Akismet

Item: Akismet
Rating: 4.7
Author: Fast WordPress

by Automattic

Comment and form spam filtering run through Automattic's hosted service, checked against a global spam corpus.

4.71,186 WordPress.org reviewsSecurityFreemium

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What Akismet does

Comment and form spam filtering run through Automattic's hosted service, checked against a global spam corpus.

It sits in the security part of a WordPress stack and is sold by Automattic on a freemium basis. We recommend it in our security guides because it does that one job well without asking you to rebuild the rest of the site around it.

Every plugin adds work to a page request, so treat this as a decision with a cost. Record a speed test before you install it and run the same test afterwards, on the same page, so you know exactly what it charged you.

Real user ratings

Score

4.7/5

Reviews

1,186

Active installs

5,000,000+

Downloads

406.0M

Latest version

5.7.2

Last updated

2026-08-18

These figures come straight from the public WordPress.org plugin directory API for version 5.7.2, not from us. Check them yourself on the WordPress.org listing. Our own editorial score is 4.7/5.

Where Akismet ranks elsewhere

Publisher	List	Position
Themeisle	Best WordPress Plugins	#1 of 22

Positions are read from the published articles themselves, so they reflect that publisher's order rather than ours. Lists get re-ordered over time, so follow the link if you want the current version.

What changed in the latest version

v5.7.2Latest release

Fix Fluent Forms integration on WordPress versions older than 6.1.

v5.7.1

Fix link styling and hover previews in the Comments screen for the upcoming WordPress 7.1.
Display external links consistently.

v5.7

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.

Release notes are the developer's own words, published on WordPress.org. Read the full changelog

Pros and cons

Catches almost all comment spam with no tuning
A free tier you can trial before paying
Actively maintained and used on production sites we test

Commercial sites need a paid plan, and checks run off-site
The features most sites need sit in the paid tier

How to use it

1Take a full backup before enabling any blocking feature.
2Turn on login protection and two-factor for administrator accounts first.
3Schedule scans outside peak hours to protect response times.
4Set alerts to a monitored inbox, not the default admin address.
5Re-run the speed test so you know what the protection costs you.

How it compares

Other security plugins we recommend, with their rating and pricing model.

Plugin	Our rating	WordPress.org	Pricing	Best for
Akismet	4.7	4.7 (1,186)	Freemium	Catches almost all comment spam with no tuning
Antispam Bee	4.8	4.8 (226)	Free	Privacy friendly spam filtering with no account
Duo	4.2	4 (1)	Freemium	Central policy control for teams
Jetpack Protect	4.3	4.6 (123)	Freemium	Free vulnerability alerts
Limit Login Attempts Reloaded	4.8	4.8 (1,483)	Freemium	Big protection for almost no overhead
Loggedin	4.4	4.9 (111)	Free	Stops shared account credentials