Olly - OWMC

Many people use WP as a fully fledged CMS, building sites which don’t even have a blog. In such cases, the WP comments functionality is a waste of pixels and needs completely removing. Comment Crusher was made to quickly and thoroughly clear your install of every trace of comment functionality.
For many years I have used this collection of hooks to achieve this end. So came the idea to put it in a plugin and make it available to the masses. Simply activate this plugin and never worry about comments again.
When activated, even though all pre-existing comments on your site won’t be visible, they do still exist in your database. This plugin doesn’t delete them. And so deactivating the plugin will restore full comments functionality and reveal all previous comments again.
This plugin does not collect any data, neither does it modify your database.
<ul>
<li>Disable comment and trackback support from all post-types</li>
<li>Deactivate comments and pings on the front end</li>
<li>Hide all existing comments</li>
<li>Remove the comment metabox from the dashboard</li>
<li>Remove comments link from the toolbar</li>
<li>Remove the admin menu link for comments</li>
<li>Redirect anyone trying to access the comments admin page </li>
</ul>
This plugin was built using the <a href="https://wppb.me" rel="nofollow ugc">WP Plugin Boilerplate</a> and the custom functionality code I think goes back to <a href="https://gist.github.com/mattclements/10a997775894c7a0eba1" rel="nofollow ugc">Matt Clements in 2013</a>.

Comment Crusher

Disable and remove comments on your WP site.

Samir Shah

This plugin has two modes – basic and Akismet-enhanced.
Basic mode: the plugin will serve a CAPTCHA to all commenters that aren’t logged in and don’t have a previously approved comment. Repeat commenters will never see a CAPTCHA.
Akismet-enhanced mode (recommended): the plugin will serve a CAPTCHA only if Akismet identifies a comment as spam (much less frequently than the basic mode). Just install an activate <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/" rel="ugc">Akismet</a> to enable this mode.
Note that a CAPTCHA will only appear after a comment is submitted. When a commenter is served a CAPTCHA:
<ul>
<li>If they fail, then the comment will be automatically discarded or trashed (and won’t clutter up your spam queue).</li>
<li>If they pass, it will be allowed into the spam queue (or approved, if you so choose). This means that any false positives from Akismet will be easily identified without you having to trawl through all the spam comments manually.</li>
</ul>
Most genuine commenters will be able to comment on your site hassle-free, without ever seeing a CAPTCHA.
The default CAPTCHA is a simple text-based test. There is also the option to use <a href="http://www.google.com/recaptcha" rel="nofollow ugc">reCAPTCHA</a> if you want something more robust (free API key required). You can also style the CAPTCHA page to fit with your own WordPress theme.
If you come across any bugs or have suggestions, please use the plugin support forum or <a href="http://rayofsolaris.net/contact/" rel="nofollow ugc">email me</a>. I can’t fix it if I don’t know it’s broken! Please check the <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-conditional-captcha/faq/" rel="ugc">FAQs</a> for common issues.
Thanks to the following people for contributing translations of this plugin: Belorussian – <a href="http://pc.de" rel="nofollow ugc">Marcis G</a>, Brazilian Portuguese – Stefano, Czech – <a href="http://trumplin.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Ted</a>, Danish – Jesper, Dutch – <a href="http://wpwebshop.com/books/" rel="nofollow ugc">Rene</a>, Estonian – <a href="http://www.itransition.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Itransition</a>, Finnish – Jani, French – <a href="http://android-software.fr" rel="nofollow ugc">Laurent</a>, German – <a href="http://jochenpreusche.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Jochen</a>, Hindi – <a href="http://outshinesolutions.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Outshine Solutions</a>, Hungarian – <a href="http://www.televizio.sk" rel="nofollow ugc">Gyula</a>, Italian – <a href="http://gidibao.net" rel="nofollow ugc">Gianni</a>, Lithuanian – Mantas, Polish – <a href="http://www.spin.siedlce.pl" rel="nofollow ugc">Pawel</a>, Romanian – <a href="http://simplu.mixnet.ro" rel="nofollow ugc">Lotus</a>, Russian – <a href="http://www.everycloudtech.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Ivanka</a>, Spanish – <a href="http://www.reinventia.net" rel="nofollow ugc">Reinventia</a>, Swedish – <a href="http://www.umu.se" rel="nofollow ugc">Hugo</a>, Turkish – Tony, Ukranian – <a href="http://www.everycloudtech.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Ivanka</a>. Some of these translations are a bit out of date – updates welcome!

Conditional CAPTCHA

Asks commenters to complete a simple CAPTCHA if they don't have a previously approved comment, or if Akismet thinks their comment is spam.

Comment Crusher vs Conditional CAPTCHA