Akismet vs WP User Frontend
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 | WP User Frontend v4.3.13 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.1/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 5M+ | 20,000+ |
| Last updated | August 18, 2026 | October 1, 2026 |
| Editions | Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection · Akismet paid plan ($) | WP User Frontend · WP User Frontend Pro ($) |
| 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 | Front-end post, registration and profile forms; Form builder and file or image upload in the free version; Spam protection with reCAPTCHA or Turnstile |
| Cons | Needs an Akismet API key from akismet.com; Commercial sites must buy a paid plan; Submitted content is sent to Akismet for checking | Conditional logic and multi-step forms are Pro only; AI form generator needs your own provider API key; Pro upgrade prompts appear in the free admin |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 1 |
| Features (Form plugins checklist) | ||
| Drag-and-drop builder | — | Yes |
| Conditional logic | — | Paid |
| Multi-step forms | — | Paid |
| File upload | — | Yes |
| Calculations | — | No |
| 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 | Front-end post and page submission form shortcode, Front-end registration form, Front-end profile editing, Front-end user dashboard, User directory listing, AI form generator using your own provider key |
| Integrations | ||
| Plugins | Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Jetpack | Elementor, Advanced Custom Fields |
| Other | Akismet | Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile, OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini |
| Requires WordPress | 5.8 | 5.0 |
| 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 | www.google.com, icanhazip.com, api-m.sandbox.paypal.com, api-m.paypal.com, wedevs.com, challenges.cloudflare.com, api.openai.com, api.anthropic.com, raw.githubusercontent.com |
| Blocks | — | 1 |
| Shortcodes | — | 13 |
| Custom tables | — | 2 |