Email Address Encoder

82 Quality Score

Active Installs

23/30

At 100,000 active installs the plugin has a solid, established user base, though it is far behind the millions of installs that top anti-spam plugins command.

Update Freshness

25/25

A perfect maintenance score reflects the very recent update on April 12, 2026, combined with a long history of consistent releases from the developer.

User Rating

13/15

The 84 out of 100 rating from 160 users indicates generally positive feedback with a handful of edge-case complaints, mostly around theme compatibility.

Support Health

8/15

With only 2 support threads, both resolved, the sample size is too small to draw strong conclusions, though the 100% resolution rate is encouraging.

WP Compatibility

15/15

A perfect compatibility score is well deserved given WordPress 7.0 testing, a PHP 5.3 minimum that covers virtually every host, and no reported conflicts with modern themes.

Scores higher than 89% of indexed plugins

About

A lightweight plugin that protects email addresses from email-harvesting robots, by encoding them into decimal and hexadecimal entities.

Active Installs 100k+

Rating ★★★★ 4.2/5

Last Updated 2026-04-12 3:36pm GMT

Requires WordPress 2.0+

Tested Up To 7.0.4

Requires PHP 5.3+

Security History

3 known vulnerabilities, all patched

1 High 2 Medium

Most recent: June 4, 2026

View details ▸

What It Does

Email Address Encoder scans your WordPress site for plain-text email addresses and converts them into decimal and hexadecimal HTML entities, so automated scrapers and email-harvesting bots cannot read them while real visitors still see and click them normally. It runs automatically on page output without requiring any configuration. It does not block form submissions or comment spam, focusing solely on protecting address text from being harvested.

Who It's For

This plugin is ideal for small businesses, consultants, agencies, non-profits, and public-facing service providers who display staff or contact email addresses directly on their site and want a set-and-forget layer of protection. It is especially useful for client directories and contact pages where addresses are written into posts, pages, widgets, or theme templates.

Who Should Skip It

If your contact emails are only submitted through contact forms rather than displayed as visible text, this plugin adds no value. Sites that rely on Akismet, reCAPTCHA, or Cloudflare Turnstile for spam defence already have stronger bot protection and do not need address-level encoding.

The Bottom Line

Email Address Encoder is a focused, well-maintained, and lightweight tool that does exactly one job and does it well, earning an overall quality score of 82.49 out of 100. It is not a replacement for a full anti-spam plugin, but rather a complementary layer for sites that publish real email addresses publicly. For its narrow use case, it is hard to beat on simplicity and reliability.

Pick Akismet when your main concern is comment and form spam, not displayed email addresses being scraped.

CleanTalk Anti-Spam. Spam Firewall & Bot protection 92/100

Choose CleanTalk if you want full firewall-level bot blocking on comments, registrations, and forms in addition to email harvesting defence.

hCaptcha for WP 91/100

Opt for hCaptcha when you prefer a visible challenge layer that stops bots at the form level rather than obfuscating addresses in your content.

Simple CAPTCHA with Cloudflare Turnstile 90/100

Go with Cloudflare Turnstile for a privacy-friendly, invisible CAPTCHA that protects forms without any address encoding at all.

Spectra Legacy – Gutenberg Blocks 95/100

Choose Spectra only if you also need a block editor enhancement suite, as it does not provide email harvesting protection on its own.