head to head · open source
Unleash vs Private Captcha
Unleash has 13,924 GitHub stars, 919 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Private Captcha has 199 stars, 8 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Unleash leads on adoption by 6,897% (13,924 vs 199 stars). Unleash is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Private Captcha is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Unleash has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Private Captcha 4%. Unleash was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Unleash | Private Captcha | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 199 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 919 | ⑂ 8 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Unleash if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Private Captcha if
- You want the Private Captcha feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Private Captcha fits your workflow better
About Unleash
Launch the live demo Try Unleash Enterprise for free What is Unleash? Unleash is a powerful open source solution for feature management. It streamlines your development workflow, accelerates software delivery, and empowers teams to control how and when they roll out new features to end users. With Unleash, you can deploy code to production in smaller, more manageable releases at your own pace. Feature flags in Unleash let you test your code with real production data, reducing the risk of negatively impacting your users' experience. It also enables your team to work on multiple features simultaneously without the…
read the full Unleash overview →
About Private Captcha
Private Captcha is an independent, privacy first, self hostable Proof of Work CAPTCHA service made in EU. About Project goals provide powerful means to fight bots, including AI scrapers, and spam even as AI improves make web a slightly better place by replacing existing frustrating CAPTCHAs stay focused on privacy and GDPR compliance as well as on prem deployment provide stable, backward compatible and reliable API and integrations be sustainable financially to fulfill previous goals long enough Features adaptive challenge difficulty (including various configuration options) optimized backend (low resource…
read the full Private Captcha overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Unleash or Private Captcha more popular?
Unleash has 13,924 GitHub stars and Private Captcha has 199. Unleash has the larger community by that measure.
Are Unleash and Private Captcha free?
Both are open source. Unleash is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Private Captcha has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Unleash and Private Captcha?
Unleash is written in TypeScript and Private Captcha in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Unleash or Private Captcha?
Choose Unleash if you want the larger community (13,924 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Private Captcha if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.