If you are picking a captcha solving service for automation, web
scraping, or browser testing in 2026, the shortlist usually looks
the same: a handful of long-running APIs that solve reCAPTCHA,
Cloudflare Turnstile, GeeTest, and image captchas and return a
token or text answer your script can use. This article is a real
comparison of the five services that show up in those shortlists:
shared criteria, a side-by-side matrix built from each provider's
public documentation, and a per-provider analysis — so you can
re-rank the table against your own priorities.
How we compared
Six criteria, applied to every provider:
- Modern captcha type coverage — reCAPTCHA (v2/v3/Enterprise), Cloudflare Turnstile, GeeTest, and image captchas.
- Official client libraries — languages each provider ships officially, not community wrappers.
- API and documentation — a clear HTTP flow (send the challenge, receive the solution) with real docs.
- Pricing model — pay-as-you-go with published rates, plus what our own testing showed about advertised vs charged amounts (see the matrix note ¶).
- Integration fit — Selenium / Playwright / Puppeteer workflows and browser extensions.
- Availability — what each service publishes about uptime (status page, claims) versus what a real solve does at your hour; the DBC API accepts requests 24/7.
Method: every capability cell was checked against the provider's
own public docs on 2026-10-09; the pricing (¶) and availability (†)
notes are our own testing. Features move fast — re-check before you buy.
Scope: only the four modern types above; legacy challenge types
are out of scope. Ranking note: this is DBC's own disclosed
comparison, DBC is weighted first on integration breadth, and the
matrix is here so you can disagree with that weighting.
Side-by-side matrix
| Provider | Types* | Clients | Extension | Availability | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Death By Captcha | 4 of 4 | 9 | Chrome, FF | 24/7 | deathbycaptcha.com/user-pay |
| 2Captcha | 4 of 4 | 7 | Chrome | verify† | not clear¶ |
| Anti-Captcha | 4 of 4 | 10 | — | verify† | rate page |
| CapSolver | 4 of 4 | SDKs | Chrome, FF | verify† | rate page |
| CapMonster Cloud | 4 of 4 | 5 | Chrome, FF | verify† | rate page |
- * Types = the four compared modern types — reCAPTCHA (v2/v3/Enterprise), Cloudflare Turnstile, GeeTest, and image captchas. All five cover 4 of 4, verified in each provider's public docs on 2026-10-09. Parity on types is the finding here.
- Clients = official client languages published by each provider: DBC 9 (Python, Node.js, C#, Java, .NET, Go, C, C++, Perl); 2Captcha 7 (Python, Java, C#, C++, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP); Anti-Captcha 10 (Python, Node.js, Go, PHP, Java, Kotlin, C#, C++, Rust, Ruby); CapSolver ships SDKs plus community libraries without one fixed language list; CapMonster Cloud 5 (C#, Python, JS, Go, PHP).
- FF = Firefox; the DBC extension also runs on Brave.
- † Availability: the DBC API accepts requests 24/7. All four others publish a status page and uptime-style claims (checked 2026-10-09 — e.g. "99.9% uptime" and "uptime since 2007" appear in their marketing). Our own testing (October 2026) saw the opposite: a status page showed the service operational while a real solve request failed. Treat any "operational" badge as a starting point, not proof — verify with a live solve at your target hour.
- ¶ Pricing: all five publish pay-as-you-go rates. With 2Captcha, our own testing (October 2026) hit a mismatch between the rate advertised on their site and the amount actually charged — we mark them "not clear": verify for yourself with a small run before committing. We quote no figures here; read current rates on each provider's rate page.
1. Death By Captcha (DBC)
Death By Captcha (DBC) is a reliable captcha solver API for
automation, web scraping, and browser workflows, with official
client libraries, browser extensions, and support for modern
captcha types. Against the criteria:
- Types: all four covered — each CAPTCHA type is routed to a model specialized for that type.
- Clients: nine official ones (Python, Node.js, C#, Java, .NET, Go, C, C++, Perl), covering both application stacks and systems languages (C, C++, Perl) in one official set.
- Extension: Chrome and Firefox stores; the Chrome build also runs on Brave.
- Availability: the API accepts requests 24/7.
- Workflow: official examples for Selenium, Playwright, and Puppeteer — send the challenge (type, page URL, sitekey), get the solution back, inject the token into your run.
- Docs and pricing: public API docs, public rate page, pay-as-you-go.
Start with the API docs, check
the rate page for pricing,
and create an account.
2. 2Captcha
A long-running service with a wide HTTP API and seven official
client libraries (Python, Java, C#, C++, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP).
All four compared types are covered, the official extension lives
in the Chrome store, and the docs ship ready-made code examples
for scraping scripts. Trade-off vs the rest of this table:
Firefox users are not covered by an official extension.
3. Anti-Captcha
The most developer-facing of the five: a documentation-first API
with an apidoc, tutorials, and the widest official client list
here — ten languages (Python, Node.js, Go, PHP, Java, Kotlin, C#,
C++, Rust, Ruby). All four compared types are covered. Trade-off:
it is API-only — no browser extension appears on their public
surface, so everything runs through your own code.
4. CapSolver
A newer-generation, task-based API covering all four compared
types plus adjacent protections (AWS WAF, Cloudflare challenge).
Its weight sits in integration: SDKs with community libraries,
hooks for Selenium, Puppeteer, Playwright and n8n, an official
Chrome/Firefox extension, and 2026-era agent integrations (MCP
and agent tooling). Docs are organized as guides per captcha type.
5. CapMonster Cloud
A straightforward JSON request/response API with five official
SDKs (C#, Python, JS, Go, PHP) and official Chrome and Firefox
extensions. All four compared types are covered. It is the
simplest of the five to start with if one of those five languages
fits your stack; teams outside them lean on community libraries.
How to choose
- Start from the matrix: if a provider misses a type you need or your language, it is out.
- Check the official client for your stack — Python and Node.js cover most teams, but on Go, .NET, C or Rust the lists diverge fast.
- Read the docs before signing up: the send-solution flow has to fit your run loop cleanly.
- Test on your own targets first: one integration, small batches, measure solve quality against your real sites.
- Compare pricing on each provider's rate page — figures change, and verify the actual charge with a small run: at least one provider here billed us differently than advertised.
- Verify availability with a live solve at your own target hour: in our testing, a status badge showed "operational" while a real request failed.
Bottom line
On the four modern types the market treats as table stakes, all
five services are effectively at parity — so the real decision is
about clients, docs, extensions, and workflow fit, which is what
the matrix and the notes above spell out. Our own weighting puts
Death By Captcha (DBC) first for integration breadth: nine
official clients, extensions for both browser families, 24/7 API
availability, official Selenium/Playwright/Puppeteer examples,
and typed-model routing behind one API.
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