reCAPTCHA Enterprise: Choosing Between V2 and V3 – A Best Practice Guide

[kpatullo]

reCAPTCHA Enterprise provides robust protection against bots and automated abuse. Both V2 and V3 offer distinct approaches, each with its strengths. Let's explore which version is best suited for your specific needs:

Understanding the Core Differences

Feature	reCAPTCHA Enterprise V2	reCAPTCHA Enterprise V3
User Interaction	Requires user to solve a challenge (checkbox/image selection)	Invisible to users; assesses risk based on behavior
User Experience	Can impact user experience	Seamless user experience
Mitigation	Automatically decides when to create friction and serve a visual challenge based on user risk	Returns a score that customer can implement in their own risk model or create business logic to action off of
Use Cases	Ideal for general site protection, login forms, and less critical actions	Best for high-risk actions (e.g., account creation, high-value transactions)
Adaptive Risk	Limited adaptive risk analysis	Advanced adaptive risk analysis based on user behavior, advanced features around account takeover and payment fraud

When to Choose reCAPTCHA Enterprise V2

• Limited Development Resources and less sensitive use cases: V2 is generally easier to implement and does not require building business logic.  It provides an out of the box way to mitigate bot activity.

When to Choose reCAPTCHA Enterprise V3

• User Experience Priority: V3 minimizes user friction, leading to smoother interactions and potentially higher conversion rates.
• High-Stakes Security: If you need to protect against sophisticated bots targeting critical actions like financial transactions, account registrations, logins, and password resets, V3 offers more advanced detection features.
• Broad Site Protection: If you want comprehensive protection for your entire website or application, V3's invisible assessment is less intrusive and offers a more holistic approach.