5 Useful WordPress CAPTCHA Plugins

[Neil Carty]

Ready to launch your website? But are you sure is it safe for users as well as website owners and is well secured? Spamming is on rise these days and spammers are flooding the internet and are misusing the power of internet by spamming the content/comments. But as a developer or a website owner it is very important to understand the importance of Captcha and where they are used. Even the WordPress best themes can easily be spammed though it is equipped with anti-spamming softwares but still to protect your community you need a captcha.

What is captcha?
Captcha helps to distinguish between a human user and a bot. Captcha stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart”. It’s basically a distorted image of alpha-numeric characters or sometimes a puzzle which can only be solved by a human and not by a bot. Not only this, but it helps against spammers spamming the content as well as from spam comments.

WordPress comes with amazing captcha plugins so as to prevent spammers spamming the website. Apart from installing AKISMET plugin, have a look at top five trending plugins of WordPress.

1. Really Simple CAPTCHA
It is a plugin with more than one million installs and 4.5/5 ratings. Just as it name, it is very easy to install and use. But it was originally created to work in conjunction with Contact Form7 but nowadays you can use it with other plugin as well.
This plugin stores the states in temporary files rather than using PHP sessions for storing. This further helps the developer for hassle-free embedding into the code. Actually when a captcha is generated, two files are created one image and other one is a text file which stores the correct answer.

2. KeyCAPTCHA – Social WordPress Captcha
Most of the WordPress best themes use this plugin with login, comments as well as custom forms in the WordPress blogs. The main attractive feature of this plugin is that instead of guessing the symbols it offers the users a very easy interactive activity. The captcha can also be used even when the outgoing connections are blocked by the hosting provider. This plugin also block spammers who are using proxy sites or anonymizer softwares to spread a spam.

3. Simple Google reCAPTCHA
With an active installation count of 10K, this plugin is one of the most loved plugin for the bloggers nad developers. This four star rated plugin prevents your website from brute force attack as well as spamming the comments. It’s a light weight plugin with no ads. This plugin is free to download and offers multiple form protection. It is available in three languages and offers extended support to woo-commerce and Buddy Press.

4. Captcha Bank: Anti Spam Captcha Plugin
This plugin currently has 8000+ active downloads and holds a four star rating over WordPress official website. This captcha bank adds an extra layer of protection to keep the spammers and bots away. Apart from the guessing the chars, it also includes mathematical operations such as solving the equations. The text captcha can easily be customized and you can easily add distortion, lines and tracking in captcha. It supports Buddy Press, Contact Form 7 as well as woo-commerce.

5. Uber reCAPTCHA
This plugin can easily be added to login forms, comment box and registration forms. It is indeed a best plugin for preventing website from malicious spamming, comment spam and brute force attacks. It supports audio as well as video captcha.

Winding Up:
Even the world’s WordPress best themes use captcha to prevent their website from spamming. It’s not only for developers but indeed for everyone. A website well secured earns a good reputation online as well as receives good and genuine traffic. Use any of the above mentioned captcha solution to safe guard your website from spammers.