ActiveLayer Anti-Spam — WordPress Anti-Spam Plugin
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam: Spam Protection for Forms & Comments
by Syed Balkhi · WordPress.org page · Website
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam has 8,000+ active installs on WordPress.org and 28,721 downloads all time. We have tracked it since September 4, 2026; download trends appear after 30 days of data. The last update was on August 7, 2026, tested up to WordPress 7.0.4.
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam at a glance
Is ActiveLayer Anti-Spam well maintained?
Features
The feature list from the plugin's own readme on WordPress.org, trimmed to the essentials.
- Async processing – Background queue via Action Scheduler for supported async integrations
- No CAPTCHA required – Invisible protection with zero friction for visitors
- WPForms integration – Per-form enable, async checks with email replay, optional sync-save strategy
- Contact Form 7 integration – Synchronous checks, field mapping via activelayer:* tags, per-form control
- Gravity Forms integration – Entry-based spam detection with per-form control and notification management
- Elementor Forms integration – Protect Elementor Pro form widgets with per-form spam filtering
- Fluent Forms integration – Per-form spam detection with email notification handling
- Formidable Forms integration – Notification interception and replay, sync fallback option
- Forminator integration – Form submission interception with per-form toggles and notification management
- Ninja Forms integration – Email action capture, clean verdict replay, spam suppression
- SureForms integration – Spam protection for SureForms with per-form control
- WS Form integration – Synchronous spam blocking before WS Form saves entries or runs actions, with per-form control
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam reviews and ratings
6 reviews on WordPress.org, with the most recent ones as their authors posted them.
6 reviews
- 5★
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5
- 4★
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1
- 3★
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0
- 2★
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0
- 1★
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0
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So far so good
I signed up for this after seeing how many spam bots were filling out my forms. It definitely embodies its name because upon linking it to my forms it truly became an Active Layer in blocking the spam and is a good compliment to captcha/turn style. Your forms and contact info can be a very vulnerable vector and Active Layer has been a great asset to my site.
ld617 -
New user - seems promising!
I registered an ActiveLayer account, installed the WordPress plugin, and generated an API key less than 24 hours ago. We have it integrated with Elementor Forms, WooCommerce (registration), and WP Comments. So far, we have 7 submissions, 3 detected as spam, the remaining marked as clean. There appear to be no false positives or misses at this point. Assuming this trend continues and it allows us to not pay too much attention to submissions, it's a win for us. The plugin interface as well as the app.activelayer.com dashboard are thoughtfully designed, for clean, intuitive navigation.I dinged my rating one star for these reasons:• On the home page, it states, "Full Transparency – Every verdict includes a confidence score, detection signals, and detection ID. You always know why something was flagged." For the 3 submissions so far detected as spam, in the plugin, I can click into / view specific submissions to see detection id, verdict, and score. In the ActiveLayer dashboard, in analytics I can see detection id, verdict, and visual score indicator (somewhat progress bar style) at a glance. Nowhere do I see "detection signals" – explanation for how the verdict and score was determined.• For the 3 submissions identified as spam, the only differences I see between the submissions are the detection id and score. All other data for the 3 submissions, including date and time, are exactly the same. This suggests to me that there were likely multiple API calls for one overall event, and each call/submission counts as a "check". It seems that "check" quotas will very likely be met/exceeded more quickly than is obvious. The initial 1,000 free checks or the Pro plan with 5,000 checks/month, will likely not go as far as one could expect.
regexaurus -
Working Great - Zero Spam so far
This plugin works great for a client's website that was getting hammered with j0nk and now is not. A perfect solution since I have no control over the web hosting settings. But I think I'm going to start using ActiveLayer on my other websites where I do have access to the server. Nice job.
beatty67 -
Useful and nice addition
It does the work, and you can have a summary of the emails that were accepted, and those that were considered as spam. Very nice, simple and clean. I used to receive spam sometimes, now I am free of it! Thank you!
marcbeziat -
recommend it
great plugin I recommend it
Rinni -
I was getting spam daily and now there is none
Thanks for working. The spam was very annoying and it's now been 3 days since I installed Active Layer and now there is none. Yay!
scrubzbody
Where ActiveLayer Anti-Spam ranks on WordPress.org
The rankings we track that ActiveLayer Anti-Spam appears in, and how its position changed over 30 days.
| Ranking | WordPress.org placement | Position | 30 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Anti-Spam Plugins | #39 by tag, #9 in search | #18 | – |
| Best Comment Plugins | #20 in search, not tagged | #48 | – |
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam alternatives
Plugins that solve the same problem, ranked by how closely they overlap with ActiveLayer Anti-Spam.
-
OOPSpam Anti-Spam 6,000+ installs · 4.9 -
Honeypot 400,000+ installs · 5.0 -
Antispam Bee 700,000+ installs · 4.8 -
Titan Anti-spam & Security 50,000+ installs · 4.5 -
Invisible Anti-Spam & CAPTCHA 4,000+ installs · 4.8
Details
Intelligent spam protection for WordPress forms, comments, and reviews. No CAPTCHA needed. Works with WPForms, Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, and more.
The full description, screenshots and every review live on the WordPress.org page.
Rankings ActiveLayer Anti-Spam competes in
Tags
- anti-spam
- antispam
- comment spam
- contact form
- spam protection
More from Syed Balkhi
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WPForms 5 million+ installs -
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Insert Headers and Footers 3 million+ installs -
All in One SEO 2 million+ installs
- Version
- 1.6.2
- Last updated
- Aug 7, 2026
- First published
- Apr 17, 2026
- Requires WordPress
- 5.5
- Tested up to
- 7.0.4
- Requires PHP
- 7.2
- Pricing
- Free on WordPress.org
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam FAQ
What does ActiveLayer Anti-Spam do?
According to its WordPress.org readme, ActiveLayer Anti-Spam offers Async processing – Background queue via Action Scheduler for supported async integrations, No CAPTCHA required – Invisible protection with zero friction for visitors, WPForms integration – Per-form enable, async checks with email replay, optional sync-save strategy, Contact Form 7 integration – Synchronous checks, field mapping via activelayer:* tags, per-form control and Gravity Forms integration – Entry-based spam detection with per-form control and notification management.
How many active installs does ActiveLayer Anti-Spam have?
WordPress.org reports 8,000+ active installs for ActiveLayer Anti-Spam as of September 7, 2026.
Is ActiveLayer Anti-Spam still maintained?
Yes. The last release was on August 7, 2026 and it is tested up to WordPress 7.0.4.
Does ActiveLayer Anti-Spam have good support?
On the WordPress.org forum, 0 of 1 recent support threads for ActiveLayer Anti-Spam are marked resolved. That is the developer's free support; a paid version usually comes with its own channel.
Is ActiveLayer Anti-Spam free?
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam is free to install from WordPress.org. Many plugins also sell a paid version or add-ons.
Where does ActiveLayer Anti-Spam rank among Anti-Spam Plugins?
ActiveLayer Anti-Spam is #18 in the WordPress.org Anti-Spam Plugins ranking.