If run a blog on WordPress or any content management system, then you've probably had some experience with spam. Spam can affect different areas and features of your site, including your comments, forms, orders, surveys, email lists, trackbacks, and more.
In addition to wasting your time and server resources, spambots can give you a false impression of your WordPress traffic, email list size, and other performance metrics. Spam, especially spam comments and trackbacks, can also make your website look less professional and trustworthy to your visitors.
Fortunately, you can take steps to prevent spambots from attacking your WordPress website. One of the easiest and most effective solutions is downloading a WordPress plugin that will check, filter out, stop, or remove spam from your site.
Below we'll go over some of the best anti-spam plugins, which can help secure your WordPress site.
Best Anti-Spam WordPress Plugins
- Spam Protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk
- Akismet Spam Protection
- WP Cerber Security, Anti-Spam & Malware Scan
- Titan Anti-spam & Security
- Stop Spammers
- Antispam Bee
- WordPress Zero Spam
- WP Armour
- Disable Comments
- Hide My WP
- Captcha Plus
1. Spam Protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk
With over 2,000 five star ratings, Spam Protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk is the most well-rated anti-spam plugin in the WordPress directory.
Using its spam firewall, CleanTalk's plugin will work behind the scenes to protect your site from spammers by blocking spam entry from all possible gates, including comments and login, contact, and WooCommerce forms. The best part is that it doesn't use CAPTCHA, so there are no questions, puzzles, or math for your visitors to solve.
2. Akismet Spam Protection
With over five million downloads, Akismet is the most popular plugin for protecting WordPress sites from spam. Akismet checks comments and contact form submissions against its global database of spam and filters out any that seem like spam. You can review the comment spam in your dashboard, and. recover any that you think aren't spam.
Please note that this plugin does require an API key to activate it.
You can learn what an API key is in our blog post What Is an API? The Answer in 300 Words or Less.
3. WP Cerber Security, Anti-Spam & Malware Scan
As one of the best WordPress security plugins, WP Cerber Security, Anti-spam & Malware Scan has its own anti-spam engine that protects your forms, and automatically detects spam comments and either denies their submission or moves them immediately to trash. Using invisible ReCaptcha, this plugin blocks spambots from submitting login, registration, password recovery, comment, and WooCommerce forms.
Upgrading to the premium version of this plugin will unlock even more functionality, including layered spam protection and automated website scans and file recovery.
4. Titan Anti-Spam & Security
Thanks to its algorithms and global spam database, Titan Anti-spam & Security can hide spam from your site. But as the name implies, Titan Anti-spam & Security is more than a spam blocker — it’s a comprehensive security plugin that can scan system files, themes, and plugins for malware, invalid URLs, backdoors, and SEO spam.
The free version of this plugin is actively installed on more than 100,000 sites. The premium version can do even more to help protect your site from spambots and other malicious actors — like stopping spammy form submissions.
5. Stop Spammers
Stop Spammer is a free plugin that stops spam emails, comments, registrations, and form submissions by using honeypots, which are hidden from everyone but spambots.
This plugin offers dozens of features and settings so you have granular control over your site’s security. You can block spam words, URL shortener links, suspicious behavior, and whole countries. You can deny IP addresses, email addresses, and usernames manually. You can enable a members-only mode so only logged in users can view the site — and much more.
6. Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is another top-rated free anti-spam plugin. It accepts trusted and appropriate comments only. First, it stops comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks and then creates a spam database. You can remove all data from the database after several days.
7. WordPress Zero Spam
Using AI in combination with proven spam detection techniques and databases of known malicious IPs from around the world, WordPress Zero Spam can detect and block spambots from submitting forms on your site. Using JavaScript, WordPress Zero Spam will stop spambots from being able to complete a submission — without requiring valid site visitors to answer questions or complete CAPTCHA fields to prove they’re not spambots.
This free plugin also allows you to block IP addresses temporarily and permanently — or block entire countries, regions, and cities if you choose.
8. WP Armour
Like WordPress Zero Spam, WP Armor is a simple anti-spam solution that doesn’t disrupt the user experience on your site. Instead of adding an extra step or input field to your form that every user has to fill out, WP armor uses Javascript to hide that extra field from valid users so only spambots can see it. So if the honeypot field is filled out, then the plugin knows a spambot is trying to submit a form and blocks their submission.
Once activated, WP Armor enables this anti-spam mechanism for all comments and supported forms, including forms by Contact Form 7, Nina Jorms, and other popular WordPress plugins.
9. Disable Comments
Disable Comments is a free plugin designed to remove and protect WordPress websites from spam comments. With this plugin, you can delete existing comments on your site in bulk or by type. Then configure the plugin to allow or disable comments everywhere on your site or only on certain post types, including pages, posts, media, and docs.
10. Hide My WP
A best-selling security plugin in the CodeCanyon marketplace, Hide My WP is a robust security solution that includes anti-spam protection. In the plugin settings page, you can simply enable the anti-spam option to automatically block spam in the comments section of your site.
You can also use this plugin to change the file name of yourwp_comments_post.php file, which WordPress uses to receive comments from visitors by default. Renaming this file can also help prevent spam comments on your site.
11. Captcha Plus
Captcha Plus is a premium plugin that’s designed to protect your WordPress forms from spam entries. It can be used for login forms, registration forms, password reset forms, comments, contact forms, as well as any custom forms on your site.
You can configure the plugin to set a specific type of CAPTCHA — including invisible reCAPTCHA, simple arithmetic questions, character recognition, or a slider button. You can also create an “allow list” to hide the reCAPTCHA field for trusted IP addresses.
Preventing Spam on Your WordPress Site
Preventing and removing spam from your WordPress site can help save you time, protect your brand's credibility, and make visitors feel safer on your website. Using one of the anti-spam plugins above — or multiple in combination — can help secure your site from spambots with ease.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
