Akismet vs MailChimp for WordPress
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 | MailChimp for WordPress v4.14.1 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 5M+ | 1M+ |
| Last updated | August 18, 2026 | September 16, 2026 |
| Editions | Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection · Akismet paid plan ($) | MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress · Mailchimp for WordPress Premium ($) |
| 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 | Native HTML sign-up forms with full field control; Sign-up hooks for Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms and WooCommerce; Form widget and block for placing forms; Lists refreshed daily from the Mailchimp account |
| Cons | Needs an Akismet API key from akismet.com; Commercial sites must buy a paid plan; Submitted content is sent to Akismet for checking | Form designer, logging and user sync are Premium only; Needs a Mailchimp API key connected to the site; Procaptcha bot protection loads a third-party script when enabled |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 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 | Sign-up forms built from native HTML, Sign-up form widget, AMP-compatible sign-up forms, Campaigns archive block, Daily Mailchimp list refresh, Background subscribe through Action Scheduler or WP-Cron |
| Integrations | ||
| — | Mailchimp | |
| E-commerce | — | WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads |
| Plugins | Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Jetpack | Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms |
| Other | Akismet | Procaptcha (Prosopo) |
| Requires WordPress | 5.8 | 5.3 |
| Requires PHP | 7.2 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | No |
| External services | rest.akismet.com | js.prosopo.io, api.prosopo.io, api.mailchimp.com |
| Blocks | — | 2 |