What is Captcha?

If you are struggling with spam on your forms, Formidable Forms offers a straightforward solution to adding anti-spam protection. This guide explores the CAPTCHA options to help you choose the most suitable spam protection for your forms.

CAPTCHA is an acronym for the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. It is a test to know whether a user is a human or a bot. By adding a CAPTCHA to your forms, you can reduce spam submissions.

There are different types of CAPTCHA integrations: Google reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, and Cloudflare Turnstile. These are all available with any version of Formidable Forms, including Formidable Forms Lite.

Field options

A Captcha field has the following options. Field description, Captcha Size, Captcha Theme, Visibility, Label position, and Field key are under Advanced, so click Advanced to show them. Captcha Size and Captcha Theme are covered in Field-specific options.

• Field label
• CSS layout classes
• Field description
• Label position
• Field key

• Visibility
• Conditional logic

Field-specific options

Captcha theme

The Captcha Theme dropdown in the Advanced section of the Captcha field options sets a Light or Dark theme for the captcha. Light is the default. Turnstile also offers Auto, which follows the visitor's light or dark device setting.

This option doesn't appear when reCAPTCHA is the captcha type and its reCAPTCHA type is Invisible or v3 in Global Settings → Captcha/Spam.

Captcha size

The Captcha Size dropdown in the Advanced section of the field options sets the size of the captcha to Normal or Compact. Normal is the default. The compact option is best if your form is in a small area.

This option doesn't appear when reCAPTCHA is the captcha type and its reCAPTCHA type is Invisible or v3 in Global Settings → Captcha/Spam.

How to add Captcha to your form

To protect a form from spam submissions, set up your captcha keys and then add a Captcha field to the form.

Step 1: Generate API keys

1. If you haven't already, create an account for your chosen CAPTCHA service.
2. Generate the necessary API keys (site key and secret key) for integration with your site. Learn how to generate API keys for Google reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, or Cloudflare Turnstile.

Step 2: Set up Captcha settings

1. Go to Formidable → Global Settings → Captcha/Spam.
2. Under Select captcha type, click your preferred captcha service. It applies to every form that has a Captcha field.
   

   

   • reCAPTCHA. It is a well-known option that often displays challenges, like identifying objects in images. It is available at no cost for basic usage, but it does gather user data to enhance Google's services.
   • hCaptcha. It is similar to reCAPTCHA, with challenges. It offers a free tier with a privacy focus and claims a strong defense against sophisticated bots.
   • Turnstile. A free tool from Cloudflare that works behind the scenes without any challenges for most users. It relies on advanced detection to identify bots.
3. Then, enter your keys in the Site key and Secret key boxes. They are in the settings section for your selected service, such as hCaptcha settings.
   

   

   The settings section stays open until both keys are saved. After that, click its name to view or change your keys.
4. Click Update to save your changes.

Step 3: Add CAPTCHA to form

Now that you have added the keys to your Formidable settings, it is time to add a captcha to your form.

1. First, create a form in the same way as other Formidable Forms.
2. In the form builder, find the Captcha field and drag it into your form.
   

   

   If the field shows the notice "This field is not set up yet", no site key is saved for your selected captcha type. Add your keys in Step 2.
3. Click Update to save the form. On a new form, this button is Save.
4. Publish the form on a page. The Captcha field shows on the published form and protects it from spam submissions.