Search for a Telegram moderation bot and you will find the same handful of names repeated in every thread, usually with no explanation of who each one is actually for. We run an AI moderation product ourselves, so instead of another vague roundup we did the obvious thing: set up a test group, invited each bot in, configured it properly, and threw real spam patterns at it for a week.

One honest disclosure before the list: collony is our product. We put it first because this is our blog and we believe in it, but every strength and weakness listed for the other six bots is real, and for plenty of groups a free rule based bot is genuinely the right call. We say so where it is true.

The short version

• collony: best for scam detection and communities where member trust is the real problem

• Rose: best free rule based moderator, the sensible default

• Combot: best analytics dashboard with moderation attached

• Shieldy: best minimal captcha gate for join spam

• Group Help: widest free feature set if you can handle the setup

• Safeguard: best verification portal for crypto communities

• Join Captcha Bot: simplest possible anti-bot filter

Telegram moderation bots compared

Prices are at the time of writing and change often, so check each site before committing. ChatKeeper and Modr8 were not part of our test week, see the note after the ranked list.

1. collony: best for AI scam detection

collony is the best Telegram moderation bot for scam heavy communities in 2026 because it is the only bot on this list that reads behavior instead of matching blocklists and trigger words. It flags things rules cannot describe in advance: a new account that DMs members within minutes of joining, a username one character away from an admin, a wallet drainer link wrapped in a friendly question. Rule based bots catch what you predicted. collony is built to catch what you did not. For link spam specifically, see how to block spam links in a Telegram group.

Beyond moderation it tracks community sentiment and gives you a dashboard of what actually happened in your group each week, so it doubles as the reporting layer most admins are missing. Setup takes a few minutes and it runs happily alongside any bot below, which is exactly how we recommend trying it.

• Strengths: behavioral scam and impersonation detection, sentiment insights, dashboard reporting, works next to your existing bot

• Weaknesses: paid product after the trial, not built for word filter micromanagement, younger than the veterans on this list

• Pick it if: scams, impersonators, or raid waves cost you members and rule based filters keep missing them. See pricing or compare it against the bots below.

2. Rose: best free rule based moderator

Rose is the default answer for Telegram moderation and it earned that position. Word filters, warn and mute escalation, welcome captchas, federation bans shared across groups, granular admin permissions: if you can express a rule in words, Rose can enforce it, and it costs nothing.

The limits appear at scale. Every protection is a rule you wrote, so Rose is only as smart as your blocklist on the day an attack starts. There is no dashboard and no analytics, and command based setup has a real learning curve. We wrote a full collony vs Rose comparison if you are choosing between the two.

• Strengths: free, battle tested, extremely configurable, federation bans

• Weaknesses: blind to novel scams, command line style setup, zero reporting

• Pick it if: you want a capable free moderator and have time to maintain rules yourself

3. Combot: best analytics with moderation attached

Combot approaches moderation from the analytics side. Its dashboard of activity trends, top contributors, and engagement over time is the best on Telegram, and community managers who report numbers to a team or sponsors often justify the subscription on the charts alone.

Moderation is the secondary feature. Rules are trigger based like Rose's, advanced options sit behind the paid plan, and there is no behavioral detection. Combot tells you what happened better than anyone. It is weaker at stopping what is about to happen. Full breakdown in our Combot vs Rose vs collony comparison.

• Strengths: best in class analytics, solid trigger rules, professional reporting

• Weaknesses: moderation is not the focus, paid tier for the good parts, no scam detection layer

• Pick it if: engagement numbers matter as much as moderation in your community

Running a Telegram group? collony.ai catches the scams, fake admins and reworded spam that keyword filters miss, and it runs next to the bot you already use. Try it free for 7 days, no card needed.

4. Shieldy: best minimal captcha gate

Shieldy does one thing: it challenges every new joiner with a captcha and removes anyone who fails. For groups whose only real problem is bot floods at the door, that single feature stops most of it, and the bot is free and open source.

• Strengths: free, open source, near zero configuration, effective against join bots

• Weaknesses: does nothing about human scammers already inside, no filters, no reporting

• Pick it if: join spam is your whole problem and you want it solved in two minutes

5. Group Help: widest free feature set

Group Help packs an enormous amount into a free bot: anti flood, word filters, warns, captchas, welcome messages, night mode, media restrictions, and more. It is popular in large international communities precisely because almost everything is toggleable.

The tradeoff is coherence. Settings sprawl across dozens of menus, documentation is thin, and like every rule based bot it only blocks what you explicitly configured. It is a toolbox, not a strategy.

• Strengths: huge free feature list, active development, multilingual

• Weaknesses: confusing configuration, no analytics, rule based blind spots

• Pick it if: you want maximum knobs for free and do not mind the setup maze

6. Safeguard: best verification portal for crypto groups

Safeguard became the standard join gate in large crypto communities: new members verify through a portal before they can see the group, which filters bot armies and cheap scam accounts at the entrance. Many token communities treat it as table stakes.

Like Shieldy, it guards the door rather than the room. Impersonators with aged accounts walk through, and everything that happens after joining is out of scope. Crypto groups usually pair it with a moderation layer such as collony for crypto community protection.

• Strengths: strong join verification, familiar UX in crypto, filters bot waves

• Weaknesses: no in chat moderation, no filters or analytics, crypto focused

• Pick it if: you run a token community and need a serious front door

7. Join Captcha Bot: the simplest filter

Exactly what the name says: a captcha on join, nothing else. It is lighter than Shieldy with fewer options, which for tiny groups is a feature. Add it, forget it, and upgrade to something on this list when your group grows past a few hundred members.

• Strengths: free, trivial setup, zero maintenance

• Weaknesses: one feature, nothing for existing members, no visibility

• Pick it if: you run a small group and want basic bot protection today

Also worth a look: ChatKeeper and Modr8

Two newer names come up often in Telegram admin threads. We did not run them through the same test week as the seven above, so they are not ranked, but here is what each one is built for.

ChatKeeper

ChatKeeper is a trigger and filter bot with a lot of range: filters by message type, several captcha and verification styles, a reputation system and activity stats. Its paid tiers add AI settings for chat digests, negativity detection and language detection. The free plan covers the basics but puts ads in greeting messages, and paid plans start at $4.99 per month. Pick it if you want Rose style rules with better stats and some light AI help.

Modr8

Modr8 is a Telegram only moderation bot that runs under your own bot token, so members see your brand instead of a third party name. It handles duplicate and flood spam, custom automation rules, sentiment tracking, scheduled announcements from YouTube or RSS, and a reputation leaderboard. It is free for groups under 100 members, then $9.99 per chat per month. Pick it if you want a white-label bot and engagement features in one place. Like the other rule based bots, it still leaves the scam detection gap described above.

How we tested

We ran each bot in a test group seeded with real spam patterns collected from public crypto and gaming communities: link spam with URL shorteners, impersonation attempts using lookalike usernames, DM bait messages, and a simulated join flood. Rule based bots were configured with sensible default blocklists first, then retested after tuning. The gap that decided most rankings was not catch rate on known patterns, where every mature bot does fine, but what happened when we varied the wording or used a fresh domain.

Which one should you pick?

For most groups the answer is one of two bots: Rose if you want the best free rule based moderator, collony if scams and member trust are the actual problem. Beyond that, start with the problem, not the bot. Join floods: Shieldy or Safeguard. Tight budget and time to tinker: Rose or Group Help. Reporting for a team: Combot. Scams, impersonators, and trust damage that filters keep missing: that is the problem collony was built for, and you can run it alongside any of the others, so trying it costs you nothing in switching pain. The side by side comparison covers the details. And if your community lives on Discord rather than Telegram, especially a gaming server, start with our guide to moderation for gaming communities.

Whichever bot you land on, pair it with the right settings. Our guide to stopping spam in a Telegram group covers the permission and slow mode setup that makes any of these bots work better.

Before adding any bot, make sure the native controls are switched on. Our Telegram anti-spam settings checklist covers the five that matter most.

Want the long form on the bots that come up most? Read our full Rose Bot review, and the best Rose Bot alternative if Rose is the one you are outgrowing. For a spam-only shortlist, the best Telegram anti-spam bots narrows the field, and how much community moderation really costs covers the budget question.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free Telegram moderation bot?

Rose, for most groups. It has the deepest free rule set and the largest knowledge base of guides. Group Help offers more toggles but is harder to configure well.

Can I run two moderation bots in one Telegram group?

Yes, and large communities usually do. A common stack is a join gate like Shieldy or Safeguard, plus Rose for rules, plus collony for AI scam detection and reporting. Just avoid giving two bots the same auto delete duties or they will race each other.

Do rule based bots stop crypto scammers?

Partially. They reliably block known patterns: flagged domains, blocklisted words, mass forwarded messages. They miss novel phrasing, fresh domains, and social engineering, which is exactly the gap behavioral AI detection closes.

How much do Telegram moderation bots cost?

Rose, Shieldy, Group Help, and Join Captcha Bot are free. Combot's useful tier is paid per group. collony is a paid product with a trial, see current pricing.

What is the best Telegram protection bot?

It depends on where the threat gets in. For join bots, a captcha gate like Shieldy or a verification portal like Safeguard. For scammers and impersonators already inside the group, an AI moderation bot like collony.ai that reads behavior instead of keywords. Most large groups run one of each.