LukasApps CAPTCHA tools for Contact Form 7 vs OpenPorte Spam Protection

Protect your Contact Form 7 forms with Google reCAPTCHA V2, Google reCAPTCHA V3, hCAPTCHA, or Cloudflare Turnstile. Easy integration and supports multiple forms on a single page. Four CAPTCHA Options Choose the CAPTCHA provider that works best for you: Google reCAPTCHA V2 — Google’s classic “I’m not a robot” checkbox. Google reCAPTCHA V3 — Google’s invisible, score-based bot verification. hCAPTCHA — A privacy-first alternative that offers robust bot protection while keeping user data secure. Cloudflare Turnstile — A modern CAPTCHA that verifies users in the background, only requiring a simple click if the visitor appears suspicious. Simple Setup Sign up with your chosen CAPTCHA provider and grab your Site Key and Secret Key. Paste them into CF7 Captcha in your WordPress admin. Add protection to any CF7 form in seconds using the shortcode provided in the same settings page. Customizable Appearance Each CAPTCHA widget supports customization options directly from the shortcode: Size — Choose between normal and compact to fit your form layout. Theme — Switch between light and dark themes (or auto for Turnstile) to match your site’s design. Language — Force any CAPTCHA to render in a specific language for your audience. All options are combinable, so you can mix and match to get the exact look you need. Submission Insights (NEW in v0.1.7) Go beyond just blocking spam. Submission Insights gives you full visibility into every form submission: Sender IP — See the IP address of the person who contacted you. Source Page — Know exactly which page on your site the form was filled out on. Device & Browser — Get technical details about the sender’s setup. Want More? Upgrade to CF7 Captcha Pro This free version gives you solid CAPTCHA protection. CF7 Captcha Pro adds six extra layers of spam defense on top of what you already have here, plus a full set of tools to capture and act on every lead your forms collect. What you get with Pro 6-Layer Spam Defense — additional spam-blocking methods that work quietly in the background: – Advanced Honeypot — invisible trap fields with names that regenerate every 24 hours. – Time Limit Validation — bots submit in 0.2 seconds. Humans take 15–30. This blocks anything that moves too fast (or stays too long). – Rate Limiting — caps submissions per IP so bot networks can’t flood your inbox or burn through your email quota. – Geographic Blocking — whitelist only the countries you serve, or blacklist known spam regions. – IP Pattern Blocking — block single IPs, wildcards, CIDR ranges, or entire subnets when you know exactly where an attack is coming from. – Word Filter — scans every submission for spam keywords, phishing URLs, and known scam phrases before it reaches you. Lead Recovery — captures form data in real-time as visitors type, so you don’t lose leads from abandoned forms. Database Storage & Export — every submission is saved with full metadata (IP, browser, referrer, timestamp). Export to CSV, Excel, JSON, or PDF whenever you need it. No more lost leads if your email fails. Webhooks — send form data instantly to any URL. Connect to Zapier, Salesforce, Slack, Google Sheets, or any custom API. Multiple webhooks per form, with retry logic built in. Mailchimp Integration — submissions automatically added to your Mailchimp lists. Field mapping, tags, opt-in handling. Twilio SMS — receive instant alerts for every submission or send automated SMS replies to your clients. Comprehensive Logging — every spam block, webhook call, and integration event is logged. Debug any issue in minutes instead of hours. 👉 Get CF7 Captcha Pro External services This plugin relies on third-party CAPTCHA providers to detect and block spam submissions on your Contact Form 7 forms. Only the service(s) you configure and activate in the plugin settings are contacted. Google reCAPTCHA (v2 and v3) This plugin loads the Google reCAPTCHA script and sends the CAPTCHA response token to Google’s verification API when a protected form is submitted, in order to confirm the submission is not from a bot. The visitor’s IP address is also sent as part of this verification. This service is provided by Google: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy. hCaptcha This plugin loads the hCaptcha script and sends the CAPTCHA response token to hCaptcha’s verification API when a protected form is submitted, in order to confirm the submission is not from a bot. This service is provided by hCaptcha: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy. Cloudflare Turnstile This plugin loads the Cloudflare Turnstile script and sends the CAPTCHA response token to Cloudflare’s verification API when a protected form is submitted, in order to confirm the submission is not from a bot. This service is provided by Cloudflare: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy. These services are only contacted when the corresponding CAPTCHA type is enabled and configured with valid API keys.

OpenPorte is a free and open-source plugin that protects WordPress forms from spam using a lightweight Proof-of-Work challenge instead of CAPTCHAs. The goal is to make spam expensive for bots while keeping the experience almost invisible for legitimate visitors and respecting their privacy. For site owners, OpenPorte offers an easy to configure and deploy modern spam protection under their control. For the site users, it offers an accessible, transparent and privacy-friendly alternative to CAPTCHAs. OpenPorte is built around the open-source ALTCHA widget. Some highlights: CAPTCHA-free spam protection Fully open source (GPL) Self-hosted – no mandatory external service Designed to be accessible and privacy-friendly Compatible with existing ALTCHA integrations Easy migration for users of ALTCHA Spam Protection v1 (≤ 1.26.3) For the list of contributors, refer to our GitHub project: Contributors. AI-assisted development AI-assisted project. Architecture, security decisions, and final review are mine; AI tools (Claude, Mistral, and others) help with drafting code, tests, translations, and documentation — without them, one person couldn’t keep this fork alive. Background The original ALTCHA Spam Protection WordPress plugin (v1) was open source (GPLv2). Its authors have since released a version 2/3 which is no longer open source. They no longer maintain the open source project and recommend that users migrate to v2/v3. See the official project at https://altcha.org for their offering. OpenPorte started as a fork and continues the v1 line as free software (GPLv2 or later) for users who want to stay on a fully open-source, self-hosted solution. It is a faithful fork: existing v1 installations can switch to OpenPorte and keep their settings (see Upgrading). Compatibility OpenPorte is backward-compatible with ALTCHA Spam Protection v1 plugin: Your existing settings are migrated automatically on activation. The [altcha] shortcode keeps working (alongside the new [openporte]). The altcha_* filters and actions keep firing as deprecated aliases. Custom API Mode has been verified against GateCHA, an open source server implementing the creation and verification of ALTCHA challenges. See the Deprecations section for the full list of compatibility aliases and what they map to. Upgrading From the original ALTCHA v1 plugin Deactivate the old ALTCHA plugin, then install and activate OpenPorte. Your existing configuration is detected and copied into the OpenPorte settings on first activation; the original ALTCHA settings are left untouched, so you can roll back to ALTCHA v1 without losing anything. Do not run both plugins at the same time. From ALTCHA v2/v3 If your site was already moved to ALTCHA v2/v3 (for example by the automatic 3.0.0 update), your original v1 settings are normally still in the database: the v2/v3 upgrade neither migrates nor removes them. Deactivate ALTCHA, then install and activate OpenPorte — it finds and imports the v1 settings, even when the v1 plugin itself has long been deleted. Settings made in v2/v3 are not read. Deprecations The following ALTCHA-era identifiers are kept as aliases for backward compatibility and are scheduled for removal in a future release: The [altcha] shortcode — use [openporte]. The altcha/v1 REST namespace — use openporte/v1. The altcha_* filters and actions — now firing through WordPress’ deprecated hook mechanism; use the openporte_* equivalents. The AltchaPlugin class and the ALTCHA_VERSION / ALTCHA_WIDGET_VERSION constants — use OpenPortePlugin and the OPENPORTE_* constants. Integrations targeting paid-only third-party plugins; affected users should migrate to the official ALTCHA v2/v3 plugin. The “Custom HTML” integration (auto-configuration of hand-written tags) — place the [openporte] shortcode instead. You can re-enable it for now under Settings → OpenPorte → Integrations. Privacy No cookies, no tracking OpenPorte prioritizes user privacy by avoiding the use of cookies and fingerprinting techniques. No external service This plugin remains fully contained within your WordPress installation, eliminating any reliance on external services. Modes of Operation OpenPorte verifies submissions in one of two modes, selected in the settings (API Mode): Self-hosted (default) — a proof-of-work challenge is issued and verified by your own WordPress site through the REST API. Fully self-contained, with no external service and no additional setup beyond enabling the integrations you need. Custom — point the Challenge URL at your own ALTCHA-compatible backend (for example a self-hosted ALTCHA Sentinel, or GateCHA). Submissions are verified with your site’s shared secret. The paid altcha.org regional SaaS classifier offered by earlier versions has been removed; both remaining modes are free and self-hostable. REST API This plugin requires the WordPress REST API. If you are using any “Disable REST API” plugins, ensure that the endpoint /altcha/v1/challenge (marked for deprecation) and /openporte/v1/challenge are allowed. Supported Integrations CoBlocks Contact Form 7 Elementor Pro Forms (deprecated — paid plugin, see Deprecations) Formidable Forms Forminator GravityForms HTML Forms wpDiscuz WPForms WordPress Login, Register, Password reset WordPress Comments WooCommerce Many other plugins and your own content (via the [openporte] shortcode, or the deprecated [altcha] alias) Source Code All source code for the plugin, and the ALTCHA widget is available on GitHub. In the repository, you’ll also find versions of non-minified JavaScript and CSS assets: Plugin: https://github.com/openporte/openporte ALTCHA Widget: https://github.com/altcha-org/altcha