Well, I don’t think either one you suggested is the solution.
There are so many free and payed popup plugins which manage popup templates, are integrated with major email marketing solutions like Mailchimp, Aweber etc., WPML compatible, provide stats etc., so I don’t think using Gravity Form and Knews GF Glue or coding it by myself is real, equivalent option for anyone.
I personally use:
https://codecanyon.net/item/ninja-popups-for-wordpress/3476479
All of these major email marketing and newsletter solutions (at least which I tested) are either integrated directly or allow users to integrate their solutions to 3rd party plugins (like popup management plugins) via HTML codes.
The popup plugin I use only requires to enter:
– HTML Opt-in code ( 20-30 code lines )
– form URL
– additional HTML code ( eg. for hidden inputs like Newsletter list ID; 6 code lines )
In these days what I described is a must-have feature for a Newsletter plugin – I think!
Best,
V.