Best Self-Hosted hCaptcha Alternatives in 2026
hCaptcha is a CAPTCHA service for bot protection that rewards website owners for the human verification work performed.
4 Self-Hosted Alternatives to hCaptcha
mCaptcha
2.4KMCaptcha lets you run privacy-focused proof-of-work CAPTCHA system entirely on your own server.
ALTCHA
2.1KALTCHA is a self-hosted security & authentication replacement for Cloudflare Turnstile, hCaptcha, and more.
Procaptcha
299Procaptcha lets you run blockchain-based CAPTCHA solution offering improved security entirely on your own server.
Private Captcha
157Private Captcha is a Go-based application that provides privacy-first CAPTCHA service.
Why Look for hCaptcha Alternatives?
hCaptcha is a CAPTCHA service for bot protection that rewards website owners for the human verification work performed.
Pricing
Here’s what hCaptcha charges for its plans:
Basic --- Free
- World-Class Bot Protection
- Works in Every Country
- Complies with GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, PIPL, and more
Pro --- $139/month
- Everything in Basic and…
- Low Friction 99.9% Passive Mode
- Custom Themes
- Analytics
Enterprise --- Custom pricing
- Everything in Pro and…
- Risk Scores
- Passive (No-CAPTCHA) Mode
- APT Mitigation Features
- Enterprise SLAs
- Multi-User Dashboard, SAML SSO
Self-hosted alternatives eliminate these recurring costs entirely. You pay only for your own infrastructure.
4 Best Open-Source Alternatives to hCaptcha
ALTCHA
ALTCHA offers cutting-edge spam and abuse protection for websites and apps, with privacy-friendly CAPTCHA alternatives designed for GDPR compliance. — 2,084 GitHub stars. Licensed under MIT.
mCaptcha
Privacy-focused proof-of-work CAPTCHA system that silently protects websites without tracking users or requiring image solving. Drop-in replacement for reCAPTCHA. — 2,423 GitHub stars. Licensed under AGPL-3.0.
Procaptcha
A blockchain-based CAPTCHA solution offering improved security, user experience, and resistance to bot attacks for web applications. — 299 GitHub stars. Licensed under Apache-2.0.
Private Captcha
Independent, privacy-first CAPTCHA service — 156 GitHub stars. Licensed under Custom.
Read full Private Captcha review
Why Self-Host Instead of hCaptcha?
- Data ownership. Your data stays on your server, not on hCaptcha’s infrastructure.
- Predictable costs. Pay a fixed VPS cost instead of growing per-user or per-usage fees.
- No vendor lock-in. Export and migrate your data anytime. You control the database.
- GDPR and compliance. Hosting your own tools simplifies data residency and compliance requirements.
Why teams switch from hCaptcha
- → Data ownership. Your data stays on your server -- not on hCaptcha's infrastructure.
- → Predictable costs. Pay a fixed VPS cost instead of growing per-user or per-usage fees.
- → No vendor lock-in. Export and migrate your data anytime. You control the database.
- → GDPR and compliance. Hosting your own tools simplifies data residency and compliance requirements.
Browse more Security & Authentication tools
Explore 159 open-source security & authentication tools you can self-host.
View Security & Authentication →