Akismet was launched 20 years ago today, when Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg announced it on his blog in a post describing what Akismet was and what it could become.

The internet has changed a lot in the past 20 years!

In 2005, the internet was primarily a desktop experience, dominated by dial-up or early broadband connections, and social media was in its infancy with platforms like MySpace just beginning to gain traction.

Now in 2025, the internet is woven into the fabric of our lives, no longer a separate experience but an invisible thread connecting us all. We carry it everywhere in our pockets, speak to it in our homes and rely on it for almost everything. High-speed internet keeps us constantly connected and AI quietly shapes much of what we read, watch, and buy.  This has transformed how and where we work as well as making the internet a far more immersive and integral part of daily life than it was two decades ago.

However one thing has remained the same – spammers continue to try and evade site defenses to spread their content and Akismet continues to defeat them. Saving moderation time lets people focus on what really matters: creating, connecting, and sharing.