Akismet vs Ninja Forms
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 | Ninja Forms v3.15.6 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.4/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 5M+ | 500,000+ |
| Last updated | August 18, 2026 | October 15, 2026 |
| Editions | Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection · Akismet paid plan ($) | Ninja Forms · Ninja Forms extensions ($) |
| 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 | Drag-and-drop builder with calculations at no cost; Submissions stored in your own WordPress database; reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and Akismet spam protection |
| Cons | Needs an Akismet API key from akismet.com; Commercial sites must buy a paid plan; Submitted content is sent to Akismet for checking | Payments, multi-part and file uploads need paid extensions; Conditional logic availability in the free core is not confirmed; Extension licences are managed through the vendor |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 1 |
| Features (Form plugins checklist) | ||
| Drag-and-drop builder | — | Yes |
| Multi-step forms | — | Paid |
| Payments | — | Paid |
| File upload | — | Paid |
| Calculations | — | Yes |
| Entries in admin | — | Yes |
| Spam protection | — | Yes |
| Free version | — | Yes |
| 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 | Drag-and-drop form builder, Submissions stored in the WordPress database, reCAPTCHA and Akismet spam checks, Payment gateway framework for paid extensions ($), Extension licence activation ($), Multi-part forms extension ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | — | PayPal and Stripe gateways ($) |
| Plugins | Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Jetpack | — |
| Other | Akismet | Google reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Akismet |
| Requires WordPress | 5.8 | 6.9 |
| Requires PHP | 7.2 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | Only if you agree |
| External services | rest.akismet.com | api.ninjaforms.com, my.ninjaforms.com |
| Blocks | — | 2 |
| Shortcodes | — | 4 |