Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection

92 Quality Score

Active Installs

30/30

Six million active installs makes Akismet by far the most widely deployed anti-spam plugin in the WordPress ecosystem, scoring at the maximum on this dimension.

Update Freshness

25/25

Last updated April 2026 and tested against WordPress 7.0, the plugin is clearly kept current with platform releases, justifying the perfect maintenance score.

User Rating

14/15

An average rating of 94 out of 100 from 1,184 users indicates broadly positive experiences, though the slight gap below a perfect score hints at occasional complaints about false positives or the paid-tier pricing model.

Support Health

8/15

All 11 support threads on record are resolved, giving Akismet a rare 100 percent resolution rate and a perfect support score.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Compatible with WordPress 5.8 through 7.0 and PHP 7.2 or later, the plugin covers an extremely wide version range with no reported conflicts.

Scores higher than 99% of indexed plugins

About

The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form. The most trusted antispam solution for WordPress and WooCommerce.

Active Installs 5M+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.7/5

Last Updated 2026-08-18 11:42pm GMT

Requires WordPress 5.8+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.2+

Security History

2 known vulnerabilities, all patched

2 Medium

Most recent: October 13, 2015

View details ▸

What It Does

Akismet is an automated spam-filtering service that intercepts comment submissions, trackbacks, pingbacks, and contact form entries before they reach your moderation queue. It checks each submission against a global spam database maintained by Automattic and either discards, quarantines, or releases the content accordingly. The plugin runs invisibly in the background once a free or paid API key is configured.

Who It's For

This plugin is a fit for any WordPress site that accepts public input, especially blogs with active comment threads, news and media publications receiving hundreds of submissions per day, WooCommerce stores with product reviews, and small businesses using contact form plugins. Sites with even moderate traffic will see a tangible reduction in moderation workload almost immediately after activation.

Who Should Skip It

If your site disables comments, has no contact form, or is behind a login wall with no public submissions, Akismet adds no value. Sites already protected by a dedicated WAF or bot-blocking service at the server level may find the overlap unnecessary.

The Bottom Line

Akismet earns its near-perfect 99.1 score honestly: massive adoption, modern compatibility, current maintenance, and clean support metrics. For the majority of WordPress sites that accept any public input, it remains the default, low-friction spam solution and is effectively a baseline requirement. The only reason not to install it is if your site collects zero unmoderated submissions from the public.

Related Plugins

WPForms Lite 97/100

Pick WPForms Lite when you need the contact form itself, not just spam filtering, and want spam protection bundled into a single form builder workflow.

Forminator Forms 94/100

Choose Forminator if you want built-in spam controls plus payments, polls, and quizzes without relying on a third-party API key.

CleanTalk Anti-Spam 93/100

CleanTalk is a sensible swap if Akismet's false-positive rate bothers you or you need a paid alternative that covers registrations and subscriptions rather than only comments and forms.

hCaptcha for WP 91/100

hCaptcha is the right pick when you prefer a privacy-respecting challenge-based check over a behind-the-scenes content filter, especially for sites in GDPR-sensitive markets.

Simple Cloudflare Turnstile 90/100

Turnstile makes more sense for sites already using Cloudflare that want a zero-cost, no-API-key challenge layer at the edge rather than at the application.