Contact Form 7 Captcha by 247WD is a free WordPress plugin that lets users of Contact Form 7, who recently lost reCAPTCHA v2 functionality, to once again reintegrate the CAPTCHA 'not a robot’ checkbox to deter bots. Since bots are more advanced than ever before, we know they could be hacking into your site for user's data right now. This app offers a reliable solution to protecting your site from bots spamming your forms.

The plugin has more than 100,000 active installs, and the development team regularly issues updates. Contact Form 7 Captcha has been tested with WordPress version 5.8.1. The developers have built out a shortcode-based, super-light plugin. If you’re looking for forms with similar functionality, you can try Forminator.

Contact Form 7 and reCAPTCHA

Contact Form 7 is a WordPress plugin with over five million active installs. The tool specializes in quickly creating reliable and fun forms. However, CF7 stopped supporting reCAPTCHA v2. This plugin lets users continue to use the great forms they created with CF7 without turning to another form creator. 

Users will need to provide API keys from Google to activate Captcha on their sites. With the keys plugged into the plugin settings, users can integrate the provided shortcode on any form and update. After the configuration of the plugin, users will find they have functionality restored.

For those of you unfamiliar with CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA, it’s an acronym that stands for ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.’ 

CAPTCHA is the current best line of defense against black-hat hackers using bots to infiltrate sites and steal data or wreak havoc. Every website that has a sign-up feature or collects data with any form needs to protect themselves and their visitors.  

Protect your Sites

If you have built out several forms with CF7 and still want the checkbox verification feature, you don’t need to start from scratch. You can install and activate Contact Form 7 Captcha, and with a simple config, your forms, site, and visitors will be secure.

In essence, it increases security to your site and prevents spam registrations or interference with your posts.