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0018: Use PostgreSQL for Website Form Submissions, Not Netlify Forms

  • Status: Accepted
  • Date: 2026-06-11
  • Owners: Osman Çelik, Özcan Övünç
  • Context: Website forms currently run on WordPress / Gravity Forms, which is being decommissioned (TDD 0006). The TDD's target is an in-house /api/forms route persisting submissions to PostgreSQL. During this work, Netlify Forms was evaluated as an alternative since the website is already hosted on Netlify: it would handle submission storage and spam filtering with minimal integration effort. However, it would couple a core data flow to the hosting provider.

Decision

Migrate form submissions from WordPress to our own PostgreSQL backend, as designed in TDD 0006. Do not adopt Netlify Forms; we avoid depending on Netlify for form data. Decided by Osman Çelik.

Options Considered

  • PostgreSQL (in-house, TDD 0006) - chosen: full ownership of submission data and flow; no third-party dependency; single form_submissions table already designed.
  • Netlify Forms: minimal integration effort and built-in spam filtering, but ties form handling and storage to the hosting provider; moving away later would require rework.

Consequences

  • Positive: form data and pipeline remain fully under our control; website hosting and form handling stay decoupled.
  • Negative: we operate the form backend ourselves (provisioning, spam protection, maintenance).
  • Follow-ups / migrations: WordPress-to-Postgres forms migration proceeds per TDD 0006.