69
Stop Spammers Classic
A veteran spam blocker that might accidentally lock you out of your site.
HealthyGrowing
69/100
Effective spam protection is offset by reports of broken features and user lockouts.
Active installs
~33,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 30k+
Rating
4.4★
243 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+340%
Growing fast
30 → 132 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORreviews unevenly distributed over time
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing fast · +340% in the last year
30/day a year ago→132/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayStop Spammers Classic has a polarizing reputation — some users report it eliminating spam entirely, but a significant number of critical reviews cite core features like country blocking and email blacklisting not working, plus serious issues with locking legitimate users out of their own sites.
What people like
- +Effectively stopped spam registrations and comments for some users, including on membership sites where other plugins had failed×4
- +Country blocking worked as expected for at least one user, with an immediate noticeable reduction in spam
- +Support from the plugin author was responsive and helpful in at least one case×2
- +Clean, simple layout that is easy to use
Common complaints
- −Country blocking feature reported as non-functional by multiple users — blocked countries could still access the site×3
- −Plugin locked legitimate users, including site owners, out of their own websites×2
- −After a specific update, all customers were incorrectly placed on the block list, breaking login and registration (since .3)
- −Enabling reCAPTCHA v2 caused a lockout because the CAPTCHA did not render on the front end
- −Email address blacklisting did not work — blocked addresses could still submit forms
- −High rate of false positives blocking legitimate form submissions, with no way to recover the blocked submission
- −Plugin displays intrusive admin dashboard ads/donation notices, contradicting its own advertised feature of hiding admin notices×2
- −Premium account records were lost and support responses were unhelpful form letters
- −The premium plugin's developer abandoned the product, with the website redirecting to an unrelated domain and no warning given to paying customers
- −Whitelisted IPs and blacklisted mail domains ignored in a recent version
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.07★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.40★
- 2%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 30% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-09-182025-02-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 243 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2025-12-21★★★★★reCAPTCHA functionality bug locked me out of the websitednikod
- 2024-08-12★★★★★DOESN'T WORKalsoto007
- 2024-06-17★★★★★I tried blocking countries and it didn't workSujit B
- 2024-05-28★★★★★This feature is temporarily banned for security reasons.Olga Jascin
- 2024-05-26★★★★★Site Saverdariush11
- 2024-05-24★★★★★Stop SPAM did not work!christiantraveler
- 2024-05-15★★★★★Does Not Stop Countriesbennywelsh
- 2024-04-25★★★★★Paid for Premium Plugin now they disappearedSean M. Atkinson
- 2024-04-14★★★★★From a long termPremium Userkech61
- 2023-08-22★★★★★Poor SupportKevin Pirnie
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNNo release history available.
Alternatives to Stop Spammers Classic
Top Anti-spam plugins, ranked by score.For developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
122
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
144
Prior 7-day baseline
364
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
4,868
Mean release-day peak (30d)
314
Latest day · 2026-06-03(tail)
-15.3%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
30%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.26
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
73%
5★ share in analyzed sample
2%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.09 → 4.07★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered