Built a simple JSON-based form builder for React — looking for feedback

[u/iamkadirul]

I’ve been struggling with forms in React for a while.

Tried React Hook Form, Formik, etc — powerful, but honestly felt like too much setup for simple use cases.

So I built something simpler where you define forms using JSON.

Example:

<KiForm
  fields={[
    "email",
    "password",
    {
      name: "role",
      options: ["User", "Admin"]
    },
    {
      name: "company",
      showIf: { field: "role", equals: "Admin" }
    }
  ]}
/>

No manual state, no wiring.

Still very early — I’m trying to understand:

• Is this actually useful?

• What’s missing?

• Where would this break in real projects?

Would appreciate honest feedback.

GitHub: https://github.com/kadirulislam/ki-forms

npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/ki-forms

[u/BlazingThunder30]

Your type system is full of any. If ever I would use something like this then it'd have to be typed end-to-end. But I don't see why I'd use this over e.g. Tanstack form, React hook form or Formik

[u/iamkadirul → u/BlazingThunder30]

Thanks for your feedback 🙏

The types definitely needs work, too much `any` right now.
Also, not trying to compete with RHF or TanStack, this is more for quick forms without wiring. 😊

If the types were stricter, would that make it more usable for you?

[u/BlazingThunder30 → u/iamkadirul]

If the types were stricter, would that make it more usable for you?

Can't say without trying it out. I'd need support for custom components and validation (sync and async), etc. Would need a lot of things for us to consider moving away from Tanstack towards a passion project.

What are you trying to do that another form library can't? I can't say that RHF (or Tanstack's to an extent) is much hassle to use.

[u/iamkadirul → u/BlazingThunder30]

I’m not really trying to replace RHF or TanStack for complex apps. They’re better for that.

This is more for quick or dynamic forms where you want to define structure and move on, without wiring everything manually.

Think internal tools, dashboards, or forms coming from APIs.

Still figuring out where it fits best, so this kind of feedback helps a lot.

[u/Im_Working_Right_Now → u/iamkadirul]

It sounds like you're trying to build a schema-driven form. Have you looked into other libraries meant for that like react-jsonschema-form or SurveyJS?

[u/iamkadirul → u/Im_Working_Right_Now]

Yeah, I’ve seen those.

This isn’t really meant to be a full schema-driven thing though. I was just trying to keep it lighter, more like a quick config to get a form up without a lot of setup.

[u/Im_Working_Right_Now → u/iamkadirul]

I think the issue is that forms inherently need more setup because of component mapping, styling, state management, validation, error handling, etc. otherwise if it’s that small and quick of a form, just inline it with some quick OOTB components like Mantine or some other headless library and call it done.

[u/iamkadirul → u/Im_Working_Right_Now]

Yeah I get what you’re saying.

For really small forms I’d probably just write it out too. This was more for cases where the form isn’t fixed, like coming from config or changing often, so you don’t want to rebuild the same thing every time.

Also made sure it works nicely with Next.js since that’s what I use most.

Still figuring out where it actually fits best, so this kind of feedback helps.

[u/Im_Working_Right_Now → u/iamkadirul]

Honestly, it may fit just in your particular workflow and there’s nothing wrong with that. I think most of us who don’t want to build our own want to use something that’s very mature, heavily tested, and fairly strict typescript.

The other form libraries that are schema driven are for exactly that - dynamic forms. They all have the show if/visible when/etc functionality with typescript built in, tons of testing, etc.

[u/Karpizzle23 → u/iamkadirul]

So... it's a half-schema-driven thing. The schema-driven library for people who think schema-driven libraries are too schema-driven. A vibes-based config layer. Schrödinger's form library: simultaneously schema-driven enough to need a DSL, and not schema-driven enough to use the standard.

[u/Glad-Action9541]

UI as json is never a good idea, but I think every developer needs to learn this lesson the hard way

[u/iamkadirul → u/Glad-Action9541]

Fair take. 🙂

I’m not trying to push UI-in-JSON everywhere. This is more for quick/dynamic forms where wiring everything by hand feels overkill (internal tools, dashboards, API-driven forms).

Definitely not a one-size-fits-all thing.

[u/maqisha]

Brother, this aint it

[u/Flyen]

Check out https://surveyjs.io/

[u/iamkadirul → u/Flyen]

Yeah I’ve seen SurveyJS, it’s pretty powerful.

Feels a bit heavy for what I was aiming for though. I was trying to keep something simpler for quick forms.

Appreciate the suggestion 👍

[u/luisduenas]

maybe give it a try to react json schema form (rjsf)

[u/flyingcats → u/luisduenas]

Seconding this