OpenPorte

OpenPorte is a community-maintained fork of the retired ALTCHA Spam Protection plugin for WordPress (v1) - a free, open source, self-hostable, privacy-friendly CAPTCHA alternative.

Website: https://github.com/jcberthon/openporte

WordPress Plugin Directory: https://wordpress.org/plugins/openporte/

Tip

Need help? See SUPPORT.md.

Note

AI-assisted project. Architecture, security decisions, and final review are mine; AI tools (Claude, Mistral, and others) help with drafting code, tests, translations, and documentation — without them, one person couldn't keep this fork alive.

Why this fork?

The original ALTCHA WordPress plugin v1 was open source (GPLv2). Its authors released a v2/3 that is no longer open source, moved some previously-free features behind a paywall, and no longer maintain v1 (they recommend migrating to v2/3).

OpenPorte continues the v1 line as free software (GPLv2 or later), for people who want to stay on a fully open-source, self-hosted solution. It is based on the last GPL release of ALTCHA v1 (1.26.1).

OpenPorte uses the upstream ALTCHA widget (MIT-licensed) as a bundled dependency.

Compatibility

Backward-compatible with ALTCHA v1: settings migrate automatically (the original altcha_* options are left in place, so you can roll back), and the [altcha] shortcode, the altcha/v1 REST namespace and the altcha_* hooks keep working as deprecated aliases of their openporte equivalents. Integrations for paid-only plugins (e.g. Enfold) are also deprecated and will be removed.

Supported Integrations

• CoBlocks
• Contact Form 7
• Elementor Pro Forms (deprecated — paid plugin)
• Enfold Theme (deprecated — paid plugin)
• Formidable Forms
• Forminator
• GravityForms
• HTML Forms
• WPDiscuz
• WPForms
• WP-Members
• WordPress Login, Register, Password reset
• WordPress Comments
• WooCommerce
• Custom HTML (via the [openporte] shortcode, or the deprecated [altcha] alias)

Floating UI

The plugin supports the Floating UI but with known limitations:

Currently the Floating UI does not work with:

• Forminator with multi-step forms

Installation

WordPress.org Plugin Directory

OpenPorte is listed in the WordPress.org plugin directory. So you can install it directly from the admin UI on your site.

1. Open the WordPress admin UI
2. Under Plugins → Add Plugin, search for openporte
3. Install it and activate it.
4. Review the settings and enable your integrations

GitHub release

You can also download the GitHub release and install it via the WordPress admin UI.

1. Download the .zip from the Releases.
2. Under Plugins → Add Plugin, click Upload Plugin and select the downloaded .zip file.
3. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
4. Review the settings and enable your integrations

Modes of Operation

OpenPorte verifies submissions in one of two modes, selected in the settings (API Mode):

• Self-hosted (default) — a proof-of-work challenge is issued and verified by your own WordPress site via the REST API. Fully self-contained, no external service, no account.
• Custom — point the Challenge URL at your own ALTCHA-compatible backend (e.g. a self-hosted ALTCHA Sentinel); submissions are verified with your site's signing secret.

The paid altcha.org regional SaaS classifier offered by earlier versions has been removed; both remaining modes are free and self-hostable.

REST API

This plugin requires the WordPress REST API. If you are using any "Disable REST API" plugins, ensure that the endpoint /altcha/v1/challenge (now deprecated) and /openporte/v1/challenge is allowed.

Hooks

The plugin provides several hooks to customize or extend its functionality. Each hook below is also fired under its old altcha_* name as a deprecated alias (via WordPress' deprecated-hook mechanism); use the openporte_* names.

Filters

• apply_filters('openporte_challenge_url', $challenge_url)
  Override the challenge URL.
  Returns: string

• apply_filters('openporte_integrations', $integrations)
  Modify the list of available integrations. Supported values: captcha, captcha_spamfilter, shortcode.
  Returns: array<string>

• apply_filters('openporte_plugin_active', false, $name)
  Check if an integration by $name is active.
  Returns: bool

• apply_filters('openporte_widget_attrs', $attrs, $mode, $language, $name)
  Override widget attributes.
  Returns: array<string, mixed>

• apply_filters('openporte_widget_html', $html, $mode, $language, $name)
  Override the entire widget HTML.
  Returns: string

• apply_filters('openporte_translations', $translations, $language)
  Override translation strings.
  Returns: array<string, string>

Actions

• do_action('openporte_verify_result', $result)
  Triggered after payload verification.

  • $result: bool verification result.

  • Full server verification payload is available via:

    OpenPortePlugin::$instance->spamfilter_result

License

GPLv2 - see LICENSE