ALTCHA Spam Protection

Description

ALTCHA provides a free, open-source Captcha alternative utilizing a proof-of-work mechanism to safeguard your website against spam and unwanted content. Our anti-spam solution ensures robust spam protection without compromising user privacy.

Unlike other solutions, ALTCHA is free, open-source, and self-hosted. It operates independently without external services, avoids the use of cookies and fingerprinting, refrains from user tracking, and maintains full compliance with GDPR regulations.

Spam Filter

ALTCHA’s Spam Filter introduces a distinctive spam-detection feature enabling efficient classification of text and other information, empowering you to distinguish spam from legitimate messages. This anti-spam Captcha feature provides enhanced spam protection for your site.

As a GDPR-compliant alternative to Akismet, this feature seamlessly integrates with the plugin for effortless activation.

Privacy

No cookies, no tracking

ALTCHA prioritizes user privacy by avoiding the use of cookies and fingerprinting techniques.

No external service

Operating in Self-hosted mode (the default setting), this plugin remains fully contained within your WordPress installation, eliminating any reliance on external services. You can opt-in for our SaaS version to utilize the Spam Filter API. For more information visit https://altcha.org.

Modes of Operation

This plugin operates in two modes, you can select which mode you want in the settings (see API Region):

  • Self-hosted — fully self-contained without external services.
  • 3rd-party external service — ALTCHA’s SaaS requiring an API Key, allows you to choose EU or US region.

Note: The Spam Filter requires ALTCHA’s SaaS. Create an API Key to access it.

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 is allowed.

Supported Integrations

  • Contact Form 7
  • Elementor Pro Forms
  • Forminator
  • GravityForms
  • HTML Forms
  • WPDiscuz
  • WPForms
  • WP-Members
  • WordPress Login, Register, Password reset
  • WordPress Comments
  • Custom HTML (with a short code [altcha])

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/altcha-org/wordpress-plugin
  • ALTCHA Widget: https://github.com/altcha-org/altcha

Terms of Service And Privacy Policy for SaaS

  • Privacy Policy: https://altcha.org/privacy-policy
  • Terms of Service: https://altcha.org/terms-of-service

Screenshots

  • Friction-less Captcha without puzzles
  • Configuration
  • Protection on the login page
  • Protection with WPForms
  • Floating UI Captcha

Installation

Download, install and activate ALTCHA Spam Protection.

To use the Spam Filter, create an API Key and configure it in the Settings.

Alternatively, install the plugin manually:

  1. Download the .zip from the Releases.
  2. Upload altcha folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
  3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  4. Review the settings and enable the your integrations

Reviews

8 Դեկտեմբերի, 2024
I’ve installed ALTCHA on a non-WordPress website a little under a year ago, and it’s been protecting that website from spam registrations (these were an issue there!) ever since. Now I’m using it on a couple WordPress websites as well, and it seems to work just as fine, albeit it’s only been a few days. If you’ve ever been annoyed by having to repeatedly select busses or fire hydrants, or move parrots around, and you don’t want to push that experience onto your visitors, ALTCHA can be the solution. It’s non-intrusive to normal users (the calculation performed only takes a couple seconds), but is a great way to deter spammers, who would rather automatically submit a few hundred forms than spend that same amount of CPU time on a calculation required to only submit that one form on your page. Oh, and I love that this plugin is open source and no-nonsense. It will never clutter your WordPress UI with calls to upgrade to pro or notifications about Black Friday sales. It adds a single sub-menu item under Settings, and is very civil in all regards. And it also respects your visitor privacy: no data will be transmitted to other servers than yours by default due to having it installed, unless you explicitly configure it to use ALTCHA’s cloud API, which adds some extra functionality in addition to filtering out bots. All that said, it’s not a silver bullet of course, and you may want to keep Akismet enabled too as a second line of defence.
23 Սեպտեմբերի, 2024
I’ve discovered this plugin a few months ago, switched about 10 sites from recaptcha to altcha in self-hosted mode and it’s working beautifully at the moment. I did have some issue with LiteSpeed Cache enabled at first, but 1.9.0 seems to have fixed that!
11 Սեպտեմբերի, 2024
Auf der Suche nach einer rechapta Alternative für Wordpress….sind wir auf altcha gestoßen. Die Integration ist einfach. Funktioniert mit cf7 (inkl userem selbst entwickelten Plugin für cf7).
15 Հուլիսի, 2024
ALTCHA is a free, open-source Captcha alternative. It uses a proof-of-work mechanism to protect your website from spam and unwanted content. Unlike other solutions, ALTCHA is self-hosted, avoids cookies and tracking, and is fully GDPR compliant. It also features a powerful spam filter that integrates seamlessly with your WordPress site. With options for self-hosted and external service modes, ALTCHA offers flexibility and robust protection for any WordPress site.
Read all 5 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“ALTCHA Spam Protection” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.13.0

  • WooCommerce integration [#26]
  • Improved validation message [#27]
  • Password lost error message [#28]

1.12.0

  • HTML Forms — skip verification if the shortcode is not in the form markup [#23]

1.11.1

  • Fix Forminator compatibility issue

1.11.0

  • Added support for WP-Members

1.10.0

  • Added support for WPDiscuz

1.9.3

  • Fix REST API Cache-Control header

1.9.2

  • Enable Custom HTML (shortcode) integration by default when activated

1.9.1

  • PHP 7 support (replace str_contains by strpos) [#19]

1.9.0

  • Widget updated to version 1.0.0
  • CF7 — fix widget placement
  • Fix page caching

1.8.0

  • Shortcode (custom integration) — fix mode (SpamFilter)

1.7.0

  • HTML Forms — add Shortcode option

1.6.1

  • Fix WordPress login integration

1.6.0

  • Fix Elementor Pro Forms widget rendering
  • Fix Contact Form 7 widget position and shortcode support

1.5.0

  • Fix REST base URL (+ REST prefix removed from settings) [#13]

1.4.0

  • Support for Elementor Pro Forms
  • Widget updated to 0.6.7

1.3.1

  • Fix site_url parsing issue [#11]

1.3.0

  • Added support for custom REST API prefixes

1.2.0

  • Forminator — fix widget rendering with file input
  • Widget updated to 0.6.4

1.1.0

  • Shortcode — support for language attribute

1.0.0

  • Widget updated to 0.6.3

0.3.0

  • Added nonce sanitization
  • Removed server-side spam filter (required for Plugin Directory)

0.2.1

  • Fixes requested by Plugin Directory review
  • Fixed various Spam Filter issues

0.2.0

  • Widget updated to 0.6.0
  • Added support for Floating UI

0.1.7

  • Fix Forminator multi-step forms

0.1.6

  • Widget updated to 0.5.1

0.1.5

  • Fixes requested by Plugin Directory review

0.1.4

  • GravityForms — added label and description options
  • Altcha widget updated to 0.4.3

0.1.3

  • Fixed «lost password» verification bug
  • Altcha widget updated to 0.4.1

0.1.2

  • Fixed widgets footer link and log warnings

0.1.1

  • Widget v0.4.0
  • Challenge expiration

0.1.0

  • First version