ZeroBot vs Google reCAPTCHA
Google's CAPTCHA — friction at checkout, zero visibility.
Who is Google reCAPTCHA?
reCAPTCHA v2 shows "I'm not a robot" checkboxes and image grids. v3 runs silently and returns a score. Enterprise (reCAPTCHA Enterprise) adds dashboards and reason codes but costs $1 per 1,000 calls after the first 10K. All of it feeds Google's ad-tech machine.
Pricing: Free up to 10K assessments/month, then $1 per 1,000 (Enterprise). Standard v2/v3 is free but you hand visitor data to Google.
Feature comparison
Side-by-side on the things customers actually ask about.
| Feature | ZeroBot | Google reCAPTCHA |
|---|---|---|
| Blocks bots before page load | ✓ | — |
| No Google tracking on visitors | ✓ | — |
| Scores visible in your dashboard | ✓ | Partial |
| Works without third-party cookies | ✓ | — |
| Full request log + IP intel | ✓ | — |
| No checkbox friction | ✓ | Partial |
| Pay per domain, not per check | ✓ | — |
| Silent mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mobile-friendly | ✓ | ✓ |
| Country / ASN filters | ✓ | — |
| Whitelist & blacklist rules | ✓ | — |
Why teams choose ZeroBot over Google reCAPTCHA
You keep your visitor data
reCAPTCHA is a Google data pipe. Every site that loads it gives Google another behavioral fingerprint of its users. ZeroBot doesn't sell ads, doesn't cross-reference visitors with anything, and doesn't run outside your own dashboard.
Bots blocked before your backend runs
reCAPTCHA fires at form submit — the bot already scraped your site. ZeroBot screens on page load, so scrapers never get the HTML.
Real analytics, not a mystery score
reCAPTCHA v3 returns a number from 0 to 1. You have no idea why. ZeroBot shows the IP, ISP, ASN, country, reason, and signals for every blocked request — in your dashboard.
No checkbox pain
Even v3 sometimes falls back to image grids on "suspicious" traffic. ZeroBot's soft-challenge flow is invisible to humans with normal browsers.
One flat price
reCAPTCHA Enterprise starts cheap and scales with traffic. ZeroBot's plans are predictable — you pay for domains you protect, not per visitor check.
Verdict: reCAPTCHA is a form-submission check owned by an ad company. ZeroBot is a full visitor firewall you own the data on. If you care about privacy, debuggable decisions, or blocking scrapers before they read your page, ZeroBot wins on all three.
Try ZeroBot free
No credit card. 5 authorized domains on the starter plan. Activate in under 3 minutes.
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