Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection
The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form. The most trusted antispam solution for WordPress and WooCommerce.
Safe pick
Yes — Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… is a safe, well-maintained plugin to use in 2026. It runs on 5M+ sites, is rated 4.7/5 and was last updated 1 month ago, and scores 94/100 on our health check.
- One of the most-used plugins on the web — 5M+ active sites
- Loved by users — 4.7/5 from 1,187 reviews
- Tested with the latest WordPress (7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Pro… stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| anti-spam | #2 |
| antispam | #7 |
| comments | #21 |
| contact form | #100 |
| spam | #2 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 from 1,187 reviews
About Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection
From the official readme · v5.7.2Description
The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form. The most trusted antispam solution for WordPress and WooCommerce.
Akismet checks your comments and contact form submissions against our global database of spam to prevent your site from publishing malicious content. You can review the comment spam it catches on your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.
Major features in Akismet include:
- Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam.
- Each comment has a status history, so you can easily see which comments were caught or cleared by Akismet and which were spammed or unspammed by a moderator.
- URLs are shown in the comment body to reveal hidden or misleading links.
- Moderators can see the number of approved comments for each user.
- A discard feature that outright blocks the worst spam, saving you disk space and speeding up your site.
PS: You’ll be prompted to get an Akismet.com API key to use it, once activated. Keys are free for personal blogs; paid subscriptions are available for businesses and commercial sites.
Installation
Upload the Akismet plugin to your blog, activate it, and then enter your Akismet.com API key.
1, 2, 3: You’re done!
Changelog
5.7.2
Release Date – 19 August 2026
- Fix Fluent Forms integration on WordPress versions older than 6.1.
5.7.1
Release Date – 17 August 2026
- Fix link styling and hover previews in the Comments screen for the upcoming WordPress 7.1.
- Display external links consistently.
5.7
Release Date – 23 April 2026
- Add Abilities API support for stats and comment checking, including MCP tool integration.
- Add support for the new Connectors page in the upcoming WordPress 7.0.
- Improve detection of automated spam submissions on the front end.
- Make comment history sorting more resilient when called with invalid data.
- Use wp_get_inline_script_tag() for safer inline script output, and other small security enhancements.
- Add action hooks to allow customization of the admin page header and footer.
- Accessibility improvements.
5.6
Release Date – 12 November 2025
- Improve caching of compatible plugins.
- Explain the key features of Akismet more clearly on the setup page.
- Improve the configuration process to better explain errors when they occur.
- Setup UI cleanup and refresh.
- Improve messaging related to usage limits.
5.5
Release Date – 15 July 2025
- Enable webhooks so that Akismet can process comments asynchronously to detect more types of spam.
- Only include the Akismet widget CSS when the Akismet widget is present
- Improve contrast/readability for certain UI elements
5.4
Release Date – 7 May 2025
- The stats pages now use the user’s locale instead of the site’s locale if they’re different.
- Adds a ‘Compatible plugins’ section that will show installed and active plugins that are compatible with Akismet.
- Akismet now requires PHP version 7.2 or above.
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Prote… alternatives
All anti-spam plugins →
FAQ
Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 27, 2026
Is Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… free?
Yes. Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory. The developer also sells premium add-ons or a Pro version with extra features.
Is Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… safe to use in 2026?
Yes — Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… is a safe, well-maintained plugin to use in 2026. It runs on 5M+ sites, is rated 4.7/5 and was last updated 1 month ago, and scores 94/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect…?
Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… is active on 5M+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 406,856,568 times since it launched in October 2005. It was downloaded 1,797,611 times in the last 30 days.
Does Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… work with WordPress 7.1?
Yes. The developer has tested Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… up to WordPress 7.1.2, the latest release. It requires WordPress 5.8 or newer.
What PHP version does Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… need?
Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… requires PHP 7.2 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… last updated?
The latest version, 5.7.2, was released on August 18, 2026 (1 month ago).
Who makes Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect…?
Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… is developed and maintained by Automattic.
What are the best alternatives to Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect…?
The most popular alternatives to Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protect… are Antispam Bee (700K+ installs), WP Armour (400K+ installs) and CF7 Apps (300K+ installs).
Powered by PageForge
Want thousands of pages that rank like these? Build them in an afternoon.
This directory runs on the same engine as PageForge. Turn any spreadsheet, CSV or API into thousands of fast, SEO-ready WordPress pages — with schema, internal links and AI-written copy baked in.
- CSV, Google Sheets & API data sources
- AI content, schema & internal links per page
- Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Yoast & Rank Math
- Free on WordPress.org — no credit card
