Formstack Documents vs Docmosis
A Definitive Comparison in 2025

Creating Templates

Docmosis lets you quickly iterate on the development of a template, while Formstack Documents offers multiple builders that can be confusing to choose from, and takes a more complex, technical approach.

Formstack Documents has 40 pre-made templates to help you get started.

These include employee contracts, client contracts, event tickets, and invoices. However, most of these templates only include simple merge fields for basic text input like dates [1], names [2], emails, and descriptions. If you need advanced formatting with conditional logic, you’ll have to heavily customize the default templates or build your own from scratch.

Formstack Documents provides three different approaches to create templates from scratch:

• Text builder: A regular, text-based builder with text-based merge fields.
• Drag-and-drop builder: A text-based builder with drag-and-drop merge fields.
• Advanced mode: An HTML mode for more granular control if you’re comfortable reading/writing code.

While the builder lets you create all kinds of documents, finding features and designing high-quality templates comes with a learning curve because of all the options and builder variations, even with the mini tour and demo videos.

Alternatively, you can upload templates to Formstack Documents from any of the Microsoft Office Apps: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Or you can use a fillable PDF.

With so many options for creating templates, it’s difficult to know which one to use. The question of which one is best for any particular document can only really be answered through trial and error, which can be very time-consuming.

Additionally, Formstack Documents can generate a simple web form for testing the template with mock data (image below).

Similar to Formstack Documents, Docmosis has a document gallery with 43 document templates that include:

• invoices,
• proposals, 
• certificates,
• and business letters. 

Many of these are made by Docmosis and come with sample data for testing. Docmosis also provides the ability to generate sample data based on the fields in the template, either via the user interface or via the API. 

You can create templates from scratch using LibreOffice Writer or Microsoft Word by adding plain-text placeholders to create the merge fields. When uploaded to Docmosis, they can be easily tested with the sample data to see what the final document will look like once generated. Also, creating conditional statements for content and injecting data into table rows requires only few lines of plain-text syntax.

And, unlike Formstack Documents, the final document retains the formatting applied to merge fields in your template (which we cover in depth in the next section).

Quality of Export

Formstack Documents supports multiple output formats with lower template-to-document conversion accuracy, while Docmosis supports fewer output formats but offers a higher conversion accuracy.

Formstack Documents can output documents in DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, PDF, JPG, and HTML formats. In addition to that, it also exports to email.

When it comes to the quality of document exports, Formstack Documents is acceptable for simple documents with basic formatting and simple tables. However, when working with complex documents, the final output can look quite different from the original template. For example, images can get resized or moved, font types changed, and table column widths expanded.

This means that, after spending lots of time designing templates, they might end up looking different in the output, which defeats the purpose of a template-based process.

Meanwhile, Docmosis focuses on the following document-based outputs: PDF, DOCX, ODT, and TXT. Unlike Formstack Documents, the generated documents look like the initial template, for simple and multi-page documents alike.

This gives you the flexibility and control expected of a template-based approach, knowing that your hard work will be reflected in the final document.

Data Sources

For input data, Formstack Documents connects with forms and web apps, while Docmosis primarily supports JSON and XML data.

Docmosis accepts data in XML and JSON formats, making it compatible with most modern custom-built software applications. It also has an easy-to-use API that lets you connect with other apps and third-party software. However, it doesn’t offer as many built-in integrations as Formstack Documents.

**Update: Docmosis also provides a Zapier integration, enabling it to connect easily with thousands of apps (e.g., HubSpot, Tally, Pipedrive, Salesforce). This significantly expands its integration capabilities.

Formstack Documents’ documents can be populated with data from its native integration with Formstack Forms and other integrations like Salesforce. Formstack also integrates with Zapier, enabling document generation from apps like Google Forms, Eventbrite, and Constant Contact, and has a public API for even more data source integrations.

It also lets you set rules for when data should be populated in documents.

Resources & Support

Formstack Documents has scattered resources and inconsistent support, and Docmosis offers organized resources and excellent support.

Having a well-organized help section means seamless troubleshooting, done by end-users themselves. This helps take the load off higher-level decision makers and removes bottlenecks like IT, since the person encountering issues can also resolve them.

Formstack Documents’ resources are scattered throughout its website and buried under lots of pages, making it challenging to navigate and find precisely what you’re looking for. While their customer support is adequate, users have reported the quality has dropped since the Formstack acquisition.

Unlike Formstack Documents, Docmosis’ resource section is neatly structured and organized, with filters that make it easy to find resources according to products (Cloud, Tornado, and Java) and their different versions.

Plus, Docmosis has comprehensive, easy-to-follow, and frequently updated documentation for quickly resolving issues. Their customer support team is also prompt, providing detailed responses with specific examples and templates. It has been described as brilliant and excellent several times. Check out the user reviews on Capterra here.

Price & Free Trial

Docmosis has a longer and full-featured free trial and offers the best value paid plans. In comparison, the Formstack Documents trial includes watermarking, lasts only for 14 days, and the paid plans are expensive.

Docmosis offers a 30-day trial, while Formstack Documents has a 14-day trial.

Formstack Documents offers a 14-day free trial of their cloud solution. However, the trial documents have watermarks and “Test Document” headers, which make the test documents difficult to view and don’t provide an accurate representation of the product. 

Docmosis offers a free 30-day trial and gives full access to its features, without any form of branding or watermarking during the trial period.

Formstack Documents’ paid plans are based on the use case, while Docmosis’ are based on pages.

Formstack Documents, which is similar to Docmosis Cloud, is a part of Formstack’s suite, but you can still get it separately for $99/month. It gives you access to 1 builder user, 10 document templates, and 50 document merges per month.

For additional users and higher usage, you’ll need to pay extra. The main pricing page doesn’t reveal much detail, but when attempting to upgrade from a free trial, you may encounter additional “Documents” plans – Micro, Starter, Professional, Business, and Enterprise – ranging from $31.99 to $439.99. However, these appear outdated, lack clear information, and don’t seem to align with the primary pricing page.

Docmosis Cloud pricing is completely transparent. It unlocks all features on each plan; the only difference between them is in the number of users and work environments. Each plan’s price is based on the monthly page generation (with unlimited input templates):

This simply means if you generate two documents with Docmosis, one document with 4 pages and the other with 6 pages, a total of 10 pages will count towards your quota.

Tornado and Docmosis Java only require a one-time license payment, starting at $3,695. For support and updates, Docmosis offers an optional package, starting at $1,478 annually. And, even if you don’t take the optional renewal, the Docmosis software will continue to run indefinitely.