NITRO Studio vs Plumsail: Which Is the Better InfoPath Replacement?

Microsoft InfoPath is done. If your business forms still run on it, that deadline is already here.

Microsoft confirms that InfoPath Forms Services retires on July 14, 2026 across SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, and Subscription Edition. The InfoPath 2013 client reaches the end of extended support on the same date. And because Microsoft has already blocked the publishing of new or updated forms in SharePoint Online, you cannot make changes to what you have today. There is no extension, and Microsoft does not ship an automated migration tool, so every form is a rebuild somewhere.

So you are picking a new home for your forms. Two options come up frequently as InfoPath replacement options for SharePoint teams: Plumsail Forms and NITRO Studio from Crow Canyon. This guide compares the two products directly: NITRO Studio vs Plumsail Forms. Both can take over your forms.   But they are not the same kind of product, and the difference shows up exactly where InfoPath did its real work: forms tied to workflows, running in regulated and on-premises environments.

This comparison walks through what each one is, where each one fits, and where each one stops, so you do not rebuild twice.

First, what is actually retiring

It helps to be precise about the deadline, because it shapes the rebuild.

•  July 14, 2026: InfoPath Forms Services is completely removed from SharePoint Online, meaning browser forms will stop functioning entirely. On SharePoint Server 2016, 2019, and Subscription Edition, this date marks the absolute end of extended Microsoft support, permanently cutting off security patches and leaving on-premises infrastructures functionally frozen and vulnerable.
•  May 18, 2026 (already in effect): Publishing new or updated InfoPath forms in SharePoint Online is blocked for all tenants.
•  No safety net: There is no option to extend the service and no Microsoft tool that auto-migrates InfoPath forms.

One more thing that matters for the decision. InfoPath was rarely just forms. Most setups paired InfoPath forms with SharePoint Designer workflows for approvals and routing, and those workflows retire on the same date. So whatever you choose has to cover the workflow side too, not only the form.

The real difference: a forms product vs an application platform

Plumsail Forms for SharePoint is a forms product. It customizes and extends SharePoint list and library forms, adds controls InfoPath users miss, such as data tables, signature fields, and cross-site lookups, and renders everything in modern UI. For automation, Plumsail hands off to Power Automate, Azure Logic Apps, or Plumsail Documents. In other words, Plumsail gives you the form. The workflow lives somewhere else.

NITRO Studio is a no-code/low-code Application Builder Platform from Crow Canyon. NITRO Forms covers the forms layer, NITRO Workflows covers the automation layer, and the platform adds portals, dashboards, list views, and reporting, all fully integrated within Microsoft 365 and SharePoint under a single, comprehensive license. Purpose-built business applications, including IT Help Desk, HR Help Desk, Purchasing, Asset Management, and more, are available from Crow Canyon as separately licensed add-ons built on NITRO Studio.

That is the line that matters for InfoPath users. With Plumsail, you replace the InfoPath form, then rebuild the workflow in Power Automate. With NITRO Studio, the form and the workflow live in the same platform. For a legacy tool whose primary architecture was forms paired with automated approvals, this fundamental difference is the heart of the comparison 

Side-by-side comparison

This Plumsail Forms comparison puts the two options side by side. To find the best InfoPath replacement for your environment, weigh scope, deployment, pricing, and migration effort together, not any single row.

Deployment and compliance: the decision maker for regulated buyers 

Plumsail

Plumsail Forms for SharePoint runs on SharePoint Online, including GCC and GCC High tenants via a manual App Catalog deployment, as well as on SharePoint Server 2019 and Subscription Edition on-premises. However, two critical boundaries limit its viability for highly regulated or legacy environments: 

• No SharePoint 2016 on-premises and no air-gapped or disconnected option. If you are still on SharePoint 2016, a common reality in long-running on-prem environments, Plumsail’s on-prem forms are not an option.
• Automation gaps in government cloud. Per Microsoft’s connector documentation, the Plumsail Forms, Plumsail Documents, and Plumsail Actions connectors are completely unavailable within US Government (GCC High) environments. Consequently, while the visual form interface can render inside GCC High, the backend automation required to process that data fails to execute.

NITRO Studio

NITRO Studio runs across six deployment models, grouped into two infrastructure environments, which is why it serves organizations with strict data-residency and compliance requirements: 

• SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365 (four models). Your process data stays in your own Microsoft 365 tenant, while the NITRO Studio engine is hosted in one of four ways:
  • Shared (Crow Canyon Azure). The engine runs in Crow Canyon’s Azure tenancy. This is the simplest and most cost-effective option. 
  • Commercial or Public Azure (Dedicated). The engine runs in your own commercial Azure tenancy.
  • Microsoft Azure GCC (Dedicated). The engine runs in your Microsoft GCC environment for higher compliance needs.
  • Microsoft Azure GCC High (Dedicated). The engine runs in your Microsoft GCC High environment for the most restricted government and defense workloads.

• SharePoint On-Premises (two models). NITRO Studio is installed inside your own SharePoint Server environment (2016, 2019, or Subscription Edition):
  • Normal Mode. The on-premises installation connects out to Crow Canyon’s Azure for the parts of the engine that run there.
  • NITRO Secure (air-gapped). A fully disconnected, high-security mode for defense, intelligence, space, and nuclear operations, where the installation does not communicate with any external service.

Crucially, your data remains entirely within your own Microsoft 365 tenant or local SharePoint farm. Crow Canyon never routes or hosts your workflow data on an external vendor cloud. Note for architectural transparency: advanced generative AI capabilities, such as NITRO Copilot, require cloud connectivity and are not available within strictly disconnected on-premises or air-gapped environments.

Pricing: where the model matters more than the sticker

Plumsail prices the forms layer alone. On SharePoint Online, Forms is an annual subscription per Microsoft 365 tenant with unlimited users, listed at about $599 per year. On-premises, Forms for SharePoint 2019 and Subscription Edition is a perpetual license per Web Front End server, listed at $799 per server, plus $599 annual maintenance and a $199 development license. For the forms layer alone, that is inexpensive.

The catch is scope. Plumsail Forms is a form. The moment you add back the workflow layer InfoPath used to drive, you are adding Power Automate, with its own per-user and per-flow licensing, on top of Plumsail. On an annual basis, that is the number that matters. For 100 users, a realistic full replacement is the forms layer at about $599 per year plus Power Automate Premium for the workflows, at $15 per user per month, which is about $18,000 per year. That comes to roughly $18,599 per year, before counting the cost of managing two products. NITRO Studio covers forms and workflows together for $5,988 per 100 users per year, which is roughly a third of that combined annual total. This means managing two products, two budgets, and two distinct skill sets.

NITRO Studio offers a flat annual subscription, starting at  $5,988 per 100 users per year, offering unlimited forms and unlimited workflows. Both layers are included. Adding forty more workflows next quarter does not change the number, which is the kind of predictability finance teams plan around.

The honest read: if all you need is to re-skin a few SharePoint forms, Plumsail is a low-cost choice. If you are replacing InfoPath forms and the workflows behind them, NITRO Studio folds both into one predictable line item.

Migrating off InfoPath in practice

Neither platform offers a one-click InfoPath import because Microsoft does not provide one. Every InfoPath form is a rebuild on any platform you pick. The question is how close the new authoring model is to what your team already knows, and who does the rebuild.

NITRO Forms is configured in a designer that maps closely to InfoPath patterns, built specifically with InfoPath users in mind to make the transition as seamless as possible from a UI/UX perspective, and Crow Canyon assigns a dedicated migration team to handle the heavy lifting. NITRO Studio replaces every InfoPath form and workflow inside your Microsoft 365 or SharePoint environment, with no code required and flat pricing. For more details, see Crow Canyon’s InfoPath Replacement page.

With Plumsail, the rebuild splits in two: forms get rebuilt in Plumsail, and the workflows get rebuilt in Power Automate. That is workable, but it is two efforts on two tools rather than one.

Who should choose Plumsail?

Plumsail is a reasonable pick when the scope is genuinely forms-first.

• You need to modernize SharePoint forms, not the workflows behind them.
• Your environment is SharePoint Online or SharePoint 2019/SE, with no SharePoint 2016, GCC, GCC High, or air-gapped requirements.
• You already run Power Automate, have the budget for it as your ongoing automation layer, and are comfortable owning that separately.

Who should choose NITRO Studio?

Teams searching for a Plumsail alternative for SharePoint typically need a broader solution. NITRO Studio is the closer fit when you are replacing InfoPath in its entirety: forms and workflows together.

• You are replacing InfoPath forms and the approvals and routing they triggered, and you want both in one platform.
• Your environment is SharePoint Online, a regulated or government setting requiring GCC, GCC High, or air-gapped deployment, or you are still on SharePoint on-premises 2016.
• You want predictable flat-rate pricing with unlimited forms and workflows.
• You want one vendor accountable for both the platform and the migration.

This is where Crow Canyon’s base sits: Government, Healthcare, Banking, Defense, and other regulated SharePoint environments.

Proof: organizations that already replaced InfoPath with NITRO Studio

Air Wisconsin managed its business processes on Microsoft InfoPath and SharePoint workflows, with more than 400 InfoPath forms in production. The regional airline replaced all of it with NITRO Studio, managing over 400 forms and workflows together on a single platform. This is the exact gap a forms-only tool leaves open. Read the Air Wisconsin InfoPath replacement case study.

Honu Services, a Hawaii-based firm that provides back-office support and business services to more than a dozen small businesses and government agencies, moved off InfoPath to NITRO Studio to modernize its forms and processes. Read the Honu Services case study.

Spokane Regional Health District, a government health agency responsible for public health across Spokane City and County (around 400,000 residents), runs Microsoft 365 in the GCC environment and accelerated its digital transformation initiatives when the COVID-19 pandemic required a rapid shift away from manual processes.  It is a direct example of NITRO Studio running inside a government cloud. Read the Spokane Regional Health District case study.

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