Formstack turns forms into workflows with documents and e-signatures attached. pylo turns forms into records in your own data model and starts the process behind them: permissions, flows, admin UI and analytics in one system, with unlimited users, hosted in Germany.

TL;DR

Formstack is a form platform built for processes: conditional logic, payments, multi-step approvals, document generation and e-signatures, with a strong Salesforce integration and HIPAA options for healthcare. It does more after submit than most form builders. What it doesn't give you is your own data model: submissions live in Formstack and are routed to Salesforce, a spreadsheet or another tool, and every builder is a paid seat. pylo is a backend platform with a form builder inside: every form writes directly into your own entities and relations, a submission starts a flow, and your whole team works with the result under one permission model. If you need documents, signatures and Salesforce-native forms in one suite, choose Formstack. If your forms feed a business process on your own data, pylo replaces the form suite and the tools behind it.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany that you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API instantly. The form builder is part of that system: every form writes directly into your own data model. The same permission model governs the API, the admin UI, forms, flows, dashboards and the MCP server, and pylo flows run the process that starts when someone submits a form.

What is Formstack?

Formstack is a no-code form and workflow platform, founded in Indianapolis in 2006 and used by more than 25,000 organisations. Formstack Forms offers a drag-and-drop builder with conditional logic, calculations, payment fields, save and resume, prefill and data routing, plus multi-person workflows, approvals and portals. Around the forms sit Formstack Documents for document generation and Formstack Sign for e-signatures without per-envelope fees. Salesforce-native versions of forms and documents write directly into Salesforce objects, and HIPAA compliance is available as an add-on or on higher plans.

At a glance

A workflow suite versus forms on your data model

Formstack is built for the moment after submit. A patient intake can route to the right department, collect a second signature, generate a PDF and land in Salesforce, all configured in Formstack. That works well when the system of record is Salesforce or the process ends with a document. When the data belongs in your own model, for example a customer with orders, projects and contracts, each submission is still a separate response that has to be routed and kept in sync somewhere else.

pylo starts with your data. You model customers, applications, tickets or bookings as entities with relations, and every form field maps to one of their fields. Several forms can feed the same customer record, and each submission is linked to what it belongs to. pylo's builder has fewer field types than Formstack, and no payments or e-signatures, but nothing has to be routed or synced afterwards, because the form already writes into the system your team works in.

How pylo forms work

pylo forms are built on your data model. You add fields such as text, long text, email, phone, number, URL, checkboxes, single or multiple choice and file uploads, structure the form with headings, paragraphs and page breaks, and map every field to a field on one of your entities, including relations. Fields can be hidden, carry default values, placeholders and tooltips, show or hide depending on earlier answers and check input against validation rules. A form can be public or require a login, and you can limit submissions per form and per user. You embed a form on any website as an iFrame, or build your own frontend on the API.

One form can run as several instances, each with its own availability window, its own submission limits and, for authenticated forms, its own list of users who may fill it in. The same onboarding form can run for every client or every location without copying it. You can also mark a field as the matching key, for example an email address or a customer number, so a submission updates the existing record instead of creating a duplicate.

Approvals and processes with pylo flows

Formstack's multi-person workflows and approvals are a real strength: several people can fill in, review and sign off one submission, and portals bundle forms with due dates and reminders. The logic stays inside the form, though. Once a process involves your own records, for example checking stock, creating a project or updating a contract, it usually runs through an integration, Zapier or custom code.

In pylo a submission is a record in your entities. Every submission emits an event, and that event can start a pylo flow: send a confirmation email, create follow-up records, assign the request to the right team member, call an external system or wait for an approval. Approval steps work on the record itself, so the admin UI shows its state and who has to act next. Flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs, and you can write your own flow actions in TypeScript. Document templates in pylo turn records into PDFs such as offers or confirmations.

Permissions and who sees the submissions

Formstack's Forms plan is for one user and Suite for three. Teams that want more builders, unlimited users or SSO move to Enterprise. Inside the account, access is managed per form and folder, and the data that was routed to other tools follows the permission model of those tools.

pylo separates tenants at the row level. Inside a tenant, any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. The same rules apply to the form, to the records it creates, to the admin UI where your team processes them, to dashboards and to MCP. A case worker sees the applications of their region, a partner sees only the requests they submitted, and nobody needs a seat in a form tool to look at the answers.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

Formstack shows submission counts and form analytics such as views, starts and drop-off per form. Reporting on what happened after submit, for example how many applications were approved or how long a request stayed open, needs the data in the system it was routed to.

Every create, update and delete in pylo emits an event with the full before and after state, including every form submission and every change your team makes to it afterwards. You build dashboards on events and records together, for example submissions per form instance, approval times or conversion from request to contract, with the same permissions as the rest of pylo.

AI and MCP with guardrails

Formstack uses AI to generate forms and documents from a prompt. pylo's MCP server is ready to connect, for developers who use agentic coding and for team members who want to analyze their submissions and records. The AI gets exactly the connected user's read permissions, nothing else. pylo never applies an AI's writes directly: they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines inside pylo, whatever AI client someone uses.

Pricing

Formstack prices by product bundle, users, forms, submissions and document deliveries. The entry plan covers forms only; documents and e-signatures start with Suite, and HIPAA is an add-on below Enterprise.

pylo does not bill per form, per submission or per seat and therefore is cheaper for most use cases. Submissions are records in your entities, so they count towards the included records of your plan. The price already includes hosting, flows, the admin UI, forms, document templates, analytics and personal onboarding, and every plan has every feature and unlimited users. Plans differ only in included usage for records, flow actions and file storage.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany. Our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms, and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location, and support from the team that builds the product.

Formstack is a US company. It offers a data processing agreement, encryption and an Enhanced Data Security add-on, and HIPAA compliance as an add-on or on Enterprise. If you need your submissions stored in the EU, check the current hosting options with Formstack before you decide.

Where Formstack is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• You need document generation, e-signatures and payments in the same tool as your forms. pylo has document templates, but no e-signatures or payments out of the box.

• Salesforce is your system of record and you want forms and documents that work natively inside it.

• You need HIPAA-compliant forms for healthcare and want them from a vendor with a long track record there.

• You want multi-person form workflows and portals with due dates and reminders without building anything.

If your process ends in Salesforce or with a signed document, Formstack is a strong choice. pylo is for teams whose forms feed records and processes on their own data model.

Where pylo is a great Formstack alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over Formstack:

• Forms that write into your data model. Every field maps to a field on your entities, including relations, so a submission is a record, not a response you route somewhere else.

• No duplicates. A matching key such as the email address lets a submission update the existing record instead of creating a second one.

• The process starts on submit. Every submission is an event that can start a pylo flow, with retries, rate limiting, typed actions and full logs, without an integration tool in between.

• Your team processes the result in the same system. Admin views, state-dependent fields and permissions come with the backend, so there is no second tool to look at the answers.

• Permissions on every submission. Hierarchies and field-level rules apply to forms, records, admin UI, dashboards and MCP, with authenticated forms and per-user limits on every plan.

• One form, many instances. Run the same form for every client, location or campaign with its own time window, limits and users.

• No per-seat, per-form or per-submission pricing. Unlimited users and API requests and all features on every plan. Only three meters are billed: flow actions, records, and file storage/traffic.

• German hosting from a German company. Data stays in Germany on every plan, including the free one, and the DPA is part of the terms. You get a 99.5% SLA from the first paid plan, hourly backups with 30-day retention, and personal support from the people who build the product.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Does pylo have e-signatures and payments like Formstack? No, pylo has no e-signature or payment fields out of the box. You can connect a signature or payment provider through a flow with a custom TypeScript action, or keep those steps in a specialised tool.

• Can pylo generate documents from submissions? Yes, document templates turn records into PDFs, for example offers, confirmations or reports, and a flow can create them automatically after submit.

• Can several forms write into the same record? Yes, every form maps to your entities, so different forms can create or update the same customer, application or order.

• Can I keep using Formstack and send the answers to pylo? Yes, a Formstack webhook can send every submission to pylo, where a flow creates or updates the right records. Many teams start that way and move forms over one by one.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in data centres in Germany and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta. Request access and we will set up your first entities and forms with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.