I’ve been trying to understand the relationship between Gravity Forms and GravityKit (formerly GravityView), and honestly it’s pretty confusing from the outside.
At first glance, the branding makes it seem like they’re the same company or at least officially connected, especially since GravityKit’s entire product suite is built specifically on top of Gravity Forms. But from what I can tell, they’re actually separate companies.
That raises a few questions for me:
• Why are they allowed to use such similar naming without trademark conflicts?
• Is there any formal partnership, or is it just a long-standing ecosystem relationship?
• It feels obvious how GravityKit benefits (they depend entirely on Gravity Forms), but what does Gravity Forms really gain in return?
• Is this considered a typical “platform + independent add-on developer” situation, or is there more history here?
From the outside, it almost looks like a one-sided dependency rather than a mutually beneficial relationship but maybe I’m missing something.
Would love if someone familiar with the history or business side could clarify.
Happy to clear this up! Zack here (founder of GravityKit). We’ve been Gravity Forms developers for over 11 years—I founded GravityView (now GravityKit) in 2014, and we’ve been building on top of Gravity Forms ever since.
We are completely independent. GravityKit is not owned by or officially partners with Rocketgenius (the company behind Gravity Forms). We’re separate business.
On the naming: the “Gravity” prefix became an informal ecosystem convention early on. Gravity Wiz, Gravity Flow, Gravity PDF, etc. None of that was coordinated with Gravity Forms, it happened organically as developers built on the platform and wanted to signal what they extended. There was no trademark arrangement behind it. To get into the weeds: we do have a registered trademark for GravityKit, but we disclaim the words “gravity” and “Gravity Forms”.
On mutual benefit: Having a thriving 3rd-party ecosystem is one of the best things about Gravity Forms—everything you need has been addressed by quality companies. Same with any plugin, really: if there’s not an ecosystem, that’s a warning sign!
Each of our products directly addresses real-world features that our customers rely on. Many Gravity Forms customers choose GF because of GravityKit and features that we and other Certified Developers offer. It’s the most powerful form platform in WordPress because of the supporting add-ons. Our tools fill gaps they’d otherwise have to solve elsewhere. I believe it’s a healthy ecosystem dynamic.
I hope that helps answer things. Happy to answer follow-up questions if you have them.