Antispam Bee

88 Quality Score

Active Installs

26/30

With 700,000 active installs, Antispam Bee sits well above most niche spam tools, though it trails Akismet's 6 million and Disable Comments' 1 million in raw reach.

Update Freshness

25/25

A perfect maintenance score reflects a recent update (May 2026), confirmed compatibility with WordPress 7.0, and a very low minimum PHP requirement of 5.2, indicating active, broad stewardship.

User Rating

14/15

A 96 out of 100 across 226 ratings is exceptionally strong and suggests consistent user satisfaction with both effectiveness and ease of use.

Support Health

8/15

Only 3 support threads exist with a 100 percent resolution rate, which signals a healthy forum but also very low volume, meaning few users have needed help at all.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Full marks here cover tested compatibility with WordPress 7.0, a back-compatible minimum of 4.6, and broad PHP support, so it will run on virtually any modern hosting stack.

Scores higher than 98% of indexed plugins

About

Sophisticated antispam plugin for effective daily comment and trackback spam-fighting. Built with data protection and privacy in mind.

Active Installs 700k+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.8/5

Last Updated 2026-08-23 12:10pm GMT

Requires WordPress 4.6+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 5.2+

Security History

1 known vulnerability, all patched

1 Medium

Most recent: November 27, 2023

View details ▸

What It Does

Antispam Bee is a self-hosted comment and trackback spam filter that analyses submissions against a configurable set of rules (country blocklist, language filter, BBCode link detection, regex patterns, trust-based commenters, and more). It works entirely from your own WordPress database, with no third-party API calls and no data sent off-site, which is why it is often praised for privacy compliance under GDPR.

Who It's For

This plugin is ideal for bloggers, news sites, and community forums that receive heavy comment traffic and want strong spam protection without sending visitor data to an external service. It suits privacy-conscious site owners, small businesses running WooCommerce review sections, and any publisher who prefers a free, lightweight alternative to API-based filters.

Who Should Skip It

If you run a site with no comments enabled, or if you need protection that extends beyond comments to contact forms, registrations, and WooCommerce checkouts, Antispam Bee will leave those surfaces exposed and you should look at a broader firewall solution instead.

The Bottom Line

Antispam Bee is one of the best free, privacy-first spam filters for WordPress comments, earning an overall quality score of 88.08 out of 100 and a near-perfect user rating. It is not a full-spectrum spam firewall, so sites needing protection for forms, registrations, or checkout flows will need a complementary tool, but for its core job it is hard to beat.

Pick Akismet if you want the most battle-tested filter on the market, do not mind sending comment data to Automattic's cloud API, and are willing to pay for a commercial licence.

CleanTalk Anti-Spam. Spam Firewall & Bot protection 93/100

Choose CleanTalk when you need protection beyond comments, covering registrations, contact forms, and WooCommerce, and you are fine with a paid cloud-based subscription.

hCaptcha for WP 91/100

Opt for hCaptcha if you prefer a visible challenge layer that stops bots at the form itself rather than filtering submissions after the fact.

CF7 Apps – Honeypot, Database, Redirection, Webhook, and Addons for Contact Form 7 90/100

Use this when your spam problem is specifically on Contact Form 7 forms and you want a lightweight honeypot plus add-ons rather than a full comment filter.

Disable Comments – Remove Comments & Stop Spam [Multi-Site Support] 88/100

Pick Disable Comments if the cleanest solution for your site is to remove comments entirely, especially across a multisite network.

Compare Antispam Bee

Antispam Bee vs Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection 92/100