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Open source maintainers grappling with bot attacks and spam now have a powerful ally: Friendly Captcha has launched Friendly Captcha for Open Source, a free security tier explicitly designed for non-commercial projects. This initiative delivers the company's Advanced plan capabilities—including protection for up to 50 domains and 50,000 monthly requests—at no cost, representing an annual value of €2,400.

The offering directly tackles a critical pain point in open source development. As Friendly Captcha stated: "Open source is the bedrock of software development, yet these projects often lack the budget to defend against abuse and unwanted traffic." By removing financial barriers, the company aims to fortify vulnerable codebases against credential stuffing, comment spam, and brute-force attacks that frequently target public repositories.

Unlike traditional CAPTCHAs that frustrate users with image puzzles, Friendly Captcha employs privacy-focused cryptographic challenges that run in the background. The solution integrates seamlessly via SDKs for frameworks like React, Vue, and WordPress—critical for resource-constrained maintainers.

Eligible projects must be non-commercial, publicly licensed, and community-driven. Applications are open through Friendly Captcha's dedicated portal, where maintainers can validate their project's fit for the program. This strategic move underscores how security providers can tangibly support the open source ecosystem beyond code contributions.

Source: Friendly Captcha for Open Source