MentoGuard – Spam Blocker & reCAPTCHA Alternative for Contact Form 7

Description

Tired of spam emails flooding your inbox from your contact form? MentoGuard is a lightweight, privacy-first spam blocker that protects your Contact Form 7 forms from bots – without annoying your real visitors with image puzzles or checkbox challenges.

If you are looking for a reliable reCAPTCHA alternative that is fully GDPR compliant, MentoGuard stops spam bots silently using behavioral analysis and server-side token verification. Zero data is sent to Google or any external server. Ever.

Currently optimized for Contact Form 7 (CF7), with support for more form builders coming in future releases.

How It Works

MentoGuard uses five independent protection layers that work together invisibly:

1. IP Blacklist – known bad IPs are blocked instantly before any other check runs. Supports IPv4, IPv6, and CIDR ranges.
2. Signed Token – every form load generates a unique one-time server-side token. Headless bots that submit without loading the page are blocked immediately.
3. Submission Timing – measures the time between page load and form submission entirely server-side. Bots submit in milliseconds; real users take seconds.
4. Behavioral Score – JavaScript silently tracks mouse movement, typing patterns, field interaction order, and paste vs keyboard input to generate an accurate spam score.
5. JS Bypass Detection – if a bot disables JavaScript entirely to avoid tracking, MentoGuard catches it server-side.

Real users pass all five layers without ever knowing they exist.

Why Choose MentoGuard Over reCAPTCHA?

• No Google dependency – reCAPTCHA sends visitor data to Google servers. MentoGuard keeps everything on your own server.
• No puzzles, no friction – real visitors never click a checkbox or identify traffic lights. Protection is completely invisible.
• GDPR-friendly by design – no cookies, no third-party requests, no data leaving your server.
• Zero page speed impact – scripts only load on pages that contain an active contact form. Every other page is completely unaffected.
• No monthly fees – MentoGuard is free and open source. No API keys, no account registration, no renewal.

Key Features

• Native Contact Form 7 tag – place [mentoguard] directly inside the CF7 form editor
• Three protection presets – Relaxed, Balanced, Strict – one click to configure
• Per-signal control – enable or disable each behavioral signal and adjust its point value
• Configurable block threshold – set exactly how aggressive the spam filter should be
• Page time protection – configurable minimum time in seconds or milliseconds
• Spam Log dashboard – every blocked submission logged with IP, score, signals, and page URL
• Top Spammers page – IPs ranked by blocked attempt count with one-click blacklist addition
• IP Blacklist – manually add IPs or CIDR ranges permanently blocked before any other check
• Test Mode – see live spam scores without blocking anyone, perfect for tuning
• Debug Log – step-by-step validation showing exactly what happened for every submission
• Bulk log management – select and delete individual entries or clear all at once
• Automatic log retention – configurable from 30 days to forever
• Translation ready – full i18n support with .pot file included

Privacy

MentoGuard stores only the IP address and spam score of blocked submissions – in your own WordPress database. No data is transmitted to any external service at any time. On uninstall, all data is removed completely.

Usage with Contact Form 7

Add [mentoguard] inside your CF7 form editor, before the submit button:

[text* your-name]
[email* your-email]
[mentoguard]
[submit “Send”]

That is all. MentoGuard registers as a native CF7 form tag and activates automatically.