Are you looking for the best free anti-spam plugin for WordPress? If you answered yes, you’ve come to the right place.
At one point or another, we’ve all encountered malicious spam comments and spam form submissions. Not only are they bothersome, but they also hamper your website’s performance. However, anti-spam plugins will end your worries about these types of spam.
Not sure which plugin to use? We’ve prepared a list of the 15 best free anti-spam WordPress plugins to help you make an informed decision.
But before we get into the list, let’s see why anti-spam plugins for WordPress are important.
Why WordPress Anti-Spam Plugins are Important?
One of the primary causes of slow website speed is spam. Spam comments and form entries use up your website resources, which in turn degrades site performance. Spam not only causes difficulties in WordPress site operation but also aids in exploiting your whole site.
So, here are some points why you should consider using anti-spam plugins.
- You can ensure that your site receives genuine form submissions.
- Anti-spam plugins keep your comment section clean and relevant.
- Since you don’t need to clean up the spam on your dashboard manually, you can save your time and effort.
- Spam comments can hurt your search engine ranking. Hence, anti-spam plugins ensure that your SEO ranking isn’t affected.
That’s why it’s wise to equip your website with a good anti-spam plugin. So, let’s dig into a list of the best free anti-spam plugins for WordPress without further ado.
15 Best Free Anti-Spam Plugins for WordPress
1. Everest Forms
Everest Forms is a popular WordPress form builder plugin that helps you create forms for different purposes. For example, you can create contact forms, custom survey forms, donation forms, booking forms, etc.
Further, the Everest Forms plugin also enables you to add the anti-spam feature in the forms to combat spam. The plugin offers several options like Google reCAPTCHA, Math CAPTCHA, and hCaptcha to protect your WordPress forms.
Thus, with Everest Forms, you’ll have the best-looking professional form with an anti-spam feature in no time.
Key Features of Everest Forms:
- Sets limitations in form entries
- Restricts non-logged-in users
- Real-time email notifications
- Clean and beginner-friendly interface
- Honeypot feature for smart spam blocking
2. User Registration
As the name suggests, User Registration is a user-friendly WordPress registration form builder plugin. With the drag and drop feature, you can easily create custom and complex registration forms. Apart from that, this plugin is highly customizable.
Further, the plugin also offers the integration of anti-spam techniques such as Google reCAPTCHA and Honeypot to protect your login and registration forms against spam. Best of all, you can easily enable this feature from the settings.
Key Features of User Registration:
- Enables strong passwords
- Blocks fake user registrations
- Assigns user roles and capabilities
- Sends email notifications to admins and users
- Accepts registration from whitelisted email domains only
3. Akismet Spam Protection
Akismet is one of the most popular spam protection plugins with an active installation of 5 million-plus. It checks the comments and forms submissions with a global database to ensure spam free process. You can view this spam in the Comments section of your admin panel.
Moreover, please remember that you need an API key to use this plugin. You can get a free API key from their official website for personal use. However, a paid subscription is also available for commercial and business use.
Key Features of Akismet Spam Protection:
- View the status of spam that was caught or cleared
- Checks all the comments to filter out the spam comments
- Moderators can see the number of comments approved per user
- Reveals hidden and misleading links in the comment section
- Discard feature which immediately blocks the worst spam saving disk space and improving performance
4. Wordfence Security
Wordfence Security is another popular WordPress anti-spam plugin with the feature of a two-factor authentication system (2FA) and malware scanners. In addition to that, it also has a feature to deal with brute force attacks for the safety of your website.
The threat defense feed ensures the safety of your website with updated firewall rules and malware identification signatures. You can also spot malicious IP addresses and block them. Moreover, this plugin has an endpoint firewall system which means it is directly operated on your own web server.
Key Features of Wordfence Security:
- Prevents multiple login efforts
- Free usage for unlimited websites
- Identifies and blocks malicious traffic
- Checks for SEO spam, malware, bad links, and redirects
- Scans contents, posts, and comments for dangerous web URLs
5. All in One WP Security & Firewall
All in One WP Security & Firewall is yet another top anti-spam WordPress plugin. It has anti-spam features with added security and firewall options. Hence, your site gets complete protection against external attacks.
Additionally, this plugin can ban users automatically if the number of comments posted exceeds the limit. This plugin categorizes its security and firewall rules in three steps “basic”, “intermediate” and “advanced”. As a result, you can apply the rules gradually without breaking the site.
Key Features of All In One WP Security & Firewall:
- Stable and well-supported
- Blocks posting of proxy comments
- Prevents website crawling by fake Google bots
- Adds Google reCAPTCHA and honeypot to login and registration forms
- Blocks users with spam comment history by monitoring IP addresses
6. Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is an outstanding anti-spam WordPress plugin that deals with the comment section on the website. This plugin provides an option to select from the list of possible suspicious reasons. Thus, whenever spammers post such comments, Antispam Bee deletes that comment instantly.
Additionally, Antispam Bee is General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) compliant and 100% free of advertisements. Best of all, this plugin notifies administrators about incoming spam through email. Thus, you can take action immediately to protect your site.
Key Features of Antispam Bee:
- Allows only approved users to comment
- An interactive dashboard with spam statistics
- Validates the commenters using their IP address
- Allows comments from certain countries and in certain languages
- Compares the comments of previously known spammers with the local database
7. WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan
WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan uses its specialized anti-spam engine to prevent spam and spammers. With Malware scanning and security added with the anti-spam features, it provides overall protection to WordPress websites.
WP Cerber plugin can scan malware, check the integrity, and has two-factor authentication (2FA) system. Furthermore, this plugin protects your website from massive brute force attacks.
Key Features of WP Cerber Security:
- Cerber anti-spam engine
- Limits login attempts by IP address
- Allows or blocks user access using the IP access list
- Notifies admins using email, mobile, and desktop notifications
- Ability to log bots, hackers, and users with suspicious activities
8. Titan Anti-Spam & Security
Titan Anti-Spam & Security plugin was previously known as Anti-Spam. The creators have revamped it with a comprehensive solution placed in an easy and intuitive interface. It works against spam bots by the use of an algorithm ensuring reliability and accuracy.
It uses up-to-date firewall rules, malware signatures, and a database of malicious IP addresses. This helps to deal with spammers and malicious bots effectively. This ensures the safety and security of your website.
Key Features of Titan Anti-Spam & Security:
- Marking and hiding spam in the background
- Global spam database and self-learning neural networks
- Maintains periodic updates to anti-spam modules
- Checks and notifies about the potential vulnerabilities
- Malware scanner checks for SEO spam and other threats
9. Stop Spammers Security
Stop Spammers Security is an anti-spam plugin that is easy to configure for personalized usage. With the help of this plugin, you can even create a special custom solution to deal with particular spam.
For example, if you’re getting spam from one country specifically, then you can select the option to block that country to solve your particular problem.
Stop Spammers Security is a well-maintained and mature plugin that stops spam emails, spam registration, spam comments, spam bots, and spam in general. Moreover, you can run diagnostic tests to find out the issues of your website.
Key Features of Stop Spammers Security:
- Manually block/allow IPs, emails, and usernames
- CAPTCHA options for different types of forms
- Connects third-party defense services
- Option for members-only access
- Stops spam words, shortened URLs, disposable emails, etc.
10. BulletProof Security
BulletProof Security is a unique anti-spam and security plugin that has an AutoFix setup wizard. This wizard resolves a number of problems that arise as a result of using different plugins on a WordPress website.
Most importantly, BulletProof Security is effective, easy, and reliable to use. It has protective features such as a malware scanner, firewall, and login security. Furthermore, there is a massive troubleshooting forum that is created by the developers where solutions for general problems can be found.
Key Features of BulletProof Security:
- Real-time file monitor
- One-click setup wizard
- Database backup
- Anti-spam and anti-hacker features using JTC lite
- Auto-whitelist, auto-setup, and auto-cleanup feature
11. WP Armour
Next on our list is WP Armour. It’s an anti-spam plugin that uses the honeypot technique to deal with spammers. Hence, this plugin doesn’t use CAPTCHA or additional verification for users. This creates a pleasant user experience for your site visitors.
WP Armour supports major WordPress Form plugins. Various examples of such plugins are Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WP Forms, Formidable Forms, Elementor Forms, and so on.
Key Features of WP Armour:
- No setup required
- Records spam submission
- No external API calls required
- Blocks spammer’s IP address
- General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) compliant
12. Zero Spam for WordPress
Zero Spam for WordPress protects your site from spammers and malicious users with the help of AI. The plugin includes a real-time monitoring system to detect such spammers. Thus, you get to check the spam that your website receives and take action immediately.
Zero Spam for WordPress can block entire countries, regions, cities, and Zip/Postal codes. Also, it has an optional disallowed list. You can use it as a reference to restrict known spammers and ill-intended bots. In addition to that, this plugin can also restrict the usage of known disposable and malicious email domains.
Key Features of Zero Spam for WordPress:
- Highly configurable firewall
- Integration with popular blacklists
- CAPTCHAs and moderations are not needed
- Blocks IPs automatically or manually, temporarily or permanently
- Third-party integration is available with Google Maps, ipinfo.io, Project Honeypot, etc.
13. Spam Destroyer
Spam Destroyer is a simple but effective anti-spam plugin for WordPress. There aren’t any complicated settings to configure. It does what it says; i.e, simply destroy spam that poses a threat to your site’s security and performance. It works in the background and doesn’t even show up in the admin panel.
On top of that, Spam Destroyer doesn’t affect regular commenters. It only destroys automated spam. For this to work, this plugin uses two anti-spam payloads; one is a cookie and another is a hidden input field.
Key Features of Spam Destroyer:
- Simplest among others
- Works in the background
- Lightweight plugin
- Best suited for blogs and low-traffic websites
- Install and use out of the box without any extra configuration
14. Block Bad Bots
Block Bad Bots is an anti-spam plugin for WordPress users whose primary target is bad bots. Such bots slow down your website by spamming comments and contact forms. But thanks to this plugin, you can get rid of them without any fuss.
The plugin stops bad bots, spam bots, crawlers, and spiders without slowing down your website. Moreover, it’s a completely self-sustained plugin that does not need to connect to external servers.
Key Features of Block Bad Bots:
- Sends email notifications
- Malware scanner available
- Manageable list of IPs
- Bans users by IPs, user agents, and referrer URLs
- Protects login forms against bots and brute force attacks
15. Anti Spam by Fullworks
Anti Spam by Fullworks is another amazing anti-spam WordPress plugin that specially deals with automated comments. Plus, it’s user-friendly as it doesn’t display CAPTCHAs of any kind.
In addition to that, this plugin is a privacy-oriented plugin. It doesn’t collect, process, or send any personal data of the users.
The best thing about Anti Spam by Fullworks is that it’s free to use for personal, business as well as commercial use. However, this plugin also has a pro version with premium features. So, if you need advanced features, you can always upgrade to the premium version.
Key Features of Anti Spam by Fullworks:
- Prevents automated comments
- Fast and lightweight
- No API key is required
- Compatible with other plugins
- Stores the spam comments in the spam tab
Wrapping It Up!
This concludes our list of the best free anti-spam plugins for WordPress. We are confident that after reading this article, you’ll be able to choose the best anti-spam plugin for your site.
If you’re still having trouble choosing a suitable anti-spam plugin, then we recommend using Everest Forms or User Registration for the forms. These plugins have embedded anti-spam features in their forms.
And if your requirement is added malware detection, WP Cerber Security could be one for you. It also has anti-hacker measures to protect your site from unauthorized access. Nevertheless, you’re free to choose any plugin that fulfills your requirements.
Meanwhile, you’re welcome to browse our articles on the best security plugins for WordPress and Form builder plugins for WordPress.
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We wish you a spam-free WordPress journey!
Disclaimer: Some of the links in the post may be affiliate links. So if you purchase anything using the link, we will earn affiliate commission.
