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Basin is a polished form backend: point any HTML form at a Basin endpoint and submissions land in a dashboard, get forwarded to your email, and pass through built-in spam filtering. If forms are all you need, it does that job well.
mailcontact starts from a different question: where should everything a project receives go? Each project gets one inbox fed by both a form endpoint and a real email address (yourproject@mailcontact.app), with pings in Discord, Slack, email, or a webhook when something arrives.
what is basin
Basin (usebasin.com) is a form backend in the classic mold: you point an HTML form at a Basin endpoint, and submissions appear in a dashboard with email notifications. It ships spam filtering (built-in plus reCAPTCHA support), integrations like Zapier and webhooks, and team features on paid plans. There's a free tier with a limited number of monthly submissions at the time of writing.
It's a solid pick if your needs are strictly form-shaped. The gap shows when a project also needs a public email address, or when you'd rather have one place per project than one dashboard of forms. Basin handles forms only.
side by side
Every Basin figure below was checked against their own pricing page on . Found something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.
| mailcontact | Basin | |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | One inbox per project, fed by forms and email addresses | Form endpoints with a dashboard and email forwarding |
| Inbound email address | Included: yourproject@mailcontact.app works from the first second | Not offered; forms only |
| Where messages live | A unified inbox per project, plus notifications | Basin's submissions dashboard, forwarded to your email |
| Notifications | Discord, Slack, email, and webhooks | Email; webhooks and Zapier for routing elsewhere |
| Setup | Paste a form or share the email address. No DNS, no server | Paste a form. Equally simple for the form case |
| Maturity | New: currently in beta, launching soon | Established form backend with years in production |
the honest take
faq
No. Both are plain HTML form endpoints, so migrating means changing one action URL in your form. Your markup, styling, and fields stay the same. One note: the configurable post-submit redirect is coming with the launch, so submit via fetch for now if you want visitors to stay on your page.
There's a free tier to get started (a form, an auto-generated email address, and up to 2 projects), with a Pro plan priced at launch for custom addresses and higher volume.
Yes. Each project has a unified inbox where form submissions and inbound email land together, and you can add notification channels so messages reach you where you work.
A real inbound email address per project, live immediately with no DNS setup, and a per-project inbox that collects forms and email in one place. Basin is forms only.
more comparisons
Forms and a real email address, together, with notifications where you live. Launching soon. Be the first to know.