Akismet vs Thrive Leads
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 | Thrive Leads v10.8.9.1 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Paid Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 5M+ | — |
| Last updated | August 18, 2026 | — |
| Editions | Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection · Akismet paid plan ($) | Thrive Leads ($) |
| 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 | Opt-in forms, popups and lightbox templates for lead capture; Connects to many email marketing and automation services; Stores captured leads in the plugin's own database |
| Cons | Needs an Akismet API key from akismet.com; Commercial sites must buy a paid plan; Submitted content is sent to Akismet for checking | Commercial product that needs a paid Thrive licence; Licence check depends on the vendor server being reachable; Large plugin with many dashboards and connections to configure |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 1 |
| 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 | Lead form block ($), Lead storage in the plugin database ($), Email marketing auto-responder connections ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| — | AWeber ($), ConvertKit ($), GetResponse ($), Constant Contact ($), Brevo (Sendinblue) ($) | |
| E-commerce | — | SendOwl ($) |
| Plugins | Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Jetpack | — |
| Other | Akismet | Thrive licence server ($) |
| Requires WordPress | 5.8 | — |
| Requires PHP | 7.2 | 8.1 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | — |
| Phones home | No | No |
| External services | rest.akismet.com | thrivethemes.com, api.pinterest.com, clients6.google.com, api.getresponse.com, api2.getresponse.com, api.constantcontact.com, api.hubapi.com, api.ontraport.com, api.sendfox.com, console.sendlayer.com, api.convertkit.com, api.getgo.com, api.madmimi.com, webinarjam.genndi.com, app.webinarjam.com, api.webinarjam.com, api.postmarkapp.com, api.mailerlite.com, connect.mailerlite.com, api.dropboxapi.com, content.dropboxapi.com, api.aweber.com, auth.aweber.com, www.sendowl.com, thrivethemesapi.com, service-api.thrivethemes.com, graph.facebook.com, www.googleapis.com, landingpages.thrivethemes.com |
| Shortcodes | — | 7 |