To protect your petition forms from spam, the Petitioner plugin supports Google reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, and Cloudflare Turnstile. You can choose either depending on your preference and use case.
Note: do not try to use multiple at the same time
These captcha libraries are not meant to be used together and will cause conflicts if you try.
Which CAPTCHA should I choose?
If you’re unsure which provider to use, here is a quick breakdown to help you decide:
- Cloudflare Turnstile: Ideal for most websites, especially large organizations. It offers very generous free limits, is highly privacy-focused (no user tracking), and typically provides a frictionless experience without challenging users with image puzzles.
- Google reCAPTCHA v3: The most popular and proven solution. It works invisibly in the background to score traffic. However, it’s known to track user behavior across sites for its risk analysis, which might be a concern for strict privacy requirements.
- hCaptcha: A strong privacy-centric alternative to Google. A unique benefit is that website owners can optionally earn rewards when users solve challenges. It is great for privacy-conscious sites but often requires users to solve manual image puzzles more frequently than the others.
Configuring reCaptcha
First of, you will need to get your credentials.
- Go to https://www.google.com/recaptcha/admin/create and create a new reCaptcha instance. Add a label and use the v3 version of the captcha.
- Add your domain (e.g., example.com)
- Accept Terms and click Submit
- Copy your Site Key and Secret Key
Now that you have your credentials:
- Go to Petitioner → Settings →Integrations. Find Google reCAPTCHA v3 and click “Configure”
- Click “Enabled” to enable
- Enter your site key and the secret key.
- Close the popup and hit “Save Changes”
Configuring hCaptcha
Getting credentials is similar to reCAPTCHA:
- Go to: https://www.hcaptcha.com/
- Sign in and navigate to the Sites section
- Add a new site and domain
- Choose the difficulty level
- Copy your Site Key and Secret Key
Now lets add them to Petitioner:
- Go to Petitioner → Settings →Integrations. Find hCaptcha and click “Configure”
- Click “Enabled” to enable
- Enter your site key and the secret key.
- Close the popup and hit “Save Changes”
Configuring Cloudflare Turnstile
Turnstile is very similar to the above:
- Go to Cloudflare Turnstile Dashboard
- Navigate to Turnstile → Add site
- Add a new site and domain
- Choose “Managed” mode
- Copy your Site Key and Secret Key
Now lets add them to Petitioner:
- Go to Petitioner → Settings →Integrations. Find Cloudflare Turnstile and click “Configure”
- Click “Enabled”
- Enter your site key and the secret key.
- Close the popup and hit “Save Changes”