What it is

Palform is an open-source form builder built around end-to-end encryption, released under the AGPL-3.0 license. It is written primarily in Rust and JavaScript, and it lives in the Rust ecosystem: the backend uses the Rocket web framework with SeaORM, while encryption and shared logic are compiled to WebAssembly so that the same code runs in the browser and on the server. The entire codebase is open source, including the marketing pages, and this repository is stated to contain everything needed to operate the service. A free hosted instance runs at palform.app on European-hosted servers.

The concrete problem it solves is that collecting form responses usually means handing plaintext submissions to a third party. Palform uses the Sequoia PGP library for form encryption and key management on both the backend and the frontend, so responses are encrypted rather than readable by the operator. It also targets privacy directly by keeping third-party scripts to a minimum, which reduces the tracking surface that typically surrounds hosted form products. Teams that want a full-featured form builder without that exposure can run it themselves or use the hosted service.

Key capabilities

• End-to-end encrypted form submissions, with key management handled through the Sequoia PGP library on both the frontend and the backend.
• Encryption and bulk analytics implemented in Rust and compiled to WASM via wasm-pack, because native JS libraries were found to perform far worse for these workloads.
• Backend built on Rust with the Rocket framework and SeaORM, chosen to keep memory and CPU consumption low in practice.
• Custom TSID identifiers where each resource type has its own prefix, with each prefix mapped to a Rust type so the wrong resource ID cannot easily be passed in code.
• Svelte frontend with TypeScript OpenAPI bindings generated automatically by the make frontend_openapi command.
• Shared Rust components in analysis and client-common, used exclusively by the frontend or by both the frontend and the backend.
• Landing page built with Astro and Svelte, and blog and documentation pages built with Docusaurus.

Who uses it and how

• Organizations that need form submissions readable only by them, using PGP-based encryption instead of trusting a hosted provider with plaintext.
• Privacy-conscious teams deploying a form builder where minimal third-party scripts matter, since the project treats that as a design constraint rather than an afterthought.
• Self-hosters who want to operate the whole service from this repository, which is stated to include everything required.
• Developers extending the platform through pull requests, with the caveat that features far from the original idea may be rejected to avoid feature creep.
• Teams that prefer the hosted option at palform.app rather than running the stack themselves.

Getting started

The README describes the