Akismet Anti-spam vs hCaptcha for WP

The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form. The most trusted antispam solution for WordPress and WooCommerce. Akismet checks your comments and contact form submissions against our global database of spam to prevent your site from publishing malicious content. You can review the comment spam it catches on your blog’s “Comments” admin screen. Major features in Akismet include: Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam. Each comment has a status history, so you can easily see which comments were caught or cleared by Akismet and which were spammed or unspammed by a moderator. URLs are shown in the comment body to reveal hidden or misleading links. Moderators can see the number of approved comments for each user. A discard feature that outright blocks the worst spam, saving you disk space and speeding up your site. PS: You’ll be prompted to get an Akismet.com API key to use it, once activated. Keys are free for personal blogs; paid subscriptions are available for businesses and commercial sites.

The strongest CAPTCHA. Switch from reCAPTCHA and Turnstile for free. A built-in Migration Wizard helps you move from Google reCAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile to hCaptcha in just a few clicks. hCaptcha is a drop-in replacement for reCAPTCHA that puts user privacy first. Need to keep out bots? hCaptcha protects privacy while offering better protection against spam and abuse. Help build a better web. hCaptcha for WP makes security easy with broad integration support, detailed analytics, and strong protection. Start protecting logins, forms, and more in minutes. Benefits Privacy First: hCaptcha is designed to protect user privacy. It doesn’t retain or sell personal data, unlike platforms that gather, own, and monetize global behavior. Better Security: hCaptcha offers better protection against bots and abuse than other anti-abuse systems. Easy to Use: hCaptcha is easy to install and use with WordPress and popular plugins. Broad Integration: hCaptcha works with WordPress Core, WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Elementor, and over 60 other plugins and themes. Features Highlights Migration Wizard: Migrate from Google reCAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile to hCaptcha in just a few clicks. Built-in Anti-Spam: Honeypot fields and minimum submit time catch bots before the hCaptcha challenge, reducing friction for real users. Detailed Analytics: Get detailed analytics on hCaptcha events and form submissions. AI-Ready Security: Selected security actions are exposed via the WordPress Abilities API for automation and AI-driven workflows. Pro and Enterprise: Supports Pro and Enterprise versions of hCaptcha. No Challenge Modes: 99.9% passive and passive modes in Pro and Enterprise versions reduce user friction. Protect Site Content: Protects selected site URLs from bots with hCaptcha. Works best with Pro 99.9% passive mode. Logged-in Users: Optionally turn off hCaptcha for logged-in users. Delayed API Loading: Load the hCaptcha API instantly or on user interaction for zero page loading impact. IP Access Control: Allowlist trusted IPs to skip hCaptcha and denylist abusive IPs to block form submissions. Country Access Control: Allowlist or denylist countries to control where hCaptcha protections apply. Multisite Support: Sync hCaptcha settings across a Multisite Network. Anti-Spam Honeypot Protection: A hidden field catches bots before they reach the hCaptcha challenge, reducing friction for real users. Minimum Submit Time: Blocks instant form submissions from automated scripts. IP Denylist: Block abusive IPs from submitting any protected form. Country Blocking: Restrict form submissions by country to stop region-specific spam campaigns. Customization Language Support: Supports multiple languages. Custom Themes: Customize the appearance of hCaptcha to match your site. Custom Themes Editor: Edit custom themes directly in the plugin. Login Compatibility: Compatible with all major hide login, custom login, and 2FA login plugins. Login Attempts: Protect your site from brute force attacks. Ease of Use Test Modes: Use hCaptcha in live and Pro/Enterprise test modes. Activation and Deactivation: Activate and deactivate plugins and themes with hCaptcha in one click. Forced Verification: Optionally force hCaptcha verification before form submission. Check Config: Check hCaptcha configuration before saving keys and settings. Auto-Verification: Automatically verify custom forms. Standard Sizes and Themes: Choose the size and theme of the hCaptcha widget. How hCaptcha Works The purpose of a CAPTCHA is to distinguish between people and machines via a challenge-response test and thus increase the cost of spamming or otherwise abusing websites by keeping out bots. To use this plugin, install it and enter your sitekey and secret in the Settings → hCaptcha menu after signing up on hCaptcha.com. hCaptcha Free lets websites block bots and other forms of abuse via humanity challenges. hCaptcha Pro goes beyond the free hCaptcha service with advanced machine learning to reduce the challenge rate, delivering high security and low friction along with more features like UI customization. hCaptcha Enterprise delivers a complete advanced security platform, including site-specific risk scores, fraud protection, and more to address both human and automated abuse. Privacy Notices hCaptcha is designed to comply with privacy laws in every country, including GDPR, LGPD, CCPA, and more. For example, hCaptcha has been certified under ISO 27001 and 27701 and is enrolled in the EU-US, UK-US, and Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework for GDPR compliance. Details are available at www.hcaptcha.com/certifications and www.hcaptcha.com/gdpr. With the default configuration, this plugin does not: track users by stealth; write any user’s personal data to the database; send any data to external servers; use cookies. Once you activate this plugin, the hCaptcha-answering user’s IP address and browser data may be sent to the hCaptcha service on pages where you have activated hCaptcha protection. However, hCaptcha is designed to minimize data used, process it very close to the user, and rapidly discard it after analysis. For more details, please see the hCaptcha privacy policy at: hCaptcha.com If you enable the optional plugin-local statistics feature, the following additional data will be recorded in your database: counts of challenge verifications per form only if you enable this optional feature: the IP address challenged on each form only if you enable this optional feature: the User Agent challenged on each form We recommend leaving IP and User Agent recording off, which will make these statistics fully anonymous. You can collect data anonymously but still distinguish sources. The hashed IP address and User Agent will be saved. If this feature is enabled, anonymized statistics on your plugin configuration, not including any end user data, will also be sent to us. This lets us see which modules and features are being used and prioritize development for them accordingly. Plugins, Themes, and Forms Supported WordPress Login, Register, Lost Password, Comment, and Post/Page Password Forms ACF Extended Form Affiliates Login and Register Forms Asgaros Forum New Topic and Reply Form Avada standard and multistep Forms Back In Stock Notifier Form bbPress New Topic, Reply, Login, Register, and Lost Password Forms Beaver Builder Contact and Login Forms Blocksy Companion Newsletter Subscribe, Waitlist, and Product Review Forms BuddyPress — Create Group and Registration Forms Classified Listing Contact, Login, Lost Password, and Listing Register Forms CoBlocks Form Colorlib Customizer Login, Lost Password, and Customizer Register Forms Contact Form 7 Cookies and Content Security Policy Customer Reviews for WooCommerce Review and Q&A Forms Divi Comment, Contact, Email Optin, and Login Forms Divi Builder Comment, Contact, Email Optin, and Login Forms Download Manager Form Droit Dark Mode Easy Digital Downloads Checkout, Login, Lost Password, and Register Forms Elementor Pro Form and Login Form Essential Addons for Elementor Login and Register Forms Essential Blocks Form Events Manager Booking Form Extra Comment, Contact, Email Optin, and Login Forms Fluent Forms, including Conversational, Multi-Step, and Login Forms Forminator Forms Formidable Forms GiveWP Form Gravity Forms Gravity Perks Nested Forms Icegram Express Form Jetpack Forms Kadence Form and Advanced Form LearnDash Login, Lost Password, and Register Forms Login/Signup Popup Login and Register Forms Mailchimp for WP Form MailPoet Form Maintenance Login Form MemberPress Login and Register Forms MetForm Ninja Forms Otter Blocks Forms Paid Memberships Pro Checkout and Login Forms Passster Protection Form Password Protected Form Profile Builder Login, Recover Password, and Register Forms Really Simple CAPTCHA Quform Forms Sendinblue Form Simple Download Monitor Form Simple Membership Login, Lost Password, and Register Forms Simple Basic Contact Form Spectra — WordPress Gutenberg Blocks Form Subscriber Form Support Candy New Ticket Form Theme My Login — Login, Lost Password, and Register Form Tutor LMS — Checkout, Login, Lost Password, and Register Form Ultimate Addons for Elementor Login and Register Forms Ultimate Member Login, Lost Password, and Member Register Forms UsersWP Forgot Password, Login, and Register Forms WooCommerce Login, Registration, Lost Password, Checkout, and Order Tracking Forms WooCommerce Germanized Return Request Form WooCommerce Wishlist Form Wordfence Security Login Form Wordfence Login Security Login Form WP Dark Mode WP Job Openings Form WPForms Form wpDiscuz Comment and Support Forms wpForo New Topic and Reply Forms Please note NOTE: This is a community-developed plugin. Your PRs are welcome. For feature requests and issue reports, please open a pull request. We also suggest emailing the authors of plugins you’d like to support hCaptcha: it will usually take them only an hour or two to add native support. This will simplify your use of hCaptcha and is the best solution in the long run. You may use native hCaptcha support if available for your plugin. Please check with your plugin author if native support is not yet available. However, the hCaptcha plugin provides a broader set of options and features so that you can use it with any form on your site. Instructions for popular native integrations are below: WPForms native integration: instructions to enable hCaptcha