hCaptcha is a popular CAPTCHA system out there and can be found on various websites on the Internet. It is commonly used to protect contact forms, login pages, and checkout processes from unwanted requests.
However, the use of hCaptcha has its limitations in terms of privacy compliance, usability and accessibility. If these issues are a high priority for your enterprise, you may want to consider other options that offer more comprehensive features than hCaptcha.
Keep reading this blog post to find hCaptcha alternatives with features that fit your needs.
3 hCaptcha Alternatives
- Friendly Captcha for truly invisible and user-friendly CAPTCHA challenges
- Google reCAPTCHA for traditional image-based CAPTCHA tests
- MTCaptcha for simple, text-based challenges
Why Pick an hCaptcha Alternative?
hCaptcha is a service of Intuition Machines, a US company focused on machine learning in the field of image recognition. While the parent company does research in the field of image labeling, their core product and what they are known for is hCaptcha.
hCaptcha mainly uses image recognition challenges to try to distinguish between human users and bots. These tasks require the user to select photos that match a given description, such as selecting images containing strawberry cakes or chicken on a tree.
Here are some of the key limitations:
- Image-based CAPTCHAs are not user-friendly. hCaptcha relies on image-based, visual CAPTCHA tests to differentiate between humans and bots. These typical hCaptcha puzzles, such as clicking on laughing dogs, slow down the user experience and can increase bounce rates.
- hCaptcha collects personal data through cookies. hCaptcha uses cookies and various third party services. Therefore, the user’s prior consent should be obtained. This makes it difficult to comply with data protection regulations, such as GDPR, CCPA and HIPPA.
- CAPTCHA accessibility and manual image selection are incompatible. The hCaptcha image recognition challenges can be difficult to solve for older people and those with disabilities or visual impairments. As a result, these users are often denied accessibility and excluded from important website and application functions.
There are reasons to look for suitable hCaptcha alternatives. The following is a closer look at the most common CAPTCHA providers.
| Feature | hCaptcha | Friendly Captcha | reCAPTCHA | MTCaptcha |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Bot Protection |
Image-based recognition tasks |
Advanced proof-of-work cryptography |
Behavioral analysis and image recognition tasks |
Text-based decryption |
|
Privacy compliance |
Limited; uses cookies |
Fully privacy-compliant; no HTTP cookies |
Limited; uses cookies and collects user data |
limited transparency |
|
Accessibility |
Limited accessibility |
Full accessibility |
Limited accessibility |
Limited accessibility |
|
Best for |
Casual, low-security scenarios |
Privacy-focused, user-friendly applications |
General-purpose; widely recognized |
Low-security scenarios |
The Best hCaptcha Alternative for Truly Invisible and User-Friendly CAPTCHA Challenges: Friendly Captcha
Friendly Captcha Pros:
- Friendly Captcha is the only truly invisible CAPTCHA without image recognition tasks.
- Friendly Captcha is globally compliant with GDPR, CCPA or HIPAA.
- Challenging devices and not real users makes Friendly Captcha compliant with accessibility laws such as WCAG, ADA, AODA or EAA.
Friendly Captcha Cons:
- Only small websites get a free version.
Friendly Captcha is the best hCaptcha alternative for those looking for a modern CAPTCHA that runs frictionless.
Friendly Captcha is based in the EU with a focus on privacy, accessibility and seamless user experience. It relies on a sophisticated proof-of-work-based algorithm to generate invisible, cryptographic puzzles. The end user’s device must solve in the background to prove that it is not a malicious bot.
Instead of requiring website visitors to manually solve CAPTCHA challenges, Friendly Captcha is truly invisible. Friendly Captcha does not require user interaction at all. The impact on the website’s user experience is minimal, and human users rarely have to wait more than a few seconds. Usually, the invisible CAPTCHA challenge is solved in the background before the visitor has even filled out the form.
This way, Friendly Captcha is accessible to all users and does not degrade the user experience, while still protecting websites from unwanted spam entries, bot traffic and cyber attacks.
Friendly Captcha is fully privacy compliant and does not require any additional user consent. It’s transparent about what data is collected and where it’s stored, and doesn’t hide any of this from the user. Friendly Captcha does not use HTTP cookies and does not use persistent browser storage.
As an EU CAPTCHA provider, Friendly Captcha does not rely on any third parties outside of the EU. This means that your users’ data will never leave the European Union, while your website and forms are protected from bots and spam.
How does hCaptcha compare to Friendly Captcha? Read our CAPTCHA comparison. If you are already convinced by Friendly Captcha, sign up for a free trial month.
The Best hCaptcha Alternative for Traditional Image-Based CAPTCHA-Tests: Google reCAPTCHA
reCAPTCHA Pros:
reCAPTCHA is widely used for basic bot protection.
Non-enterprise customers get a free version.
Due to the risk scoring system, reCAPTCHA may not display image recognition tasks for some users.
reCAPTCHA Cons:
Collecting extensive personal user information leads to privacy compliance problems.
Prior user consent is mandatory because Google uses cookies to store extensive user information.
If you need to protect against bots with more traditional image recognition tasks, then reCAPTCHA might be a possible alternative to hCaptcha.
reCAPTCHA provides spam and bot protection in different forms and levels of user interaction. reCAPTCHA v2 comes with the familiar “I’m not a robot” checkbox and promotes traditional visual challenges that are intrusive to the user experience.
reCAPTCHA v3 is invisible most of the time, as long as the data collection via cookies is running unrestricted. Privacy-conscious or disabled users who use assistance software, a VPN or block cookies are presented with the traditional CAPTCHA test such as clicking on traffic lights again.
No matter which version of reCAPTCHA and which reCAPTCHA challenges are used, one major disadvantage of reCAPTCHA remains: it is considered by many privacy advocates to be non-privacy compliant. reCAPTCHA v2 and reCAPTCHA v3 use cookies in addition to image reCAPTCHA challenges.
The use of cookies is critical to compliance with strict data protection laws such as GDPR or CCPA. Sensitive personal user data may be collected and used by Google such as a full screenshot of the browser window, IP address or mouse movements.
For a more detailed breakdown, check other our CAPTCHA comparison: hCaptcha vs. reCAPTCHA.
The Best hCaptcha Alternative for Simple, Text-Based Challenges: MTCaptcha
MTCaptcha Pros:
The text-based tasks take into account the needs of people who are colorblind and are usually solvable, but they do not meet the criteria for true CAPTCHA accessibility.
With dedicated servers, MTCaptcha works in China.
MTCaptcha does not monetize the data for machine learning or AI models.
MTCaptcha Cons:
Visual CAPTCHA challenges imply CAPTCHA accessibility issues.
Interacting with a MTCaptcha creates friction and leads to a poor user experience.
For those looking for a CAPTCHA solution with customizable text challenges, MTCaptcha is a viable alternative to hCaptcha.
MTCaptcha is a CAPTCHA service designed to provide basic protection against automated attacks for websites through text-based CAPTCHA challenges. It claims to support GDPR compliance and offers some accessibility features, such as screen reader compatibility and customizable themes.
The service works by presenting users with a simple CAPTCHA, such as deciphering distorted text to verify that they are human. Text CAPTCHAs were among the first CAPTCHAs and were the standard for many years. However, the distorted letters do not only weed out bots with poor text recognition. Real users with disabilities are also too often classified as false positives and blocked.
In times when bots are getting better and better with the help of artificial intelligence, these types of CAPTCHA services are outdated. Due to known CAPTCHA accessibility issues, too many people are being excluded from important website functions.
However, MTCaptcha’s market presence is not as extensive as some of its competitors, which may result in lower user recognition and trust. If a website has only basic security requirements, MTCaptcha may be a suitable reCAPTCHA alternative.
Which hCaptcha Alternatives Are Best?
Image recognition tasks, lack of accessibility and cookies – there are hCaptcha alternatives that provide bot protection on web forms, registration and checkout processes without these limitations. However, each CAPTCHA provider solves this in a different way:
Friendly Captcha offers a modern, invisible CAPTCHA solution focused on usability, accessibility, and privacy while maintaining strong security measures.
Google reCAPTCHA provides a well-known and widely used CAPTCHA option with traditional challenges, though its reliance on cookies and user data may be a concern for privacy-focused users.
MTCaptcha delivers basic text-based CAPTCHA challenges, which can be a viable option for simpler security requirements, though it may fall short on accessibility and usability for some users.Friendly Captcha stands out as a provider that prioritizes advanced technology, privacy compliance, and user accessibility, making it a strong choice for secure bot protection.
Each alternative has its strengths, depending on your priorities for privacy, user experience, and security. If you’d like to explore Friendly Captcha further, you can check out the live demo or sign up for a free test month to integrate Friendly Captcha into your websites.
FAQ
The best alternative to hCaptcha depends on your priorities. Friendly Captcha excels in privacy compliance and accessibility, offering invisible bot protection that’s GDPR-compliant and user-friendly. For familiarity, Google reCAPTCHA is widely recognized but has privacy concerns, while MTCaptcha is a simpler option with text-based challenges, though less accessible for some users.
A better hCaptcha alternative is Friendly Captcha. Unlike hCaptcha, Friendly Captcha takes accessibility seriously. Friendly Captcha is fully privacy compliant and doesn’t use HTTP cookies, persistent browser storage or fingerprinting. As a security measure, Friendly Captcha effectively keeps spam and bots out while maintaining UX, accessibility, and privacy standards such as GDPR.
In short, Friendly Captcha is the only tool that is fully accessible. All other providers, such as hCaptcha or reCAPTCHA, still use image CAPTCHA tests to block spam and bots. Friendly Captcha is accessible according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. This makes it barrier-free and convenient for all website users, while providing reliable protection against spam and mass attacks.
It is hardly possible to achieve full GDPR compliance by using hCaptcha. The setting of cookies without prior consent and the associated transfer of data to the United States must be viewed critically from a data protection perspective. This is because Intuition Machines must provide US intelligence agencies with access to all collected data, including personal data of EU citizens. According to the Schrems II decision, this is a violation of data protection law.
Furthermore, according to the TTDS Act, the informed and explicit consent of the user must be obtained before the cookies are set. There have also been similar cases involving other US CAPTCHA providers, such as reCAPTCHA. The Bavarian State Office for Data Protection pointed out some time ago that GDPR-compliant use is not possible. If you want to be sure of GDPR compliance when using a CAPTCHA, you should consider Friendly Captcha as an alternative to hCaptcha. It works out-of-the-box and guarantees GDPR-compliant bot protection.
