Forum spam protection that respects your members - and you
Forum Fortress is a hosted anti-spam service built specifically for self-hosted forums, now available for Flarum 1.8 and Flarum 2.x.
The extension checks registrations, logins, discussions, replies, edits and supported profile changes before Flarum accepts them.
Protection starts as soon as the extension is installed and enabled. You do not need to create an account, configure an API key, provide payment details or even enter an email address.
Every new installation starts with a 30-day trial of Pro. At the end of the trial, it automatically reverts to the always-free tier unless you choose another plan.
The trial gives your forum time to establish its real usage and explore the available features, helping you choose the most cost-effective plan for your community rather than guessing before installation.
Screenshots
Extension configuration
Forum Fortress portal
A live demonstration of the Forum Fortress portal is also available:
https://forumfortress.com/portal-demo
More than a blocklist
Forum Fortress considers multiple signals together rather than allowing a single IP address, email address, username or blacklist entry to decide the result.
Checks can consider:
- The age and history of the account
- The action being attempted
- Links, redirects, wording and obfuscation
- Network, email, username and domain reputation
- Patterns of activity associated with previous abuse
For example, a brand-new account immediately posting an obfuscated promotional link can be assessed differently from an established member sharing the same domain in a relevant discussion.
Those signals are combined before Forum Fortress returns a simple ALLOW or BLOCK decision to Flarum.
Respecting your members
Forum Fortress works entirely server-side through Flarum.
It does not add client-side JavaScript, tracking scripts or cookies to your public forum pages. It also does not make genuine members complete CAPTCHAs or other additional challenges.
Raw usernames, full email addresses and submitted post content are retained for no more than five days before being discarded. Limited derived reputation signals may be retained for longer to help recognise repeated abuse, without keeping a permanent archive of your members' identities or posts.
Full details about data handling and retention are available in the privacy documentation.
The result is less spam for administrators to clean up, without adding browser-side tracking or unnecessary friction for genuine members.
Plans for forums of every size
Every installation begins with a 30-day Pro trial, with no account, email address or payment details required.
After the trial, you can choose the plan that best matches the forum's actual usage:
- Free - always free: designed to provide useful ongoing protection for smaller and hobbyist forums
- Core - $10/year: increased capacity for growing forums
- Pro - $40/year: for larger communities, multiple forums and additional reporting features
If you do not select a paid plan, the installation automatically continues on Free. Protection does not suddenly stop when the trial ends.
All plans use the same protection engine. Paid plans provide increased capacity and additional features rather than better-quality spam decisions.
The price you subscribe at will not increase while that subscription remains active.
Compatibility
Installation
Install the extension with Composer:
composer require forumfortress/flarum
Then enable Forum Fortress from the Flarum administration panel.
The extension will automatically connect to the service and begin protecting the forum. No additional configuration is required.
You can optionally connect the installation to a Forum Fortress account later to manage it through the portal, view activity and choose a plan.
Updating
composer update forumfortress/flarum
php flarum migrate
php flarum cache:clear
Links
Feedback, bug reports and compatibility reports are very welcome.
