OptionWeb

OW Forms is a modern WordPress form builder for sites that prioritize performance, accessibility, and GDPR compliance. Built by OptionWeb for production use on client sites, it ships with a JSON-driven schema engine, a REST-based submission pipeline, and a curated set of 16 field types — text, email, tel, URL, number, textarea, select, radio, checkbox, checkbox-group, date, time, datetime, file upload, hidden, and rating — plus auto-injected GDPR consent and anti-spam fields.
The anti-spam stack runs four layers in parallel: a visually-hidden honeypot input that bots fill but humans never see, a time-trap that rejects submissions completed faster than a configurable threshold, a multi-provider CAPTCHA layer (Cloudflare Turnstile, Google reCAPTCHA v3, hCaptcha, or Friendly Captcha), and optional OW Shield IP reputation scoring with a disposable-email blocklist. Every signal is logged so you can tune thresholds without flying blind. Submissions that score above 80 are silently rejected — no error message, no honeypot leak.
GDPR compliance is native, not bolted on. Every form gets a consent checkbox linked to your privacy policy, IP addresses can be stored pseudonymized or not at all, user agents are SHA-256 hashed by default, and a daily cron purges submissions older than your retention window (CNIL default: 1095 days). When OW Consent is active, OW Forms wires into its DSAR endpoint — erasure requests automatically delete matching submissions by email hash, with full audit trail. Submission emails are SHA-256 hashed with a plugin-owned salt (option <code>owfo_dsar_salt</code>, generated once at activation) so the database never holds plaintext PII linkable across systems, and DSAR erasure keeps working even after <code>wp config shuffle-salts</code>.
The one-click Contact Form 7 importer parses every CF7 form in your database, builds the equivalent OW Forms schema (preserving recipient, subject, and field types), and rewrites every <code>[contact-form-7 id="..."]</code> shortcode in your posts to <code>[owfo_form id="..."]</code>. Email notifications support HTML or plain text with <code>{{token}}</code> interpolation, optional auto-reply, signed outbound webhooks (HMAC-SHA256), and a Gutenberg block in addition to the shortcode and REST API.
<h3>External services</h3>
OW Forms relies on optional third-party CAPTCHA services to protect form submissions 
from spam. None of these services are contacted unless you explicitly enable a 
CAPTCHA provider in OW Forms → Settings → Anti-spam.
The OW Shield integration is fully local — when the OW Shield plugin is installed 
and active on the same site, OW Forms reads its IP reputation score from the local 
database/cache. No request leaves your server for this lookup; OW Shield itself 
may contact its own reputation service, which is disclosed in the OW Shield readme.
The Friendly Captcha widget JavaScript is bundled with OW Forms under 
 assets/js/vendor/ (no external CDN is hit at page render). Source: the upstream 
MIT-licensed package at https://github.com/FriendlyCaptcha/friendly-challenge — 
the files shipped here are the official npm <code>friendly-challenge@0.9.18</code> build 
outputs (<code>widget.module.js</code> and <code>widget.module.min.js</code>, unmodified, renamed to 
 friendly-challenge-0.9.18.module.js / <code>friendly-challenge-0.9.18.module.min.js</code> 
to make the version explicit in the filename). Both the minified and the 
human-readable non-minified source are shipped per WordPress.org Plugin Check 
requirements.
When a CAPTCHA provider is enabled, OW Forms loads the vendor’s JavaScript widget 
on pages that render a form, and posts the challenge solution back to the vendor’s 
verification API when a visitor submits the form. The data sent to the vendor is 
limited to: (a) the challenge token generated client-side by the vendor’s widget, 
(b) the visitor’s IP address (passed through to the vendor for fraud scoring), and 
(c) the site’s API secret key configured in the settings.
<h4>Cloudflare Turnstile</h4>
<ul>
<li>What it is: a CAPTCHA / bot-mitigation service by Cloudflare, Inc.</li>
<li>When data is sent: only when <code>spam_captcha_provider</code> is set to <code>turnstile</code>, and 
only on form submission. The widget JS is also loaded on every page that renders 
a form.</li>
<li>Data sent: Turnstile challenge token, visitor IP, your Turnstile secret key.</li>
<li>Terms of service: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-terms/</li>
<li>Privacy policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/</li>
</ul>
<h4>Google reCAPTCHA v3</h4>
<ul>
<li>What it is: an invisible CAPTCHA / risk-scoring service by Google LLC.</li>
<li>When data is sent: only when <code>spam_captcha_provider</code> is set to <code>recaptcha_v3</code>, and 
only on form submission. The widget JS is also loaded on every page that renders 
a form (this is how reCAPTCHA v3 builds its risk score).</li>
<li>Data sent: reCAPTCHA token, visitor IP, your reCAPTCHA secret key. Google may 
also collect additional telemetry as described in their privacy policy.</li>
<li>Terms of service: https://policies.google.com/terms</li>
<li>Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy</li>
</ul>
<h4>hCaptcha</h4>
<ul>
<li>What it is: a privacy-focused CAPTCHA service by Intuition Machines, Inc.</li>
<li>When data is sent: only when <code>spam_captcha_provider</code> is set to <code>hcaptcha</code>, and 
only on form submission. The widget JS is also loaded on every page that renders 
a form.</li>
<li>Data sent: hCaptcha token, visitor IP, your hCaptcha secret key.</li>
<li>Terms of service: https://www.hcaptcha.com/terms</li>
<li>Privacy policy: https://www.hcaptcha.com/privacy</li>
</ul>
<h4>Friendly Captcha</h4>
<ul>
<li>What it is: a privacy-first, proof-of-work CAPTCHA service by Friendly Captcha GmbH 
(Germany). No user puzzle, no tracking cookies.</li>
<li>When data is sent: only when <code>spam_captcha_provider</code> is set to <code>friendly_captcha</code>, 
and only on form submission. The widget JS itself is bundled with OW Forms (not 
loaded from an external CDN); only the verification request reaches the vendor.</li>
<li>Data sent: Friendly Captcha challenge token, visitor IP, your Friendly Captcha 
secret key.</li>
<li>Terms of service: https://friendlycaptcha.com/legal/terms/</li>
<li>Privacy policy: https://friendlycaptcha.com/legal/privacy-end-users/</li>
</ul>
<h4>Outgoing webhook (admin-configured)</h4>
<ul>
<li>What it is: a URL of your choosing that OW Forms POSTs to after each submission. 
No data leaves your site until you fill the <code>webhook_url</code> setting in OW Forms → 
Settings → Notifications.</li>
<li>When data is sent: on every form submission, immediately after the admin 
notification email is dispatched. Non-blocking — your visitor’s submission 
response is not delayed by the webhook endpoint’s latency.</li>
<li>Data sent: form id, submission id, sanitized field payload (the same data 
stored in your <code>wp_owfo_submissions</code> table), site URL, ISO 8601 timestamp. 
If a webhook secret is configured, an <code>X-OWFO-Signature</code> HMAC-SHA256 header 
is added so the receiver can verify the payload origin.</li>
<li>Vendor: whoever owns the URL you configured. OW Forms has no built-in vendor 
for this — it is your responsibility to ensure the receiving endpoint complies 
with applicable privacy regulations for your submissions.</li>
</ul>

OW Forms

Modern, lightweight WordPress form builder with native GDPR compliance, anti-spam stack, and Contact Form 7 importer.

Jeff Starr

<blockquote>
✨ Trap bad bots in a virtual black hole
</blockquote>
Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching. <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/important-do-not-use-on-sites-with-caching/" rel="ugc">Learn more »</a>
👾 Bye bye bad bots..
Bad bots are the worst. They do all sorts of nasty stuff and waste server resources. The Blackhole plugin helps to stop bad bots and save precious resources for legit visitors.
👾 How does it work?
First the plugin adds a hidden trigger link to the footer of your pages. You then add a line to your robots.txt file that forbids all bots from following the hidden link. Bots that then ignore or disobey your robots rules will crawl the link and fall into the trap. Once trapped, bad bots are denied further access to your WordPress site.
I call it the “one-strike” rule: bots have one chance to obey your site’s robots.txt rule. Failure to comply results in immediate banishment. The best part is that the Blackhole only affects bad bots: human users never see the hidden link, and good bots obey the robots rules in the first place. Win-win! 🙂
<blockquote>
✨ Add a blackhole trap to help stop bad bots
</blockquote>
Important: Do NOT use this plugin on sites with caching. <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/important-do-not-use-on-sites-with-caching/" rel="ugc">Learn more »</a>
👾 Features
<ul>
<li>Easy to set up</li>
<li>Squeaky clean code</li>
<li>Focused and modular</li>
<li>Lightweight, fast and flexible</li>
<li>Built with the WordPress API</li>
<li>Works with other security plugins</li>
<li>Easy to reset the list of bad bots</li>
<li>Easy to delete any bot from the list</li>
<li>Regularly updated and “future proof”</li>
<li>Blackhole link includes “nofollow” attribute</li>
<li>Plugin options configurable via settings screen</li>
<li>Works silently behind the scenes to protect your site</li>
<li>Whitelists all major search engines to never block</li>
<li>Focused on flexibility, performance, and security</li>
<li>Email alerts with WHOIS lookup for blocked bots</li>
<li>Complete inline documentation via the Help tab</li>
<li>Provides setting to whitelist any IP addresses</li>
<li>Customize the message displayed to bad bots 😉</li>
<li>One-click restore the plugin default options</li>
<li>Does NOT use or require any .htaccess rules</li>
</ul>
Blackhole for Bad Bots protects your site against bad bots, spammers, scrapers, scanners, and other automated threats.
<blockquote>
✨ Not using WordPress? Check out the <a href="https://perishablepress.com/blackhole-bad-bots/" rel="nofollow ugc">standalone PHP version of Blackhole</a>!
</blockquote>
👾 Whitelist
By default, this plugin does NOT block any of the major search engines (user agents):
<ul>
<li>AOL.com</li>
<li>Baidu</li>
<li>Bingbot/MSN</li>
<li>DuckDuckGo</li>
<li>Googlebot</li>
<li>Teoma</li>
<li>Yahoo!</li>
<li>Yandex</li>
</ul>
These search engines (and all of their myriad variations) are whitelisted via user agent. So are a bunch of other “useful” bots. They always are allowed full access to your site, even if they disobey your robots.txt rules. This list can be customized in the plugin settings. For a complete list of whitelisted bots, visit the Help tab in the plugin settings (under “Whitelist Settings”).
<blockquote>
✨ Check out <a href="https://plugin-planet.com/blackhole-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Blackhole Pro</a> and level up with advanced features!
</blockquote>
👾 Exclusive Pro Features
<ul>
<li>Option to disable for logged-in users</li>
<li>Threshold control (number of allowed hits)</li>
<li>Custom email alerts</li>
<li>Custom messages for blocked bots</li>
<li>Custom redirect for blocked bots</li>
<li>Custom blackhole trigger links</li>
<li>Complete inline documentation</li>
<li>Block bots based on user agent</li>
<li>Block bots based on IP address</li>
<li>Whitelist/allow bots by user agent</li>
<li>Whitelist/allow bots by IP address</li>
<li>Redirect whitelisted bots</li>
<li>Set custom HTTP Status Code</li>
<li>Full-featured Bad Bot Log with paging, sorting, and field search</li>
<li>Manually add bad bots to the Bad Bot Log</li>
<li>Geo/IP location lookups for each bad bot</li>
<li>Logs number of blocked hits for each bot</li>
</ul>
..plus everything the free version can do and more.
<blockquote>
✨ Learn more and <a href="https://plugin-planet.com/blackhole-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">get Blackhole Pro »</a>
</blockquote>
👾 Privacy
User Data: This plugin automatically blocks bad bots. When bad bots fall into the trap, their IP address, user agent, and other request data are stored in the WP database. No other user data is collected by this plugin. At any time, the administrator may delete all saved data via the plugin settings.
Services: This plugin does not connect to any third-party locations or services.
Cookies: This plugin does not set any cookies.
Credit: Header Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Blackhole for Bad Bots is developed and maintained by <a href="https://x.com/perishable" rel="nofollow ugc">Jeff Starr</a>, 15-year <a href="https://plugin-planet.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress developer</a> and <a href="https://books.perishablepress.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">book author</a>.
👾 Support development
I develop and maintain this free plugin with love for the WordPress community. To show support, you can <a href="https://monzillamedia.com/donate.html" rel="nofollow ugc">make a donation</a> or purchase one of my books:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wp-tao.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">The Tao of WordPress</a></li>
<li><a href="https://digwp.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Digging into WordPress</a></li>
<li><a href="https://htaccessbook.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">.htaccess made easy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wp-tao.com/wordpress-themes-book/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress Themes In Depth</a></li>
<li><a href="https://books.perishablepress.com/downloads/wizards-collection-sql-recipes-wordpress/" rel="nofollow ugc">Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress</a></li>
</ul>
And/or purchase one of my premium WordPress plugins:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/bbq-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">BBQ Pro</a> – Blazing fast WordPress firewall</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/blackhole-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Blackhole Pro</a> – Automatically block bad bots</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/banhammer-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Banhammer Pro</a> – Monitor traffic and ban the bad guys</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/ga-google-analytics-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">GA Google Analytics Pro</a> – Connect WordPress to Google Analytics</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/head-meta-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Head Meta Pro</a> – Ultimate Meta Tags for WordPress</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/rest-pro-tools/" rel="nofollow ugc">REST Pro Tools</a> – Awesome tools for managing the WP REST API</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/simple-ajax-chat-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Simple Ajax Chat Pro</a> – Unlimited chat rooms</li>
<li><a href="https://plugin-planet.com/usp-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">USP Pro</a> – Unlimited front-end forms</li>
</ul>
Links, tweets and likes also appreciated. Thank you! 🙂

Blackhole for Bad Bots

Отличный инструмент

Simple. I install this every time I spin up a new WordPress site.

Simple

Blackhole is a WordPress security plugin that detects and traps bad bots in a virtual black hole, where they are denied access to your entire site.

OW Forms vs Blackhole for Bad Bots