Antispam Bee
by pluginkollektiv
Blocks comment spam locally with no external service and no personal data leaving your server.
This link may earn us a commission. It never changes our rating.
What Antispam Bee does
Blocks comment spam locally with no external service and no personal data leaving your server.
It sits in the security part of a WordPress stack and is sold by pluginkollektiv on a free 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
4.8/5
Reviews
226
Active installs
700,000+
Downloads
13.0M
Latest version
2.11.13
Last updated
2026-08-23
These figures come straight from the public WordPress.org plugin directory API for version 2.11.13, not from us. Check them yourself on the WordPress.org listing. Our own editorial score is 4.8/5.
Where Antispam Bee ranks elsewhere
Antispam Bee does not appear in the published "best of" lists we track from WPBeginner, TechRadar, Kinsta, Themeisle and similar sites. That is not a mark against it - those roundups are short and skew towards the biggest names.
What changed in the latest version
- Enhancement: New filter antispam_bee_honeypot_styles to change the styles of the honeypot field
- Fix: Escape the URL of the settings link (Thanks @thisismyurl!)
- Fix: Strip tags in the spam notification email the WordPress way (Thanks @thisismyurl!)
- Fix: Show the plugin update notice again (Thanks @thisismyurl!)
- Fix: Reject more invalid paths for the spam log file (Thanks @thisismyurl!)
- Fix: Return a boolean from the mobile theme check (Thanks @thisismyurl!)
- Tweak: Use the WordPress function for the word count type
- Maintenance: Tested up to WordPress 7.1
- Fix: Fatal error in the dashboard spam counter (Thanks @robertstaddon!)
- Enhancement: Add shorturl.fm spam pattern
Release notes are the developer's own words, published on WordPress.org. Read the full changelog
Pros and cons
- Privacy friendly spam filtering with no account
- Free with no licence to renew
- Actively maintained and used on production sites we test
- Less effective than hosted filters on very high spam volume
- Support is community-led rather than guaranteed
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antispam Bee | 4.8 | 4.8 (226) | Free | Privacy friendly spam filtering with no account |
| Akismet | 4.7 | 4.7 (1,186) | Freemium | Catches almost all comment spam with no tuning |
| 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 |
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