Akismet vs Essential Addons for Elementor
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | Akismet v5.7.2 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.7/5 Visit Details | Essential Addons for Elementor v6.8.7 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.9/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 5M+ | 1M+ |
| Last updated | August 18, 2026 | October 19, 2026 |
| Editions | Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection · Akismet paid plan ($) | Essential Addons for Elementor · Essential Addons for Elementor - Pro ($) |
| Pros | Checks comments and contact form submissions against a shared spam database; Works with Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms; Stats through a dashboard widget and REST endpoints | Large set of widgets added to Elementor; Form widgets for Gravity Forms, WPForms, Contact Form 7, Fluent Forms and Ninja Forms; WooCommerce product widgets such as product compare |
| Cons | Needs an Akismet API key from akismet.com; Commercial sites must buy a paid plan; Submitted content is sent to Akismet for checking | Premium widgets and extensions need the Pro version; Some widgets call third-party services such as OpenSea and Facebook |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | — |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Checks comments before they are saved, Spam checks for Gravity Forms and Contact Form 7 submissions, Scheduled deletion of old spam and orphaned comment meta, Block statistics dashboard widget, REST endpoints for key, settings and stats, Webhook endpoint for Akismet account updates, Stats ability for the WordPress Abilities API | Filterable gallery widget, Data table widget, Event calendar widget with Google Calendar source, WooCommerce product compare widget, NFT gallery widget, Twitter and Facebook feed widgets, TypeForm embed widget, Essential Addons admin menu page |
| Integrations | ||
| Analytics | — | WP Insights usage tracker (opt-in) |
| Social | — | X (Twitter) API, Facebook Graph API |
| E-commerce | — | WooCommerce |
| Plugins | Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Jetpack | Elementor, Gravity Forms, WPForms, Contact Form 7, Fluent Forms, Ninja Forms |
| Other | Akismet | Formstack, Google Calendar, TypeForm API, OpenSea |
| Requires WordPress | 5.8 | 5.3 |
| Requires PHP | 7.2 | 7.0 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | Only if you agree |
| External services | rest.akismet.com | api.twitter.com, graph.facebook.com, send.wpinsight.com, www.googleapis.com, opensea.io, magiceden.io, api.typeform.com |