reCAPTCHA Alternatives 2026: 7 Options Compared

What is the best reCAPTCHA alternative?

There is no single best one; the right choice depends on why you are leaving reCAPTCHA. If data has to stay in the EU and visitors should not solve anything, TrustCaptcha and Friendly Captcha are the closest fit. If cost is the main reason, Cloudflare Turnstile is free at any volume. If you want open source on your own servers, ALTCHA and Cap do that.

Two more cases come up often. Teams that are happy with a familiar challenge and want a free plan tend to look at hCaptcha. Teams that want hosted processing in the EU at a low monthly price, and accept a text CAPTCHA for risky visitors, look at MTCaptcha.

Most lists of reCAPTCHA alternatives stop at three names. This one has seven, because the reasons for switching differ: privacy, price, accessibility, or not wanting Google on the login page.

reCAPTCHA alternatives compared

The table puts the seven next to each other, with Google reCAPTCHA as the reference in the last row.

Prices per month; ALTCHA and TrustCaptcha prices exclude VAT. hCaptcha Pro costs $139 billed monthly, MTCaptcha Core $29 billed monthly.

Why teams replace reCAPTCHA

For a long time reCAPTCHA was the free default. That changed in steps. Google moved all keys into Google Cloud by early 2026, and the free allowance is now 10,000 assessments a month for your whole organization. Above that you pay, as our page on reCAPTCHA pricing shows in detail.

The privacy side moved too. Since 2 April 2026 Google processes reCAPTCHA data as your processor, which helps, but the _GRECAPTCHA cookie remains, and transfers to Google still need a legal review. Our article Is reCAPTCHA GDPR compliant? goes through what that means.

And then there is the visitor. reCAPTCHA v2 still shows image grids when it is unsure, which costs conversions and shuts out people who cannot see the pictures. v3 shows nothing but hands you a score and leaves the decision to your server.

The seven reCAPTCHA alternatives

1. TrustCaptcha

TrustCaptcha is an invisible CAPTCHA from Trustcaptcha GmbH in Munich. The browser solves a proof-of-work puzzle in the background that gets harder under attack, so a bot flood becomes expensive while a regular visitor notices nothing. The Solo plan adds bot detection, risk scoring and your own rules. There is nothing to click or solve, no cookies are set, data is processed in EU data centers, and every customer gets a Data Processing Agreement.

It suits EU businesses that want to replace reCAPTCHA with something that sets no cookies and puts no puzzle on the login page. Watch for two things: there is no free plan for commercial sites, only a 14-day trial on every plan, and bot scoring starts with the Solo plan at €36 a month. The widget is visible and starts on its own; a fully invisible widget is a paid add-on.

2. Cloudflare Turnstile

Turnstile is Cloudflare’s CAPTCHA replacement. It runs small checks in the browser, among them proof-of-work, and shows no images or text to decipher. You can use it on any website without routing traffic through Cloudflare, and the free plan has no limit on challenges.

It suits teams that want a free, low-friction CAPTCHA and are comfortable with a US provider. Watch for the data side: Cloudflare, Inc. is based in San Francisco, so transfers need a legal review, and it uses the signals to improve Turnstile as a controller of its own. In managed mode some visitors see a checkbox. More detail is in our guide to Cloudflare Turnstile alternatives.

3. hCaptcha

hCaptcha comes from Intuition Machines, Inc. in the USA and is the closest in look to reCAPTCHA v2. On the free Basic plan it runs in “Always Challenge” mode with image tasks. Pro adds a 99.9% passive mode for $99 a month billed yearly, and Enterprise adds a fully passive mode and risk scores.

It suits teams that want a reCAPTCHA-style challenge with a free plan, or are ready to pay for passive mode. Watch for the image challenges on the free plan and for where data goes: hCaptcha says it may process data in any country where it has facilities, including the USA. Our page on hCaptcha alternatives compares it in more depth, and our CAPTCHA comparison covers hCaptcha vs reCAPTCHA.

4. Friendly Captcha

Friendly Captcha GmbH from Wörthsee in Germany runs a proof-of-work CAPTCHA without cookies, and TÜV has certified it as meeting WCAG 2.2 AA. Plans start at €9 a month for 1,000 requests, and non-commercial sites get a free plan.

It suits teams that want a German provider and a well-documented accessibility claim. Watch for the plan limits: the EU-only endpoint hosted in Germany needs the Advanced plan at €200 a month; on smaller plans, requests may be served from outside the EU. If you are comparing it with us, see Friendly Captcha alternative.

5. ALTCHA

ALTCHA is an MIT-licensed proof-of-work widget from BAU Software s.r.o. in Czechia. It sets no cookies and does no fingerprinting, and you can host it yourself for free. For teams that do not want to run it, ALTCHA Cloud starts at €47 a month and is processed entirely in the EU; a self-hosted Sentinel edition starts at €99 a month.

It suits developers who want open source with a company behind it. Watch for the work that comes with self-hosting: you run, update and secure the verification server yourself.

6. MTCaptcha

MTCaptcha is run by Sun Spray Technology LLC in Mountain View, USA, and says it processes data in Ireland and other EU countries. Visitors it considers risky get a text CAPTCHA of four to eight characters, with an audio mode; from the Core plan at $29 a month, low-risk visitors pass without seeing anything.

It suits teams that want hosted processing in the EU at a low price and accept a visible challenge for some visitors. Watch for the free plan, which is meant for personal sites and testing, and for the cookies the widget sets.

7. Cap

Cap is the open-source option on this list: a self-hosted proof-of-work CAPTCHA under the Apache 2.0 license, published at trycap.dev. It sets no cookies, does not fingerprint visitors and has no quotas or per-request fees, because there is no hosted version at all.

It suits developers who want full control and are happy to run one more small service. Watch for the maintenance question: Cap is a one-person project, actively maintained, but with no company behind it. More on that trade-off is in our guide to open source CAPTCHA.

Which reCAPTCHA alternatives keep data in the EU?

TrustCaptcha processes data in EU data centers on every plan. Friendly Captcha does so from its Advanced plan, ALTCHA Cloud is processed in the EU, and ALTCHA and Cap can run on servers you choose. MTCaptcha says it processes data in Ireland and the EU, but it is a US company and sets cookies. With Cloudflare and hCaptcha, both US companies, the transfers need a legal review.

Where data is processed is only one part of the picture. Cookies, the legal basis and what goes into your privacy policy matter as well, and the answer depends on how you use the CAPTCHA. This section is not legal advice; clear those points with your data protection officer. A GDPR-compliant CAPTCHA keeps the list of open questions short.

Switching from reCAPTCHA

Replacing reCAPTCHA touches two places. On the page, you swap Google’s script and widget for the new provider’s. On your server, you swap Google’s verification call for the new provider’s, with its own secret key. If you used reCAPTCHA v3 scores, decide how the new provider’s result maps to your thresholds before you go live.

Test on a staging site, keep your reCAPTCHA keys until the new check works, then remove the old script. TrustCaptcha’s documentation walks through it step by step in the migration guide for Google reCAPTCHA; there are guides for hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile and MTCaptcha as well.

Try TrustCaptcha

Every TrustCaptcha plan starts with a 14-day free trial, and non-commercial sites can use it for free. Start your free trial and run it next to reCAPTCHA on one form before you switch the rest.