field Labels jQuery Plugin »

Niceforms

Niceforms is a script that will replace the most commonly used form elements with custom designed ones. You can either use the default theme that is provided or you can even develop your own look with minimal effort.
Niceforms »

jNice

jNice makes it easy to style rough and simple html forms into beautiful web forms, checkboxes, input elements and selectboxes by creating custom looking form elements, that function just like normal form elements.
jNice »

Uniform – Sexy forms with jQuery

Uniform masks your standard form controls with custom themed controls. It works in sync with your real form elements to ensure accessibility and compatibility.
Uniform »

prettyCheckboxes

prettyCheckboxes is for developers who wants to maintain a consistent style for checkboxes across all browsers. By using this script you wont loose any regular input usability.
prettyCheckboxes »

Form Select and Combo Boxes

jquery.combobox

jquery.combobox is an unobtrusive way of creating a HTML type combobox from a existing HTML Select element(s).
jquery.combobox »

JavaScript Image Combobox

The fully skinnable Image Combobox plugin allows you to add an icon with each option that works with your existing “select” element.
JavaScript Image Combobox »

SelectBox Plug-in

SelectBox Plug-in »

Two Sided Multi Selector

This plugin converts a multi select list into a two-sided multi-select list. This means you display a list of options in the left hand box and items you select are moved into the right hand box.
Two Sided Multi Selector »

flexselect

flexselect takes the select box, and creates a hidden input element to track the associated value and creates a text input for the selection. It uses the LiquidMetal scoring algorithm to narrow the selection.
flexselect »