this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2026

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These are the kind of reactions I get when I recommend Anubis to deal with bots at work, what alternatives are there? (media.piefed.social)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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At work I was asked by a different team how we can deal with bots, because someone in my team remembered that I knew how to do it.

I reluctantly suggested Anubis because I got shit for it last time, This is the URL https://anubis.techaro.lol/

This is the 2nd and last time I will ever recommend Anubis anywhere at work to deal with bots because of how unprofessional, un-serious and weird others perceive it.

The mascot being a ~10 year old "cutsie" anime cat girl is weird in a work setting.
I will never put myself in a situation again where I have to explain that it's not weird to anyone again, same for that URL.

What is a professional looking open-source alternative to Anubis?

Edit: No I can't just send my colleges here https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper The issue is they find the Mascot and domain weird, they will still run into both.

My Goal: Recommend a Open-Source bot protection tool

The Issue: When I send my coworkers to https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper they find the mascot and URL weird.

Result: They don't see Anubis as a serious tool and turn away from it

What is a professional looking open-source alternative to Anubis?

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[–] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Step 1: buy a Professional Domain like antibot-enterprise-pro.com

Step 2: CNAME it to techaro.lol

Step 3: Profit!!

Optionally just sell them the rebranded Anubis with a different name for 500 a month, pay 50 to techaro, rest of it to a queer friendly charity.

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

"It's .lol for free or it's Cloudflare 💰💰"

But yeah, I wouldn't go fighting at all. I'd give 'em the options and let them pay if they want to.

[–] diecknet@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper

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[–] basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 5 days ago (12 children)

I understand you are just looking for an easy open source project that solves your issue, but it seems fairly obvious to me that your real issue here is that you are not willing to push for your teammates to accept that it is a valid service even if branded a bit oddly.

You should go for the $50 professional tier and get your team to accept that as valid by respectfully asserting yourself instead of wetnoodling and trying to get a different project that requires less assertiveness on your part.

Good luck with your team.

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[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Firstly, sorry you're having this problem and sorry the responses here have been nearly universally unhelpful and aggressive. This is a pretty perfect case study of what I don't like about the fediverse. There's a lot to like about this place but what drives me nuts is the unhinged and reality-divorced types who cannot understand something so simple as normal people thinking things are weird. Half the respondents here think you should scream at your coworkers about this and/or quit. You asked an incredibly reasonable and relatable question and mostly got shat on for it. Just wanted to say that someone sees how ridiculous it is, not everyone here is lost completely in their own (hateful) world. Sorry I don't have a solution for you.

[–] DaGeek247@fedia.io 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

the unhinged and reality-divorced types who cannot understand something so simple as normal people thinking things are weird. Half the respondents here think you should scream at your coworkers

I've recommended the ploopy knob to coworkers before. I was in government work at the time. My current employer uses and recommends software called "keep ass". This is a user problem first, and a software/branding problem a distant second. The comments here reflect that.

Yes, software developers put out things that are counterculture. Yes, that can make working with them more difficult than it might otherwise be.

No, you should not blame the software developer for this.

If the branding causes too many issues, don't use it. The branding is there because the developer wants it there, and wants to have the type of customers that enjoy it, or can at least look past it. Everybody else being filtered out is a good thing.

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[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

Why don't you just fork it, remove the logo, an set up a domain yourself?

Alternatively, you could set up a presentation that they are a white labeling service, and the reason they use that domain and mascot is to discourage corporations from using the free tier, since the free tier is meant for personal use, and that their reaction is exactly what Anubis aims for unless a corporation is willing to pay for customized service tailored to them.

That ship may have sailed by now depending on how you dealt with the situation, but that would have been the best case scenario. Advocating for something that you know is good, is also good for your career, because now, even if you do recommend something else, your reputation will still be marked by the fact you recommended Anubis and then folded without explaining well why you recommended Anubis despite the mascot. If you still can, I'd bring up the whole thing with the mascot anyway even if you move on to recommend a different service, to save your own reputation for the future, since you seem to be so focused on your perceived career.

Anyway, you can use Cloudflare. Ideologically I oppose it, but it works and is familiar with the non-tech people. There's also SilentShield, which is based in Europe and in my opinion works better than Cloudflare's protection in terms of load times.

[–] soyslurper2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There are alternatives like go-away, iocaine, etc.

You could also just send them a PDF or HTML file explaining how Anubis works, and refuse to send the URL or mascot until they are convinced to implement it.

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 12 points 4 days ago (8 children)

they can pay a little fee to remove the catgirl, it's pretty clever business plan imho

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[–] namelivia@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

This is funny, I can imagine someone in corporate suited up and everything looking at a demo on a meeting room and the mascot on a huge screen. Honestly, I would have looked for a way to customise it or hide it somehow before showing it at work.

[–] _hovi_@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I agree that if you're a business you should probably just pay so you can change the image.

I've been meaning to set up something like https://iocaine.madhouse-project.org/ though, seems interesting.

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[–] USSEthernet@startrek.website 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Mods, I'm gonna argue rule 3 here. This is not related to self-hosting rather enterprise level sysadmin services and does not belong.

[–] curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (8 children)

There is no differentiation around "who" in self-hosting. I would even say it should be encouraged to have companies support open-source tools like Anubis, especially financially.

If you want to start a meta discussion about it go for it, but I won't remove this discussion just because a business is involved. Especially considering many of us self-host for our own personal businesses as well, it would seem pretty arbitrary to me.

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[–] SirHaxalot@nord.pub 9 points 5 days ago

Realistically your best option is a CDN with some layer of bot detection and blocking. Cloudflare is of course the most popular choice, https://bunny.net/ might also work but I haven’t tried their advanced Shield level so not sure how good it is.

Some commercial advanced firewall / WAF might also be an option. Seems most of them has Bot mitigation features, but I haven’t tried their never personally tried anything like that.

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