Formstack was built in response to one of programmers' most mundane and often time consuming tasks - building web forms for clients. We are proud of the fact that Formstack gives everyone the ability to build a form and use it with little to no technical knowledge. But Formstack is also a powerful resource for professional developers. Formstack allows the most technical of users to create powerful applications using our form building service and flexible API.
API
Our API allows developers to add, edit and retrieve data stored within Formstack, and currently returns data in XML, JSON and serialized PHP. Using the API you can quickly integrate the data you collect with Formstack forms with external databases, great for larger organizations who need to maintain one central database. You can also use the API to pull data into third party applications or build creative mashups and widgets.
WebHooks
A Formstack WebHook will allow developers to more easily integrate web applications with Formstack forms and data in near "real time." When a form is submitted, the WebHook can send all form data to a script or application running on another web server using a POST request. What happens next is up to the developer. The possibilities are endless.
Read more about WebHooks here.
Infrastructure
Formstack is served on a cluster of servers located in San Antonio, Texas. The data center features:
- N+1 redundant HVAC systems
- 1.75MW of backup generator power
- Pre-action dry pipe fire suppression system
- 24x7x365 video surveillance and monitoring
- Multiple OC48s on diverse routes for backbone connectivity to PEER 1 Network
Our cluster includes fully redundant web and database servers that enable the service to continue running in the event of any hardware failure.
Formstack services are monitored by Pingdom, an independent service, which checks the status of services every minute from over a dozen servers spanning each continent. In the event of any service downtime SMS and email messages are immediately sent to our staff.
All Formstack data is backed up every few hours and automatically replicated to secure remote Amazon S3 storage. S3 is the highly scalable, fully redundant storage network that Amazon uses to run their sites.
