Product, trial and plans
This guide answers common product and pre-sales questions in plain language. The same facts apply when a question is phrased informally, such as “what does it actually do?”, “will this stop bots?”, “does it work on my board?” or “which package do I need?”.
What Forum Fortress is
Forum Fortress is spam and abuse prevention for self-hosted online communities. A plugin inside the forum checks supported activity with the Forum Fortress service and receives an allow or block decision. It is not a hosted forum, a general community-management product or a replacement for the forum’s own administration and moderation tools.
It checks new registrations, posts, replies, profile updates, signatures and other actions supported by the installed plugin. It combines network, account, content, link, reputation and behavioural signals rather than relying on one blocklist entry. A decision can include an explanation and a Decision Reference for investigation.
Forum Fortress does not add a CAPTCHA and does not require a Forum Fortress browser script on forum pages. It is intended to stop new spam after installation; it does not automatically remove spam that was already present.
Supported forum software
Current supported platforms are:
| Forum software | Supported series |
|---|---|
| Flarum | Flarum 2, from 2.0 RC5 |
| XenForo | XenForo 2 |
| phpBB | phpBB 3 |
| Invision Community | Invision Community 4 |
| SMF | SMF 2.1; current plugin is a beta release |
| MyBB | MyBB 1.8; current plugin is a beta release |
If somebody asks about Discourse, vBulletin, WordPress, a hosted forum or custom software, do not assume compatibility. The public supported list currently contains only the six platforms above. A customer with another platform can send a sales or integration enquiry for human review.
Getting started, accounts and the trial
You can install the plugin before creating a customer-portal account. The plugin begins checking supported activity once it is enabled and connected. Connect the portal when you want to review decisions, manage settings, see usage, use reports or contact support.
New eligible forums receive a 30-day Pro trial without entering card details. After the trial, the forum can continue on Free unless the customer chooses Core or Pro. The protection engine is the same on every plan.
Most administrators who can normally install a forum plugin or extension can install Forum Fortress. Use the installation guide for the exact platform and version; the packaging and steps differ between Composer, ZIP extensions, applications and forum package managers.
Current plans and prices
The published pricing is annual:
| Plan | Price | Checks each month | Automatic blocks each day | Connected forums |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 2,000 | 25 | 1 |
| Core | $10 per year | 20,000 | 250 | Up to 2 |
| Pro | $40 per year | 100,000 | Unlimited | Up to 5 |
All three plans use the same core protection engine and include Decision history, Insights, 24/7 AI live chat and telephone support, and human support tickets. Plans change capacity, automation, reporting, multi-forum tools and the priority or type of human support; paying does not buy a different spam-detection engine.
Which plan is likely to fit?
- Free suits evaluation and smaller forums that fit one forum, 2,000 monthly checks and 25 automatic blocks per day.
- Core is the usual fit for one or two active forums needing 20,000 monthly checks, more automatic blocks, 30-day Insights and faster human ticket handling.
- Pro suits busier forums or networks needing up to five forums, 100,000 monthly checks, unlimited automatic blocks, longer and custom Insights ranges, interactive graphs, advanced reports, exports, combined multi-forum analytics, the moderation workspace, priority tickets or human telephone support.
When comparing plans for a particular customer, use the forum count, monthly check volume, days on which the automatic-block cap is reached, reporting needs and support preference. A verified customer’s current plan and usage values should come from their authorised account context, not from a guess.
What a check or automatic-block allowance means
A check is a supported forum action submitted to Forum Fortress for a decision. Monthly check usage is shown in the portal. An automatic block is a suspicious action which Forum Fortress would otherwise block automatically; Free and Core have daily automatic-block allowances.
If a site reaches its plan allowance, the portal shows that some automatic protection actions may be limited until the relevant allowance resets. The service records cases that would otherwise have been blocked so the customer can understand whether a larger plan would help. Attack Mode, where shown and authorised in the portal, is temporary emergency protection for 24 hours and can bypass plan limits; customers should use the portal’s current explanation for their account rather than assuming it is available.
Performance, hosting and other security tools
The forum server needs outbound HTTPS access on port 443 to *.ffapi.net; no inbound connection to the forum is required. Forum Fortress can work behind a CDN, WAF or firewall because the plugin initiates the connection. A restrictive hosting provider may need to allow the outbound destination.
Forum Fortress can be used alongside other anti-spam controls, although duplicated or conflicting enforcement can make false positives harder to diagnose. If a forum becomes slow, check the plugin connection test, exact error, forum and plugin versions, approximate time and any Decision Reference rather than assuming the cause.
The independently monitored current service status is at status.forumfortress.com. It covers the website, API, portal, edge network, live chat and telephone support.
Decisions, false positives and missed spam
Use the Decision log and Decision Reference to understand what happened. If legitimate activity was blocked, restore or approve it with the forum’s normal moderation tools, review the displayed reasons and report a repeating pattern to support. If obvious spam was allowed, confirm that protection is enabled for that action, check the connection and plan-limit notices, and provide a Decision Reference where available.
No anti-spam service can guarantee perfect detection. The forum owner remains in control of configuration and moderation outcomes.
Privacy, policy and legal questions
Forum Fortress is designed to support GDPR-aligned privacy practices. It minimises unnecessary data, may pseudonymise identifiers where suitable, may reduce links to domains or hostnames and limits decision logging. This is not legal advice, certification or a guarantee that a customer’s own use is compliant. The current Privacy Policy explains the design and data handling.
The Terms of Service govern use of the websites, plugins, APIs, dashboards and related service. Questions asking for an interpretation of the Terms, a legal commitment, a data-subject request, a complaint, a refund or billing dispute, an account deletion, a security incident or advice about a customer’s own compliance must go to a human member of the support team.
Support choices
AI live chat and AI telephone support are available around the clock and identify themselves as AI. Human support tickets are included on every plan. Core receives faster human ticket handling; Pro receives priority human responses and adds human telephone support during configured availability. Forum Fortress does not publish a response-time guarantee unless a specific commitment is shown in the customer’s account.