The Friendly Captcha alternative with mobile, China & fallback
Same EU-grade privacy posture. Plus native iOS / Android / Flutter SDKs, mainland China endpoints, and a real visible challenge for the bots POW can't stop.
Why teams switch
Proof-of-work only — no challenge fallback
Friendly Captcha relies entirely on browser-side proof-of-work hashing. Real users see nothing, which is great — but sophisticated bots can pay the POW cost too. There's no visible challenge to escalate to. CaptchaLa adds adaptive challenge as a second line.
POW costs your users' battery and CPU
POW solves run on your user's device. On older phones and low-end laptops, the few seconds of background compute add up — especially when a user fills multiple forms. The privacy is paid for by their hardware.
Web-only — no mobile SDK
Friendly Captcha is a JavaScript widget. There's no native iOS, Android, or Flutter SDK. If you ship a mobile app, you'll need a different solution there. CaptchaLa covers web and mobile with one product.
Small team, single-region focus
Friendly Captcha is a small, focused EU team — that's both a feature and a constraint. Edge presence is EU-strong, less so elsewhere. Mainland China is not on the roadmap. Support hours are EU business hours.
How CaptchaLa compares
| CaptchaLa | Friendly Captcha | |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy posture | No tracking | No tracking (POW-based) |
| Mobile SDK | iOS, Android, Flutter | None — web only |
| Mainland China availability | Native endpoints | Limited |
| Challenge fallback | Adaptive — visible challenge available | POW only — no fallback |
| User device cost | Minimal | POW = CPU & battery |
| Plugin coverage | WordPress, Flarum, WooCommerce | WordPress (community) |
| Entry pricing | $14/mo Pro | €39/mo Starter (concede — they're higher) |
Outgrowing Friendly Captcha's coverage? Switch in 10 minutes.
Keep the privacy posture, gain mobile SDKs, mainland China, and visible challenge fallback.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't Friendly Captcha the most privacy-pure option?
Their stance is genuinely strict — POW means no tokens, no fingerprinting, nothing crossing to a third party in the literal sense. CaptchaLa is the same in practice (we don't track or fingerprint either), but Friendly's architecture makes the privacy claim auditable in a way that's worth respecting. If your team's gating criterion is 'auditable by a privacy attorney,' Friendly is a fair pick.
Why mention they're a small team?
Honestly, because it matters for some buyers. A small EU team is a feature if you value tight focus and don't need 24h global support. It's a risk if you need SLAs with named contacts across timezones, mobile platform coverage, or APAC reach. We're being upfront about it.
Will CaptchaLa cost more than Friendly at low volume?
Our Pro plan starts at $14/mo, Friendly's Starter at €39/mo, so we're cheaper at the entry tier — but at the smallest scale, our free tier (1,000 verifs/mo) often covers most needs. At higher volume the published per-tier pricing diverges; we're typically less, but it depends on traffic shape.