Development
The Road of Switching the Blog Comment System
From Disqus to Remark42, from third-party to self-hosted
The author emphasizes the importance of a commenting feature for independent blogs, discussing various platforms. They started with Disqus, which had issues like intrusive ads and privacy concerns. Later, they tried Commento, which is privacy-focused but lacks updates. Finally, they recommend Remark42, an open-source, self-hosted platform that's easy to deploy and manages data effectively.
- #independent blog
- #Disqus
- #Commento
- #Remark42
- #self-hosted platform
- #open-source
- #user control
- #Markdown syntax
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The commenting feature should be an extremely important part of an independent blog.
Good comments not only benefit the author but also complement the article. I have been fiddling with the comment system on my blog for a long time, switching between several platforms. Now, I've finally found the most satisfactory platform at this stage, and I probably won't move again in the short term, so I'm documenting the process.
Disqus
The easiest to integrate and get started with is definitely the well-established comment system, Disqus. It's the first comment system supported by virtually all blogging frameworks. It also has the most registered users among third-party comment platforms. There's plenty of documentation, and no complicated configurations are needed. Often, you just need to insert a line of code into your page template.
I initially chose Disqus as well.
But the way Disqus operates can be pretty unseemly.
For example, ads are inserted for free users. This, in itself, is not unreasonable. But the quality of these ads is poor, easily lowering the class of the website. The ad images are big and ugly, completely irrelevant to the website content.
So, let's try paid service.
After paying, the ads are gone, but you still can't avoid Disqus's tracking of visitors.
As an independent blog, there's no need to collect user information, and they are often designed to be simple and load quickly. However, to have a comment function, you have to introduce a huge chunk of code, slowing down the load speed and compromising privacy.
Another significant issue is that Disqus is inaccessible in China.
So, I don't think paying for Disqus is worth it.
Commento
Later, I tried Commento. According to their claims, they focus on privacy and only serve paying users. There's also an open-source version for self-hosting, and it's accessible in China.
This product is indeed simple and doesn't collect private data. But it always gives you the feeling that development might stop at any moment: the documentation is not updated, and the last update was in 2020.
I switched between Commento and Disqus several times, always remembering to find a better comment platform. This time, I didn’t want to rely on third-party platforms anymore and wanted to keep the data in my own hands.
Remark42
After testing several self-hosted comment platforms, I think this one is currently the best: Remark42.
As an open-source, self-hosted platform, you have complete control over your data, and you can set your rules. If your server isn’t blocked, comments can be naturally accessed, and the potential audience will be larger.
It has all the necessary features: comments support Markdown syntax, and it supports RSS and email subscription for comment updates (which require configuration).
More importantly, Remark42 is very easy to deploy and integrate. Using Docker, you can complete the deployment and front-end integration within 20 minutes—perhaps configuring Nginx might take longer.
It also supports multiple login methods, each requiring configuration. You can configure a Telegram bot so that every new comment will be pushed to Telegram.
There are many other notification methods which I haven't tested yet, as there are not many comments at the moment...
In short, if you have an independent blog and are looking for a satisfactory comment platform, I highly recommend Remark42.