The Honeypot plugin for Craft CMS is a lightweight anti-spam solution that works by tricking automated bots into revealing themselves. It does this using a honeypot field—a hidden form field that real users don’t see or interact with, but that bots often fill out automatically.

• Adds a hidden field to forms — When a form is rendered, Honeypot automatically inserts a hidden input field that bots will fill out because bots indiscriminately enter data into all fields, (hidden or not), while real users don't.

• Detects bot activity — When the form is submitted, the plugin checks if the hidden field contains any data. If the field is filled out, the submission is rejected as spam.

• Optional time-based validation — The plugin can also track how quickly the form is submitted. If the submission happens too fast (e.g., within a second or two), it is likely automated, and the submission can be rejected.

• Prevents spam without user friction — Unlike CAPTCHAs, Honeypot does not require the user to solve puzzles, check boxes, or pick out images. This makes for a completely frictionless user experience while still providing effective spam protection.