Friendly Captcha

Friendly Captcha is a privacy-first bot-protection widget run by Friendly Captcha GmbH in Wörthsee, near Munich, founded in 2020 by Benedict Padberg and Guido Zuidhof. It uses a proof-of-work challenge that the visitor's browser solves silently in the background — no image puzzles, no behavioural tracking, and no cookies — and is built and hosted entirely inside the EU so visitor data never leaves the bloc. The widget integrates with most major web frameworks, CMSs and form builders, and ships with a documented API and verification endpoint. Pricing runs from a free tier for low-volume use up to paid plans for higher request volumes; an enterprise tier with a signed DPA is available for regulated buyers.