European Alternatives to HUMAN Security
Looking for a European alternative to HUMAN Security? HUMAN Security, Inc. is a US company, so teams that want a vendor outside US jurisdiction, or a bot defense with published prices and a self-hosted option, look at European providers.
The European tools below cover form CAPTCHAs (Friendly Captcha, Captcha.eu, ALTCHA), site and API bot management (Netacea, Prosopo, Myra Security, Link11) and open-source form spam filtering (mosparo).
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA, the UK, Switzerland or Israel, and processes customer data in Europe or Israel. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
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9 European Alternatives to HUMAN Security
Friendly Captcha
Invisible proof-of-work CAPTCHA with no cookies or image puzzles
Captcha.eu
GDPR-focused invisible or one-click CAPTCHA from Vienna
ALTCHA
Open-source CAPTCHA widget with self-hosted or EU cloud verification
Netacea
Agentless server-side bot and AI agent trust management
Prosopo
Procaptcha for forms plus Protect for site-wide and API defence
Myra Security
German web security platform with a bot management module
Link11
German DDoS and web security suite with a bot management module
mosparo
Open-source, rule-based spam protection for web forms
Bunny Shield
Security add-on of the bunny.net CDN: WAF, flood and brute-force rules
Key takeaways
- HUMAN Security, Inc. is a United States company, so its customers' visitor data sits under US law regardless of where it is hosted.
- Netacea (Manchester) and Prosopo (London) are the European-based tools aimed at site-wide and API bot management, and both are in the United Kingdom, outside the EU.
- Myra Security (Munich) and Link11 (Frankfurt) are German vendors that bundle bot management with DDoS protection and a WAF, and both quote enterprise prices on request.
- Captcha.eu publishes net prices from €8.90 a month, while mosparo, from a Swiss association, is free and self-hosted.
- ALTCHA publishes its widget under the MIT licence, and its Sentinel server can run air-gapped.
Why people leave HUMAN Security
HUMAN Security, Inc. is a United States company that sells bot defense: software that decides, request by request, whether a visitor to a website, login or API is a person or a script. Typical problems for this kind of product are scraping, fake account creation and credential stuffing seen in traffic logs.
The reasons to look elsewhere are mostly about jurisdiction and fit. A bot defense vendor sees visitor IP addresses, device and request signals for every protected page, which is personal data under GDPR. When the vendor is a US-incorporated company, that data stays reachable under US law, such as the CLOUD Act, whichever data centre holds it. Some buyers accept that with the right contract, and others want the processor inside EU or UK law.
The second reason is size. A bot defense platform built for large traffic volumes is more than a ten-page site with one contact form needs, and a form CAPTCHA or a self-hosted spam filter costs far less to run. This page does not describe HUMAN's pricing, terms or product list, because its own pages could not be opened when we checked on 13 November 2026. Read those on the vendor's site before you compare.
- US jurisdiction over visitor data HUMAN Security, Inc. is headquartered in the United States, so the contracting entity is a US company. Bot detection works on IP addresses and request signals, which are personal data for your visitors. A European provider such as Myra Security, Link11 or Friendly Captcha is established in Germany, so the contracting entity is a German company under EU law, not a US-incorporated one.
- Published prices instead of a sales conversation Several European tools list what they cost. Captcha.eu starts at €8.90 a month net of VAT, ALTCHA Cloud at €47 a month for three sites, Prosopo has a free plan with 10,000 requests a month, and mosparo is free. Enterprise vendors in this group, Netacea, Myra Security and Link11, still quote per engagement, so published prices only help if your problem is a form, not a whole site.
- Self-hosting is possible ALTCHA Sentinel runs on your own infrastructure, including air-gapped setups, and mosparo installs on ordinary web hosting with form entries kept on your server. For organisations whose security policy says visitor data may not leave their own network, that is a different category of answer than a hosted bot defense service, whoever operates it.
- A smaller tool for a smaller problem If the bots on your site mostly fill in contact, comment or registration forms, a cookie-free CAPTCHA does that job. Friendly Captcha, Captcha.eu and ALTCHA each state that they set no cookies, which can simplify the consent banner. The trade-off is scope: they protect the form, not the login, the API or the product catalogue.
What you have to replace, not just match
What you replace depends on where HUMAN sits in your stack. If it protects a login, checkout or API, you replace a detection layer that sees all traffic, plus the rules, allow-lists and alerts your team built around it. Among the European tools, Netacea (server-side, agentless), Prosopo Protect (site-wide and API protection from its Enterprise plan), Myra Security and Link11 (bot management inside a DDoS and WAF suite) work at that level.
If it only guards forms, the replacement is a widget and a server-side verification call. Friendly Captcha, Captcha.eu, ALTCHA and mosparo all fit, and Captcha.eu ships plugins for seven CMS and platforms. Inventory first: list every page and endpoint HUMAN protects, which actions it blocks and which it merely scores, and which downstream systems read its signals, such as fraud tools, analytics filters or an identity provider.
Do not assume a one-to-one match. A CAPTCHA decides at the moment of submission, while traffic-level bot management watches behaviour across requests. Replacing the second with the first removes coverage, even if the form spam stops.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Friendly Captcha | Munich, Germany | Free tier / from €9 per month | EU (Germany) |
| #2 | Captcha.eu | Vienna, Austria | Starter €8.90 per month (1 protected website, up to 1,000 requests a month), Growth €35.90 per month (5 websites, up to 10,000 requests), Advanced €179.90 per month (10 websites, up to 100,000 requests); yearly billing is 10% cheaper at €96.12, €387.72 and €1,942.92 per year. All prices are net, excluding VAT. Custom plan for large companies on request. 100 free verification requests to try, no credit card required. | EU (Austria) |
| #3 | ALTCHA | Brno, Czechia | Cloud from €47 per month (3 sites, 30-day free trial); Cloud Plus €137; Cloud Max €187; Sentinel and plugin prices not shown | EU (Czech Republic) |
| #4 | Netacea | Manchester, United Kingdom | Enterprise pricing on request; quoted per engagement | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #5 | Prosopo | London, United Kingdom | Free $0 (10,000 requests a month); Professional $139 per month (1M requests); Enterprise from $1,990 per month; Custom from $3,300 per month | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #6 | Myra Security | Munich, Germany | Enterprise pricing on request | EU (Germany) |
| #7 | Link11 | Frankfurt, Germany | Enterprise pricing on request | EU (Germany) |
| #8 | mosparo | Mellingen, Switzerland | Free and open source (MIT licence); no paid plan listed | Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #9 | Bunny.net | Ljubljana, Slovenia | Pay-as-you-go from about €0.01/GB | EU (Slovenia) |
How each alternative compares to HUMAN Security
Friendly Captcha
Cookie-free proof-of-work CAPTCHA that replaces form protection, not site-wide bot defense
Best for: Websites that want invisible form protection from a German vendor without cookies or image puzzles
Against HUMAN Security, Friendly Captcha is a narrower product with a different mechanism. The visitor's browser solves a small cryptographic puzzle in the background, which makes mass form submissions expensive for a bot. The vendor states that it uses no cookies and no user tracking, and the company is based in Munich, so GDPR applies directly.
Where a US bot defense vendor scores traffic across a whole site, Friendly Captcha stands at the form. A free tier exists and paid plans are listed from €9 a month. Proof-of-work raises the price of abuse without ruling it out, and it can cost some battery on mobile devices, which matters if your forms are filled in mostly on phones.
What Friendly Captcha does better than HUMAN Security
- Contracting entity in Germany, not a US company
- Free tier and prices listed from €9 a month
- No cookies and no user tracking, per the vendor
- Invisible to visitors, with no puzzle to solve
Where Friendly Captcha is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Protects forms, not logins, APIs or catalogue pages
- Raises the cost of abuse instead of blocking it
- Server side is proprietary, and self-hosting is listed on the Enterprise plan only
Standout against HUMAN Security. It checks visitors with a background puzzle solved by their own device, so no one is asked to click anything.
Captcha.eu
Austrian-hosted CAPTCHA with published net prices and a TÜV Austria accessibility certificate
Best for: Sites on common CMS platforms that want a small, predictable bill and Austrian hosting
Captcha.eu works at the same point as a CAPTCHA always does: it checks a visitor when a form is submitted, either invisibly or with a one-click widget. Captcha GmbH in Vienna states that all plans are hosted in Austria and that it sets no cookies and tracks no end users. Against HUMAN Security, the difference is who runs it and under which law.
Prices are published net of VAT, from €8.90 a month for one site and 1,000 requests to €179.90 for ten sites and 100,000 requests, and official plugins exist for WordPress, TYPO3, Joomla, Keycloak, Magento, Craft CMS and Neos. TÜV Austria awarded the application a silver accessibility certificate, scoped to its test page. Volumes above 100,000 requests a month need a custom quote.
What Captcha.eu does better than HUMAN Security
- Austrian entity and Austrian hosting
- Net prices on the pricing page from €8.90 a month
- Accessibility certificate (WCAG 2.2 AA) for the widget
- Plugins for seven CMS and platforms
Where Captcha.eu is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Plans stop at 100,000 requests a month, beyond that custom quote
- Form checks only, no site-wide traffic analysis
- No permanent free plan, only 100 free requests
Standout against HUMAN Security. It is the only option here with a TÜV Austria accessibility certificate for the widget.
Best for: Developers and agencies who want to read the client code and choose where verification runs
ALTCHA is built by BAU Software s.r.o. in Brno and comes in three forms: an MIT-licensed widget on GitHub, the Sentinel server for your own infrastructure, and a managed cloud with EU-only endpoints. Against a hosted US bot defense service, the main difference is control. You can inspect the widget, and with Sentinel verification data never leaves your network, including in air-gapped setups.
Cloud plans are priced by site count: €47 a month for three sites with a 30-day free trial, €137 for ten, €187 for fifty. The widget needs JavaScript, the vendor does not show Sentinel or plugin prices, and the pages do not state who owns the company. It protects forms and does not replace traffic-level bot management.
What ALTCHA does better than HUMAN Security
- Widget source is open and inspectable
- Self-hosted Sentinel, including air-gapped setups
- EU-only cloud endpoints and a 30-day trial
- Czech contracting entity named in its terms, not a US company
Where ALTCHA is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Self-hosted pricing is not shown
- Cloud plans cap the number of sites at 3, 10 or 50
- Does not replace traffic-level bot management
Standout against HUMAN Security. It pairs an open-source widget with a Sentinel server that can run on your own air-gapped servers.
Best for: Enterprise teams with scraping, credential stuffing or API abuse who want detection without an agent on the site
Netacea is the entry on this page that most directly replaces a bot defense platform such as HUMAN Security. The Manchester company detects bots server-side without installing an agent on the protected site, and responds automatically instead of queuing alerts for a human reviewer. The tool page lists PerimeterX/HUMAN among the products it replaces.
Netacea Limited is registered in England and Wales and its contracts are governed by English law. That moves you out of US jurisdiction but not into the EU: the United Kingdom is outside the EEA and data flows rely on an adequacy decision. Pricing is quoted per engagement, and the product is bot management only, so a CDN or WAF stays in place beside it.
What Netacea does better than HUMAN Security
- UK contracting entity, not a US company
- Agentless detection with nothing to deploy on the site
- Autonomous response without manual review
- English-law contracts and a named jurisdiction
Where Netacea is a step down from HUMAN Security
- No published pricing, quoted per engagement
- UK is outside the EEA, adequacy decision only
- Not a CDN or WAF, so it adds a vendor
Standout against HUMAN Security. Detection and response run entirely on the vendor side, with no code on the protected site.
Best for: Teams that want to try form protection at no cost and keep the option of API defence from the same vendor
Prosopo Limited, registered in London in 2021, has two products. Procaptcha is the form CAPTCHA with a spam filter, and Prosopo Protect adds site-wide and API protection with access rules, starting at the Enterprise plan from $1,990 a month on a 12-month term. That ladder gives a team a way to move from forms to wider coverage without changing vendor.
The free plan covers 10,000 requests a month for one site, forms only. Prices are in US dollars with EUR and GBP switches, and the Professional price differs between the plan card ($139) and the comparison table, so confirm it. Certifications and data residency were not verified, and Companies House lists two individuals as persons with significant control.
What Prosopo does better than HUMAN Security
- UK company with a named register entry, not a US vendor
- Free plan with 10,000 requests a month
- Forms, API and site-wide protection under one vendor
- Edge deployment on Cloudflare Workers and AWS Lambda@Edge
Where Prosopo is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Site-wide and API protection start at Enterprise pricing
- Certifications and data residency not verified
- UK is outside the EU, and prices are in US dollars
Standout against HUMAN Security. It offers a free CAPTCHA and a path to API protection under one contract.
Myra Security
German DDoS, WAF and CDN stack with bot management for certified, sovereign deployments
Best for: German and European public bodies, critical infrastructure and regulated firms that must document their supply chain
Myra Security approaches bot protection from the network edge. The Munich company, founded in 2012, runs its own CDN, DDoS mitigation, WAF and DNS security, and treats bot management as a module in that stack. Against a stand-alone bot defense vendor, you get one German supplier for the traffic path instead of several.
The tool page lists BSI certification, ISO 27001 on the basis of IT-Grundschutz and a BSI C5 Type 2 attestation, with infrastructure and staff with customer access in Germany. According to the vendor, its network exceeds 50 Tbps of scrubbing capacity. Pricing is enterprise on request with no self-serve entry, so it is poorly suited to a small site that only needs to stop form spam.
What Myra Security does better than HUMAN Security
- German entity and German-only infrastructure, per the vendor
- BSI certification and C5 attestation for audit files
- CDN, DDoS, WAF and bot management in one contract
- One vendor for the whole traffic path
Where Myra Security is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Enterprise pricing and a sales cycle before evaluation
- Network and capacity figures are vendor claims
- Overspend for a small marketing site
Standout against HUMAN Security. It combines bot management with BSI C5 Type 2 attestation and German-only infrastructure.
Best for: Enterprises that want bot filtering, a WAF and DDoS protection from a single Frankfurt vendor
Link11 is a Frankfurt company founded in 2005, and its bot management is one part of a suite that also covers DDoS protection, a WAF, API security, a secure CDN and DNS protection. The vendor says the bot module filters scraping, credential stuffing and inventory hoarding while letting search engine crawlers through. Against a bot defense specialist, that is a wider package.
The vendor states mitigation within 0 to 10 seconds, two security operation centers, 13 scrubbing centers and over 40 points of presence, and the tool page lists ISO 27001 and BSI qualification. Those are vendor figures. Prices are on request, and a buyer who wants only bot detection pays for a suite.
What Link11 does better than HUMAN Security
- German entity, with traffic processed on European infrastructure per the vendor
- Bot management, WAF and DDoS protection share one platform
- ISO 27001 and BSI qualification listed
- Always-on mitigation with no manual activation
Where Link11 is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Enterprise pricing, no self-serve entry
- Bot management is a module, not a stand-alone product
- Capacity and speed numbers are vendor claims
Standout against HUMAN Security. It puts bot filtering inside an always-on DDoS and WAF suite from a single German company.
Best for: Small sites with contact, comment or registration forms that want a free filter on their own server
mosparo is the smallest tool on this page and a different kind of thing from HUMAN Security: a rule-based filter for web forms run by the mosparo Association, a non-profit in Mellingen, Switzerland. Switzerland is in Europe but outside the EU. It checks what was submitted against rules, using form data, the IP address and the user agent, and the homepage states that it sets no cookies.
The code is MIT-licensed and installs on regular web hosting, so submissions stay on your server, and form entries are stored encrypted for 14 days in the demo consent text. The cost is upkeep: the site owner maintains the rules, no paid support plan is listed and no company stands behind it. It does not cover logins, APIs or traffic-level bots.
What mosparo does better than HUMAN Security
- Free, with open MIT-licensed source code
- Submissions stay on a server you control
- No puzzle for visitors and no cookies, per the homepage
- Run by a Swiss association, not a US company
Where mosparo is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Covers form spam only, not logins, APIs or catalogue pages
- Rules need maintenance by you
- No paid support plan and no service agreement
Standout against HUMAN Security. It is free and keeps every submission on your own server, with no vendor contract.
Best for: Sites that already deliver content through bunny.net and want WAF and flood rules on the same account
Bunny.net, run by Bunny CDN d.o.o. in Ljubljana, is a CDN first and a bot protection option only through its Bunny Shield add-on, which offers WAF, flood and brute-force rules. Against HUMAN Security it is a different category: it applies to traffic that passes through bunny.net and is not a stand-alone bot defense product.
The core service is pay-as-you-go delivery from about €0.01 per GB, with more than 110 points of presence. It is a good fit if you are moving a site to a European CDN anyway. It has no edge computing, and the tool page notes that enterprise contracts and dedicated support are limited.
What Bunny.net does better than HUMAN Security
- Slovenian entity, EU jurisdiction for request logs
- Pay-as-you-go pricing from about €0.01 per GB
Where Bunny.net is a step down from HUMAN Security
- Security covers only sites served through bunny.net
Standout against HUMAN Security. It adds WAF and flood rules to a pay-as-you-go European CDN.
What actually breaks when you switch
The first break is detection history. A bot defense vendor tunes its model on your traffic over months, and a replacement starts without that history, so expect a period of higher false positives or more bot leakage. Run the new tool in a monitoring or logging mode first where it supports one, and keep the old one active on the most exposed endpoints until the numbers match.
The second is integration. Fraud systems, analytics filters, WAF rules and login flows may consume the incumbent's scores or headers, and a CAPTCHA returns a pass or fail instead. Check contract terms, notice periods and the renewal date before you plan the cutover, update the privacy notice and cookie text, and test the new widget with a screen reader and on an older phone. Accessibility problems and JavaScript failures show up as lost form submissions.
Is a CAPTCHA enough to replace HUMAN Security?
Only if HUMAN protects forms. A CAPTCHA such as Friendly Captcha, Captcha.eu or ALTCHA verifies the visitor when a form is submitted. It does not watch how a session behaves across pages, and it does not protect an API that has no form.
If your traffic problem is scraping, credential stuffing or abuse of an API, shortlist Netacea, Prosopo Protect, Myra Security or Link11, and treat a CAPTCHA as an extra layer on selected forms, not as the replacement.
Does moving to a UK or Swiss vendor take me out of US jurisdiction?
Yes for the vendor entity: Netacea Limited and Prosopo Limited are UK companies, and mosparo is run by a Swiss association, so none of them is a US-incorporated company. Be precise about the legal basis, though. The UK and Switzerland are outside the EU, and data transfers to them rest on EU adequacy decisions.
If you want the vendor itself inside the EU, the options on this page are Friendly Captcha (Germany), Captcha.eu (Austria), ALTCHA (Czechia), Myra Security (Germany), Link11 (Germany) and Bunny.net (Slovenia).
Which one to pick
For forms, pick by operating model. Friendly Captcha suits a site that wants invisible protection and accepts proof-of-work. Captcha.eu suits a buyer who wants published net prices, Austrian hosting and an accessibility certificate. ALTCHA suits a team that wants the code open and verification on its own servers, and mosparo suits a small site that can maintain rules and wants to pay nothing.
For site-wide and API problems, shortlist Netacea or Prosopo Protect if a UK vendor is acceptable. If you need an EU-established vendor with certifications, Myra Security or Link11 bundle bot management with DDoS and WAF protection for enterprise budgets. Bunny.net only makes sense if your content already runs through it. Because HUMAN's own pages could not be read for this page, check what it does for you today against each shortlisted tool's own documentation.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on what HUMAN protects for you. For site-wide and API bot management, Netacea and Prosopo Protect are the closest European fits, and Myra Security and Link11 add bot management to a DDoS and WAF suite. For forms, Friendly Captcha, Captcha.eu and ALTCHA are the cookie-free options, and mosparo is the free self-hosted one.
Friendly Captcha (Munich), Captcha.eu (Vienna), ALTCHA (Brno), Myra Security (Munich), Link11 (Frankfurt) and Bunny.net (Ljubljana) are established in EU member states. Netacea (Manchester) and Prosopo (London) are UK companies, and mosparo is run by an association in Mellingen, Switzerland. Both countries are outside the EU.
Yes, with two of them. ALTCHA publishes its widget under the MIT licence and offers the Sentinel server for your own infrastructure, including air-gapped setups, though its price is not shown. mosparo is free, MIT-licensed and installs on regular web hosting. Both cover form protection, not traffic-level bot management.
Captcha.eu lists €8.90 a month for one site and 1,000 requests, up to €179.90 for ten sites and 100,000 requests, net of VAT. ALTCHA Cloud starts at €47 a month for three sites. Prosopo offers a free plan and lists Professional at $139 a month on its plan card, and mosparo is free. Netacea, Myra Security and Link11 quote per engagement.
The EU-based vendors fall under GDPR directly, and the UK and Swiss ones under equivalent national law. Several state that they use no cookies, but those are vendor statements. Captcha.eu says its GDPR compliance is self-declared, so sign a data processing agreement with whichever vendor you pick.
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