Alternatives
Best reCAPTCHA alternatives in 2026: what each one costs and tracks
Short answer
The main reCAPTCHA alternatives are Cloudflare Turnstile, hCaptcha, Friendly Captcha, ALTCHA, MTCaptcha, Prosopo and CaptchaKit. Turnstile and hCaptcha Basic have free plans, ALTCHA's core is open source, and Friendly Captcha starts at EUR 9 a month. CaptchaKit is the one built around arcade games and is pay what you want, one time.
Side by side
Seven reCAPTCHA alternatives. Prices as of October 2026, from each vendor's own pages.
| Feature | CaptchaKit | Turnstile | hCaptcha | Friendly Captcha | ALTCHA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Pay what you want, one time | Free, 20 widgets | Basic $0 | EUR 9 a month, 1 domain | Open source core free (MIT) |
| Paid plans | Business $29 a month | Enterprise, contact sales | Pro $99 a month yearly, $139 monthly | EUR 39 and EUR 200 a month | Cloud from EUR 47 a month |
| How it checks | Short arcade game plus signed token | Managed, non-interactive or invisible widget | Visual challenges, text accessibility option | Proof of work, no image tasks | Proof of work |
| Free for commercial use | Pay what you want | Yes Yes | Yes Basic is $0 | No Free tier is non-commercial only | Yes MIT open source core |
| Domains on entry plan | Unlimited on lifetime access | 10 hostnames per widget | Not stated on pricing page | 1 protected domain | Self-hosted |
| Challenge people can see | Yes Yes, pick from 18 games | Partly Checkbox in managed mode only | Yes Yes | No No image tasks | No Proof of work |
How we picked and priced these
Every price below comes from the vendor's own pricing or plans page, checked in October 2026, and carries that date. We list what each tool says about itself and do not rank them by quality, because the right choice depends on your traffic, your jurisdiction and whether you can run your own server.
We start with Google's numbers, because most people searching for an alternative are reacting to them. Essentials is free up to 10,000 assessments a month per organization, Premium is $8 flat from 10,001 to 100,000, then $1.00 per 1,000. Details are in is reCAPTCHA still free.
What to look for
Four questions narrow the list fast. Do you need a free commercial plan? Do you need to stay out of cookie consent banners? Do your visitors tolerate a visible challenge? Can you host something yourself?
If the answer to the last question is yes, ALTCHA's MIT core costs nothing but your time. If it is no, you want a hosted service, and the free plans from Turnstile and hCaptcha Basic are the first stop.
Why a visible challenge can be a feature
Most alternatives try to make the CAPTCHA disappear. That is a sound goal, and it is what Turnstile's non-interactive and invisible modes and proof-of-work tools aim for. CaptchaKit goes the other way. The challenge is a short game you can match to your brand and your form: Whack-a-Bot for logins, Stack It for comments, Penalty Kick for ticketing sites.
That suits sites where the form is part of the experience, such as community sites, games, ticketing and retail.
WordPress and WooCommerce
CaptchaKit's WordPress plugin is on wordpress.org (version 1.0.1) and covers login, registration, comments and WooCommerce checkout, both classic and Blocks. For a head-to-head on that use case read the best CAPTCHA for WordPress and WooCommerce. The integrations page lists what is available today.
Which one to pick
Pick Turnstile if you want a free plan with unlimited challenges and are fine with up to 20 widgets. Pick hCaptcha Basic if you want a free plan from a vendor positioned on privacy. Pick Friendly Captcha or ALTCHA if you want proof of work with no image tasks. Pick CaptchaKit if you want the challenge to be a game, you want a one-time price, and you want a privacy policy that rules out advertising and tracking cookies.
What it costs at three traffic levels
Units differ by vendor: Google counts assessments, Friendly Captcha counts requests, MTCaptcha counts evaluations. Treat one form submission as roughly one unit, and read the vendor's definition before you budget. All prices are from the vendors' pages in October 2026.
At 5,000 a month: Google Essentials, Turnstile, hCaptcha Basic, MTCaptcha Free (10,000 evaluations) and Prosopo Basic (10,000 requests) cost $0. Friendly Captcha needs Growth at EUR 39, because Starter caps at 1,000. ALTCHA's open-source core is free to self-host.
At 50,000 a month: Google Premium is $8.00 flat. Turnstile stays free. MTCaptcha Core is $29 a month ($25 billed yearly) for 300,000 evaluations. Friendly Captcha Advanced is EUR 200. ALTCHA Cloud starts at EUR 47 with fair-use capacity.
At 500,000 a month: Google Premium is $8.00 plus $1.00 per 1,000 above 100,000, so $408. hCaptcha Pro is $99 or $139 including 100K, plus $0.99 per 1K above that, about $495 to $535. MTCaptcha Pro is $95 a month ($81 billed yearly) for 1,000,000 evaluations. Turnstile stays free. Friendly Captcha's top listed tier tops out at 50,000, so this level is an Enterprise conversation.
CaptchaKit does not meter on the pack: pay what you want, one time, lifetime access, unlimited domains. Business is $29 a month and adds analytics, webhooks, team seats, two-factor auth, audit logs, data export and priority support. See pricing.
A migration checklist that works for any of them
List every form that uses your current CAPTCHA. Add the new widget on a staging copy first. Change the server check to the new vendor's verify call and reject on failure. Remove the old keys. Test with a keyboard only and on a phone. Check your consent banner against the new vendor's cookie statement. Watch spam for a week and keep the old keys for a few days in case you roll back.
For CaptchaKit the server change is one call: POST /api/verify with a Bearer API key and a body of token and siteKey. See how to verify a CAPTCHA token.
Alternatives
Cloudflare Turnstile
Best for: A free plan with unlimited challenges
Price: Free, up to 20 widgets and 10 hostnames per widget
Turnstile offers managed, non-interactive and invisible widgets, and works without proxying your traffic through Cloudflare. Cloudflare states the widget is WCAG 2.2 AA compliant. Enterprise adds up to 200 hostnames per widget and branding removal.
- Unlimited challenges on the free plan
- Invisible and non-interactive modes
- 7-day analytics on the free plan
hCaptcha
Best for: A free tier from a privacy-positioned vendor
Price: Basic $0, Pro $99 a month billed yearly or $139 monthly
Basic is free with no stated evaluation limit. Pro includes 100K monthly evaluations, then $0.99 per 1K, plus passive mode, themes and analytics. A text-based accessibility challenge and an email-registered cookie serve visitors who cannot do the visual task.
- Free Basic plan
- 14-day Pro trial
- Text accessibility challenge
Friendly Captcha
Best for: Proof of work with no image tasks, EU-based
Price: EUR 9, EUR 39 and EUR 200 a month
Sold by protected domain and monthly request volume: Starter covers 1 domain and 1,000 requests, Growth 5 domains and 5,000, Advanced 50 domains and 50,000. The free tier is for non-commercial, low-traffic sites.
- No image labeling
- 30-day free trial
- Advanced adds risk detection and EU-only data centers
ALTCHA
Best for: Open source and self-hosting
Price: Core free (MIT), Cloud from EUR 47 a month
Open-source proof of work with optional managed Cloud (3, 10 or 50 sites) and self-hosted Sentinel from EUR 99 a month. The WordPress plugin has a free plan and paid plans from EUR 18.90 a month.
- MIT licensed core
- Self-hosting option
- 30-day Cloud trial
MTCaptcha
Best for: A free tier plus compliance paperwork
Price: Free to 10,000 evaluations a month, Core $29 a month
The free plan covers 1 domain and 7 days of dashboard history. Paid plans list SOC 2 Type 2 on all plans. Invisible mode starts at the Core plan.
- 10,000 free evaluations a month
- SOC 2 Type 2 listed
- 30-day paid trial without a card
Prosopo
Best for: Invisible verification with a challenge fallback
Price: Free to 10,000 requests a month for 1 site
The free Basic plan lists GDPR compliance, invisible verification with a challenge fallback and a built-in honeypot. Risk scores, network filtering and analytics are on the Professional plan.
- Free forever plan
- Honeypot included
- 30-day Professional trial
CaptchaKit
Best for: A branded, game-based challenge and a one-time price
Price: Pay what you want, one time; Business $29 a month
Visitors play one of 18 arcade games, then your server verifies a signed one-time token. The WordPress plugin is live, with an accessible alternative question, full keyboard play, and a privacy policy that rules out advertising and tracking cookies.
- 18 games with an in-widget switcher
- Lifetime access, unlimited domains
- Business adds analytics, webhooks and audit logs
Questions
What is the best free reCAPTCHA alternative?
It depends on your limits. Cloudflare Turnstile is free with unlimited challenges, 20 widgets and 10 hostnames per widget. hCaptcha Basic is $0. MTCaptcha and Prosopo are free up to 10,000 a month. ALTCHA's core is MIT open source.
Which alternatives avoid cookies?
Check each vendor's policy for your case. CaptchaKit's privacy policy says no advertising or tracking cookies are used. Turnstile says it processes only strictly necessary data. See CAPTCHA without cookies.
Is there a game-based reCAPTCHA alternative?
CaptchaKit is built around 18 arcade games that visitors play instead of picking images, each with a keyboard path and an accessible check.
Are alternatives GDPR compliant?
Compliance depends on how you configure and disclose the tool, so ask your counsel. Several vendors state GDPR compliance on their pages. Our reCAPTCHA GDPR answer covers the regulator case.
Can I run two CAPTCHAs during a switch?
Usually you replace the old one form by form. Remove the old keys from your form plugin once the new widget passes a test on login, registration, comments and checkout.
How hard is it to switch?
On WordPress it is a plugin install and two keys. On a custom site it is a script tag, a div and a changed server call. See how to replace reCAPTCHA on WordPress.
Which alternative is cheapest at high volume?
Turnstile is free with unlimited challenges. Among paid options, Google Premium costs $1.00 per 1,000 above 100,000 assessments and MTCaptcha Pro is $95 a month for 1,000,000 evaluations (October 2026).
Sources
- Google reCAPTCHA tier comparison (checked 2026-10-17)
- Google reCAPTCHA billing information (checked 2026-10-17)
- Cloudflare Turnstile plans (checked 2026-10-17)
- Cloudflare Turnstile docs (checked 2026-10-17)
- hCaptcha pricing (checked 2026-10-17)
- hCaptcha accessibility (checked 2026-10-17)
- Friendly Captcha plans (checked 2026-10-17)
- ALTCHA pricing (checked 2026-10-17)
- MTCaptcha pricing (checked 2026-10-17)
- Prosopo pricing (checked 2026-10-17)
- CaptchaKit pricing (checked 2026-10-17)
- CaptchaKit on WordPress.org (checked 2026-10-17)
- CaptchaKit privacy policy (checked 2026-10-17)
Related
- CaptchaKit vs reCAPTCHA: cost, cookies, user experience
- CaptchaKit vs hCaptcha: pricing and accessibility
- CaptchaKit vs Cloudflare Turnstile: game or checkbox
- CaptchaKit vs Friendly Captcha: EUR 9 or pay what you want
- CaptchaKit vs ALTCHA: hosted games or open source
- Best CAPTCHA for WordPress and WooCommerce in 2026
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