These captcha plugins prevent spam on your WordPress website (GDPR compliant).

Do you know the pro­blem? No soo­ner is your own web­site online than the first spam mes­sa­ges start rol­ling in via the forms. It’s a tire­so­me topic and cau­ses unneces­sa­ry effort when dele­ting comm­ents and cont­act requests.

So-cal­­led captcha plug­ins pro­vi­de a reme­dy for this. Thanks to the inte­gra­ted mecha­nisms, spam is often effec­tively detec­ted and redu­ced to a mini­mum.

Our Captcha Plug­in is available for free in the Plug­in Store of Word­Press as well as an exten­ded ver­si­on via our store.

These plugins protect you from spam in WordPress #

Word­Press offers a wide ran­ge of captcha plug­ins, though many have sin­ce been dis­con­tin­ued or may not be used due to the GDPR.

Espe­ci­al­ly with the intro­duc­tion of the GDPR, not all plug­ins are legal any lon­ger. For exam­p­le, data may not be trans­fer­red to the USA wit­hout the visi­tors’ con­sent, which means that the use of Goog­le ReCaptcha is curr­ent­ly not recom­men­ded.

We can recom­mend the fol­lo­wing plug­ins from expe­ri­ence:

• Forge12 Captcha
• Real­ly Simp­le CAPTCHA
• WC Captcha
• Honey­pot for Cont­act Form 7

Forge12 Captcha

Forge12 Captcha plug­in pro­vi­des spam pro­tec­tion for both Cont­act Form 7, Ava­da Forms and Word­Press comm­ents.

Various set­tings are available for this pur­po­se. All are­as can be pro­tec­ted indi­vi­du­al­ly or glo­bal­ly. This allows maxi­mum fle­xi­bi­li­ty in the set­up.

The indi­vi­du­al pro­tec­tion mecha­nisms can also be acti­va­ted and deac­ti­va­ted manu­al­ly. Thus, the web­site ope­ra­tor can deci­de for hims­elf how much he wants to pro­tect.

The spam pro­tec­tion is data­­ba­­se-based, no coo­kies are used.

• Sup­ports Cont­act From 7, Ava­da Form and Word­Press Comm­ents
• Time-based pro­tec­tion to detect bots that auto­ma­ti­cal­ly fill out the form.
• Auto­ma­tic blo­cking of visi­tors who have been detec­ted as spam seve­ral times in a row.
• Glo­bal honey­pot pro­tec­tion for Cont­act Form 7, Ava­da and com­ment forms.
• Indi­vi­du­al calculation/ and image captchas for indi­vi­du­al forms.
• Data­ba­se dri­ven

Addi­tio­nal­ly in the Pre­mi­um ver­si­on:

• Fil­ter rules that auto­ma­ti­cal­ly scan forms for pre­de­fi­ned pat­terns to detect spam even more effec­tively.

Really Simple CAPTCHA für Entwickler

Real­ly Simp­le CAPTCHA was ori­gi­nal­ly deve­lo­ped for Cont­act Form 7. In the mean­ti­me, howe­ver, it is also available via the Word­Press plug­in store. It pro­vi­des a simp­le, but also effec­ti­ve pro­tec­tion against spam.

The plug­in is inten­ded for deve­lo­pers who want to inte­gra­te a captcha into the the­me or into their own plug­ins. The imple­men­ta­ti­on is based on two short­codes and the vali­da­ti­on via PHP.

• Theo­re­ti­cal­ly sup­ports any form when imple­men­ted.
• Cus­to­mi­zed image captcha.
• Inte­gra­ti­on via PHP & short­codes
• File based

Note: This captcha is alre­a­dy inte­gra­ted in Cont­act Form 7. So it can be acti­va­ted at any time via the form’s set­tings. An addi­tio­nal instal­la­ti­on is not neces­sa­ry.

WC Captcha

With the WC Captcha plug­in you can inte­gra­te a simp­le captcha on your Word­Press web­site. You can pro­tect the log­in and regis­tra­ti­on page as well as the “For­got pass­word?” and com­ment sec­tion. You can also use the plug­in for Cont­act Form 7 and bbpress forms.

The captcha is a cal­cu­la­ti­on captcha that dis­plays simp­le mathe­ma­ti­cal tasks as text. As an addi­tio­nal gim­mick, the repre­sen­ta­ti­on of the num­bers can be defi­ned as words, which will make it more dif­fi­cult for bots.

The con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on is done via an admin page in the Word­Press dash­board. The ope­rands of the mathe­ma­ti­cal tasks can be set con­ve­ni­ent­ly. Fur­ther­mo­re, the captcha pro­tec­tion can be dis­ab­led for log­ged in users.

• Sup­port for Word­Press log­in, regis­tra­ti­on, pass­word for­get­ting, comm­ents, cont­act form 7 and bbpress
• Dis­ab­ling captcha for log­ged in users
• Indi­vi­du­al set­tings for the cal­cu­la­ti­on tasks (ope­rands, num­bers as words…)
• Time-based captcha — how long the visi­tor has to sol­ve the math pro­blem
• Blo­cking direct access to wp-comments-post.php
• Coo­kie based

Note: The plug­in is coo­kie based, so the­re must be a noti­ce during coo­kie opt-in.

Honeypot for Contact Form 7

Honey­pot for Cont­act Form 7 is expli­cit­ly for Cont­act Form 7. It allows to easi­ly add a Honey­pot Captcha to Cont­act Form 7. As an addi­tio­nal mea­su­re, Time Base Pro­tec­tion can be enab­led, which auto­ma­ti­cal­ly tracks how fast the form was fil­led out.

The con­fi­gu­ra­ti­on and instal­la­ti­on of the plug­in is done in no time. In the set­tings of the form you can sim­ply add the honey­pot field. You can make indi­vi­du­al set­tings for each honey­pot field. This way you can also adjust the Time Base Pro­tec­tion (Time Check).

Addi­tio­nal func­tions for con­fu­sing bots, such as moving inline CSS, can also be imple­men­ted.

• Sup­ports Cont­act Form 7 only
• Data­ba­se dri­ven
• Time-based captcha — auto­ma­ti­cal­ly records the time taken to fill in the form and thus deter­mi­nes whe­ther it is a bot.
• Indi­vi­du­al set­tings for each form
• Addi­tio­nal set­tings to fur­ther con­fu­se bots.

WP Forms Puzzle Captcha

WP Forms Puz­zle Captcha pro­tects your Word­Press forms and Cont­act Form 7. WP Forms Puz­zle Captcha takes a dif­fe­rent approach. Ins­tead of a math pro­blem or a text, you have to sol­ve a puz­zle with a slider.

The set­tings can be acti­va­ted and deac­ti­va­ted indi­vi­du­al­ly for each Word­Press form. In addi­ti­on, the texts can be edi­ted indi­vi­du­al­ly.

The captcha can also be easi­ly inte­gra­ted into Cont­act From 7 via the Cont­act Form 7 inter­face. So if you want to use an alter­na­ti­ve to the com­mon captchas, you can do so wit­hout hesi­ta­ti­on.

• Sup­ports Word­Press log­in, regis­tra­ti­on, for­got­ten pass­word, comm­ents and Cont­act Form 7
• Indi­vi­du­al set­tings for each form
• Alter­na­ti­ve to stan­dard captchas making detec­tion more dif­fi­cult for bots
• Easy to install and con­fi­gu­re.

Which WordPress Captcha plugin is your favorite? #

If you were to ask me which Word­Press captcha plug­in is best, my ans­wer would be that it always depends on the situa­ti­on.

If your goal is to pro­tect yours­elf as effec­tively as pos­si­ble against spam, I would sug­gest our Forge12 Captcha plug­in, as it imple­ments seve­ral mecha­nisms that detect and pre­vent spam. Ide­al­ly in the pre­mi­um ver­si­on to also imple­ment the fil­ter sys­tem.

Alter­na­tively, the WP Forms Puz­zle Captcha is a wel­co­me chan­ge, as long as there’s not­hing wrong with dis­play­ing it.

On the other hand, I would curr­ent­ly do wit­hout WC Captcha due to the GDPR, as it would also have to be imple­men­ted in an opt-in due to the coo­kies.

Ulti­m­ate­ly, it is up to you to find out which plug­in makes the most sen­se for you. Howe­ver, you should always keep in mind that Goog­le ReCaptcha should not be used at the moment due to the GDPR.

Do you have any ques­ti­ons? Then just wri­te us in the comm­ents. We look for­ward to hea­ring from you.