head to head · open source
Cap vs Friendly Captcha
Cap has 8,236 GitHub stars, 637 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Friendly Captcha has 37 stars, 17 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cap leads on adoption by 22,159% (8,236 vs 37 stars). Cap is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Friendly Captcha is written in TypeScript under MPL-2.0. Cap has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Friendly Captcha 46%. Friendly Captcha was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (anti-bot, captcha, proof-of-work), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Cap | Friendly Captcha | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.2K | ★ 37 |
| License | Custom / other | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 637 | ⑂ 17 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cap if
- You weight community size — 8.2K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Friendly Captcha if
- You want the Friendly Captcha feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Friendly Captcha fits your workflow better
About Cap
Cap Cap is a lightweight, modern open source CAPTCHA alternative using proof of work and instrumentation challenges . It's fast, private, and extremely simple to integrate. Documentation Read the docs , try the demo or deploy on Railway What is Cap? Cap replaces visual captchas with modern, accessible and privacy preserving challenges. No images, no tracking, no dependencies, works everywhere. The default way to use Cap is with the Standalone Docker container. Learn more about how Cap works Why Cap? 250x smaller than hCaptcha 20kb, zero dependencies, loads in milliseconds Privacy first Cap doesn't send any…
About Friendly Captcha
Friendly Captcha SDK The SDK that is used to integrate Friendly Captcha v2 into your website. This is the code that runs on your website, inserting the captcha widget. ☝️ This is the SDK for Friendly Captcha v2 only . If you are looking for the v1 SDK, you can find that here. Installation You can then use it in your library. CommonJS You can also require the SDK if your environment uses CommonJS. Documentation The documentation can be found in our Developer Hub, and the Getting Started guide. Development If you want to develop this SDK itself the following commands are useful sdktest We include more proper end…
read the full Friendly Captcha overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cap or Friendly Captcha more popular?
Cap has 8,236 GitHub stars and Friendly Captcha has 37. Cap has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cap and Friendly Captcha free?
Both are open source. Cap has no licence declared in this registry, and Friendly Captcha is licensed under MPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Cap and Friendly Captcha?
Cap is written in JavaScript and Friendly Captcha in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Cap or Friendly Captcha?
Choose Cap if you want the larger community (8,236 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Friendly Captcha if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.