Contact Form 7 vs hCaptcha for WP
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| Feature | Contact Form 7 v6.2.3 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.0/5 Visit Details | hCaptcha for WP v5.4.1 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.6/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 10M+ | 70,000+ |
| Last updated | October 21, 2026 | October 5, 2026 |
| Editions | Contact Form 7 | hCaptcha for WP · hCaptcha Pro (hCaptcha account plans) ($) |
| Pros | Completely free, with no upsells in the code; Several spam options: Akismet, reCAPTCHA, Turnstile, quiz, disallowed list; Stripe payment field and Brevo contact sync built in | Protects logins, comments and many form plugins from one settings page; Migration wizard helps move off reCAPTCHA or Turnstile; Free core protection with no paid licence needed |
| Cons | No visual drag-and-drop builder; forms are markup; No conditional logic or multi-step forms without add-ons; Does not store submissions without Flamingo | Event statistics and custom themes need a paid hCaptcha account; Challenges depend on hCaptcha's external service; Optional GeoIP country database needs the user's own MaxMind licence key |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | — |
| Features (Form plugins checklist) | ||
| Drag-and-drop builder | No | No |
| Conditional logic | No | No |
| Multi-step forms | No | No |
| Payments | Yes | No |
| File upload | Yes | No |
| Calculations | No | No |
| Entries in admin | No | No |
| Spam protection | Yes | Yes |
| Free version | Yes | Yes |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Form-tag markup editor for fields and mail templates, Block editor contact form selector, REST API for forms and submission feedback, Quiz and Really Simple CAPTCHA tags, Spam check against the WordPress disallowed comment keys, Saves submissions to Flamingo when that plugin is active | Migration wizard from reCAPTCHA or Turnstile, Divi comment form protection, Custom captcha themes ($), Events statistics page ($), Optional plugin statistics sending, Profile Builder register and lost password protection |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe | — |
| Brevo (Sendinblue) | — | |
| Plugins | Akismet, Flamingo | WPForms, Contact Form 7, Divi |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile | MaxMind GeoIP |
| Requires WordPress | 7.1 | 6.0 |
| Requires PHP | 8.3 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | Only if you agree |
| External services | api.stripe.com, www.google.com, www.recaptcha.net, challenges.cloudflare.com, api.sendinblue.com | download.maxmind.com, a.hcaptcha.com, raw.githubusercontent.com |
| Blocks | 1 | — |
| Shortcodes | 2 | 1 |