Hace aproximadamente dos meses que dejamos de utilizar Disqus. Muchos de ustedes se dieron cuenta de este cambio y nos pidieron que escribiéramos una reseña / valoración de Disqus explicando por qué cambiamos. Después de usar Disqus durante aproximadamente un año, nos dimos cuenta de varios inconvenientes que nos obligaron a cambiar de nuevo a los comentarios de WordPress. En esta reseña / valoración de Disqus, destacaremos las razones por las que cambiamos y cómo nos ayudó a aumentar nuestros comentarios en un 304%.
Empezamos a usar Disqus en abril de 2014. Nos cambiamos hace varios meses. Realmente apreciamos su paciencia y nuestras disculpas por tomar tanto tiempo para escribir acerca de esto. Sabemos que varios de ustedes han estado preguntando acerca de por qué nos cambiamos de Disqus, así que aquí va nuestra última reseña / valoración de Disqus.
¿Por qué cambiamos de Disqus?
Hubo varias razones por las que cambiamos de Disqus.
Insertar enlaces de afiliados sin permiso
Disqus ofrece a los editores la posibilidad de ganar un poco de $$ extra si activas Promoted Discovery que muestra historias patrocinadas en la sección de entradas relacionadas que Disqus puede añadir.
Como no queríamos ningún tipo de publicidad de ellos, teníamos todos los ajustes desmarcados.
Sin embargo, accidentalmente nos encontramos con lo que ellos llaman un “fallo” en el que Disqus estaba enlazando afiliados en el contenido de las entradas de nuestro blog sin nuestro permiso.
Básicamente Disqus tiene una asociación con Viglink que mira a través de su contenido y cambiar cualquier enlace que están asociados con un enlace de afiliado.
Nos dimos cuenta de esto cuando nos dimos cuenta de Viglink refiriendo ofertas a OptinMonster desde nuestro sitio WPBeginner. Qué ironía, ya que ambos son nuestros sitios. Hmmm.
Después de investigarlo, informamos del problema a Disqus, que lo corrigió y lo llamó “fallo”.
Nos decepcionó bastante la forma en que se manejó esto. No estamos seguros de cuánto dinero Disqus hizo a través de este fallo de inyección de afiliados, y lo extendido que era esto. No hubo ningún anuncio público acerca de esto, y definitivamente no recibimos ningún crédito de $$ por la publicidad que estaban colocando en nuestro sitio por quién sabe cuánto tiempo.
Eso nos dejó un mal sabor de boca.
Para más detalles sobre el fallo, puedes ver nuestro vídeo aquí.
Comentarios patrocinadores
Nos enteramos de esto a través de nuestro amigo Michael Hyatt cuando notó que aparecían comentarios patrocinados en su sitio sin su permiso.
Nos informó de que no se puede optar por salir sin la ayuda del equipo de soporte de Disqus.
Así que nos pusimos en contacto con Disqus para una respuesta oficial con respecto a este problema.
Nos confirmaron que no hay manera fácil para que una persona pueda optar por no participar sin llegar a su equipo de soporte. Dado que había criterios específicos para los comentarios patrocinados, la mayoría de los usuarios no se verán afectados por esto.
¡Genial! Como si la lucha contra los comentarios de Spam no fuera ya lo suficientemente difícil, ahora tenemos que estar atentos a Disqus y ponernos rápidamente en contacto con ellos si activan los comentarios patrocinados en nuestro sitio. No, gracias.
Matt Mullenweg, fundador de WordPress lo resume mejor en su respuesta al anuncio de Disqus: “¡No es Spam de comentarios si nos pagan por ello!”.
Nota: durante este fiasco de los comentarios patrocinadores, hemos descubierto un ajuste que se activa automáticamente para el seguimiento de cookies. Se encuentra en la pestaña de ajustes “Avanzados”. Asegúrate de desactivarla si utilizas Disqus.
Disminución significativa de la participación en los comentarios
Cuando activamos Disqus, algunos lectores se quejaron de que Disqus hace que sea más difícil para los comentarios de invitados. Dado que Disqus estaba siendo ampliamente utilizado en varios de los mejores sitios, no prestamos mucha atención a esas quejas.
Con el tiempo, nuestra participación en los comentarios disminuyó considerablemente. Después de desactivar Disqus, vimos que nuestros usuarios empezaban a dejar más comentarios. Desde el cambio, hemos avisado de que nuestros comentarios han aumentado un 304%.
Interfaz de moderación
Estábamos bastante entusiasmados con la nueva interfaz de moderación cuando hicimos el cambio, pero a medida que la utilizábamos más, no era algo que gustara a nuestros editores.
Nota: Esto es completamente una preferencia personal, y sabemos que hay otros usuarios a los que les encanta la interfaz de Disqus.
¿Qué echaremos de menos de Disqus?
Aunque no nos gustaron algunas de las prácticas empresariales de Disqus, hubo algunas cosas que seguramente echaremos de menos de la plataforma.
Escalabilidad y rendimiento del sitio
Los comentarios consumen muchos recursos. Si tienes muchos comentarios en una entrada, tardará mucho tiempo en cargarse.
Si muchos usuarios dejan comentarios al mismo tiempo, también afectará a la carga del servidor. La ventaja de utilizar un sistema de comentarios de terceros como Disqus es que reduces la carga de tu servidor y se la envías a ellos.
Incluso si su sitio está siendo atacado por un usuario malintencionado, no afectará a su servidor porque tiene que pasar primero por Disqus. (Nota: Esto solo es cierto, si ha desactivado la Sincronización de comentarios).
Redundancia
La mejor parte acerca de Disqus era que los comentarios se almacenan en una base de datos de terceros que es extremadamente útil con la redundancia. Definitivamente extrañaremos esto.
Por ahora, si alguna vez tenemos que hacer un fail-over, simplemente desactivaremos los comentarios hasta que nuestros servidores principales estén de vuelta. Aunque no es lo ideal, esta es la opción más sencilla que tenemos.
¿Qué es lo siguiente?
Por ahora, estamos utilizando la interfaz de comentarios de WordPress por defecto. En el pasado, hemos probado Disqus y Livefyre, pero hemos vuelto a los comentarios de WordPress porque nos parece la mejor opción disponible.
Definitivamente estamos considerando el uso de De:Comments, un plugin de comentarios de WordPress que hemos reseñado anteriormente.
La otra opción es potenciar los comentarios nativos de WordPress con un conjunto de otros plugins de funcionalidad como Suscribirse a Comentarios, Notificaciones de Respuesta, Edición Simple de Comentarios, y posiblemente algunos más.
Esperamos que esta reseña haya explicado por qué nos alejamos de Disqus. Realmente apreciamos su paciencia y nuestras disculpas por tomar tanto tiempo para escribir acerca de esto. Sabemos que muchos de ustedes han estado preguntando acerca de este cambio.
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Syed Balkhi says
Hey WPBeginner readers,
Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
You can get more details about the contest from here.
Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!
Lisa says
Thank you for the update. As a now -post article former Disqus user- I appreciate knowing their deceptive practices and absolutely appreciate the ease and security in which I can now comment.
hipo says
That’s exactly the reason why since some time ago I decided not to use Disqus at all.
Regards,
Georgi
Natalie says
Would I loose all comments that were left on my site via Disqus if I switch to regular wordpress comments?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Natalie,
No, if you have been using the official Disqus comment system plugin in WordPress, then all your Disqus comments will be synced with your WordPress database. You can view them by visiting the Comments page in WordPress admin area.
Administrador
Randy says
Hey WPbeginner,
How do you make your wordpress native comments look like this? I tried using native wordpress and it looks hideous, also background is grayish and people can’t reply to each other’s comments. Any idea how you made yours look the way is now? Please help, would love to use something alike. Thanks
WPBeginner Support says
Hey Randy,
We are using a custom theme so we were able to design our comments the way we wanted. You can also do that by adding custom CSS to your theme. Check out our guide on how to style WordPress comments for more details.
Administrador
Knut Holt says
Disquss are stedily more taking the role of being a service for global eensorship, surveillance and spam on behalf of their commersial partners and the constellation commonly called the “deep state” which is also a partner.
They sensor stedily more any comment that goes against the interests of these partners and any spam, according to a wide definition, that might compete with their parners. They do so globally and steadily more also globally ban people that issue comments not strictly according to maintream consensus.
But simultaneously they take the freedom to act as a grand scale spammer themselves.
What I said here I already knew, but this article also shows that Disquss is involved in downright economical Fraud ny changing affiliate links. But I cannot say I am surprized.
Be aware that this activity takes a lot of computational resources from website owners, so that the owners get higher costs and lose income at every corner.
Fagad says
If it is so good, then why you do not use Disqus instead of this commenting system?
Tim says
It’s there on their website:
Personalization
Disqus collects anonymous data from you in order to deliver better targeted content and advertising.
haris says
Great! I am having trouble with Disqus Comments and now disabling it
Dave Ellis says
Pretty interesting reading. I was thinking 0f using Disqus, but on reading your article, I am having second thoughts.
Pat Slice says
I have canceled my Disqus account. Not that I don’t believe in open comment I found that the oarticipants blewback so hard and no real reason. I somestimes think disqus participants were overly irate. Maybe I am sensitive but I do believe that we should be able voice our opinions without being personally and viciously attacked.
Matt Hutson says
I just signed up for Disqus. After reading your post I’m a little skeptical but then again my blog hasn’t got many comments so I’m willing to try something new to see if it works. Thanks for all the good information!
Chrissy says
Did you export your comments from Disqus to your site and if so, how did you do that?
Chug says
Do you need to sign up to comment or?
Tom Tom says
DISQUS is really shady…..
Recently it became impossible for me to post using the DISQUS since they started “building walls” and doing really creepy things such as displaying my business email and my password (which I never used with them) everywhere. So that way they let me know that they know everything about me and who I am and what my business is etc. etc. And I don’t give rat’s behind. They do that even if I log out, delete cookies, clear the cache etc. They must have stole that information from Facebook etc. Never let DISQUST anywhere close to your email or your Facebook etc. They were illegally spying on me, my friends, my communications, my posts and they decided to make posting on DISQUST for me a living hell, so I quit them every time I see DISQUS I just close the browser for that site even if it is a shopping site or site with ads where I may clocik on, as soon as DISQUST shows up, I shut the browser down immediately. I developed such a habit. DISQUS = SHUTDOWN. And now I blocked their domain and IP addresses from my PC.
Also, BEWARE, DISQUS is working with Twitter and Yelp spying on your tweets by forwarding your tweets to themselves.
Aziz Brimah says
Good article. Thanks.
Umer Iftikhar says
Alright! But I just want to know few more things. I am thinking to switch from Disqus since I can see drop in comments from my readers. Further what options would you recommend to stop spam? Secondly How did you switch and took all those comments back to your wordpress from Disqus?
In the last what comment system you are now using?
Is Jetpack good?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Umer,
We use default WordPress commenting system. For spam protection we use moderation and Akismet.
Administrador
Chris Curley says
I simply refuse to sign up for disqus and simply don’t comment on websites that require me to do so.Sometimes I feel like correcting an opinion I feel to have deep factual flaws,however my input isn’t that necessary that I need to be forced to go through the steps required by disqus and I too cringe when I see their eblem
Tim says
Do you refuse to sign up to any website to leave comments? For example if this site didn’t allow anonymous and you had to creat an account, would you?
Kat says
That’s a bit like asking if you’d refuse to get an account on Vimeo, to validate your refusal to get a Youtube account. There are plenty of websites that require you sign up to leave a comment, but few have the history of data breach, trolls and doxxing threats that Disqus has. They have a reputation, and it’s well deserved.
And yes, I speak from both research and personal experience. After deleting a personal-use account several years ago, I later tried to set up a very carefully limited account for my professional profile. I eventually deleted that one too – it just wasn’t worth the intrusions.
I have joined many websites in order to leave a single comment, if they’re not asking for more information than I’m willing to pony up. But if I see Disqus is their comment system, I not only will not comment, I will sometimes go out of my way to let the site owner’s know that having Disqus as their commenting tool is the very reason they’re getting no engagement from me and probably others. Because I am as quick to advocate for tools that I believe stimulate active engagement, as advocating against those that interfere with engagement.
Tim says
Thanks for the post. Would like to have more info on why you saw a 304% increase in comment participation.
This is what’s most interesting to me.
Is disqus just another Bay Area tech bubble startup? Or is there value?
According to your headline you can see a 304% increase in commenting when getting rid of them
What do you think the reasons for this are?
Mario says
Hi,
You are still running native WordPress comments I presume?
Keeping it that way?
Is the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.” standard WordPress?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Mario,
No we use Subscribe to comments reloaded.
Administrador
Mario says
Thanks, I already figured that out, was too quick to ask :).
nickwalt says
I really don’t understand why WordPress haven’t treated comments like a first-class citizen and made the built-in technology (sans-plugin) a truly excellent experience (for site admins and users).
So often we read about “coming back to WordPress comments” but why aren’t they so good that nobody wants to leave in the first place? Why? Why are site developers still going around in circles looking for a decent commenting technology for WordPress? Why aren’t Automattic developing a truly innovative comment technology for their platform?
Rick says
Disqus has MAJOR problems IMO. I previously deleted a Disqus account because they refuse to take action against trolls that post extremely crude, profane and vulgar comments in comment sections. I had one that started stalking me looking for any comments I made, and then attacking me (personally) over them.
I just tried to sign up a new account with Disqus and found that I had to “verify” my account. Surprise, when I clicked on the verify button, it was blocked by the ‘hosts’ file in my computer that blocks access to know Spam/Attack sites. In this case, it was viglink.com.
So… I just deleted the new account I never validated. Show me ads when I visit your site. DON’T use a known spammer that is going to flood my mailbox with crap just so I can make comments as Disqus appears to be doing.
erse says
thanks for the great review about this product
Trilby O'Feral says
I don’t have a website, I’m speaking purely from a commenter’s point of view. Disqus seems to have many problems, the worst one being that notifications of new replies aren’t showing up. I take part in a Disqus channel page and when 3-4 of us are chatting, it’s annoying to have to keep refreshing the page to see new replies/comments. Then you have to check the times to see which ones are new. It puts a damper on things. The problem is intermittent throughout the day.
I’m sorry for the friend who created the page, but it’s really too difficult to follow and participate in discussions so I, as well as others, don’t go there much now. I’ve been encouraging her to switch to WordPress, I hope she does. Or at least finds a better alternative to Disqus.
Thanks for a good article.
Shri says
Thanks for detailed review. I was planning to add it to my blog. Now I am rethink and research other reviews before implementing it.
D.J. says
I did some reading about Disqus vs. native WP, etc., some weeks ago now. Wasn’t intending to do more tonight, but came across this article while searching on how to monetize Disqus.
I haven’t even started yet and am just trying to do preliminary research before publishing this way.
In my earlier readings, it had seemed that Disqus was a good way to go, but this article and the comments make me wonder now.
Is it true that there is no monetization available from them unless you have at least 10,000 avg monthly page views? Also, what some have posted below about the sharp decline in revenue is not encouraging.
The one thing, however, which still makes me suspect Disqus is a good option is the spam factor. From the readings I did earlier, it seems that people agree with the anti-Spam features of Disqus are great and you hardly ever have to deal with spam at all with Disqus. With native WP, however, it seems people agree that spam is a HUGE problem and you can have to spend a lot of time and energy dealing with it.
WPBeginner Support says
We run native WordPress comments without much spam
Please take a look at our guide on how to combat comment spam in WordPress.
Administrador
Tim says
Ok,
after reading this article a bit further I do agree with the signup process making it more difficult to just go ahead and comment on different posts. After working in the PSM Plus industry it’s nice to read helpful articles like this on wordpress and commenting ingeneral.
Leanette says
I’ve grown to hate Disqus.
Their developer/moderator team is something to be desired. Sucks that (you) the creator must go through the (development) team in order to make any channel changes (logo/image). And you cannot delete/remove your old channel either. Ridiculous.
Amol says
I am using disqus form a long time.
Nate Balcom says
I was considering Discus as I hadn’t used it before and have noticed it being used on a lot of sites I visit. So there must be an upside..right?
I like the idea that you login once and you can post anywhere there is a Discus commenting system, but I was afraid it might dissuade people from posting as it didn’t allow for back links.
This can also be a problem with spammers, but as I moderate my comments before they’re posted this isn’t an issue. I don’t get enough comments on my site as it is and I don’t want to give visitors another reason to not communicate.
I’m currently using default WordPress comments and am thinking I’m going to stick with them. This article has been helpful.
John Smith says
what comment system are you using now?
WPBeginner Support says
We are using the default WordPress comments.
Administrador
John Carroll says
(my last message: request removal of post on censorship)
I guess (please) disregard (or remove) my post about being censored at Disqus since even under a pseudonym, it wouldn’t be hard for someone Disqus-connected to figure out who posted it. They’re still doing it to me (someone else mentioned it happening to them, I replied it happens to me, and my post went *poof* after a few minutes, but theirs didn’t in this case). I hope something good comes of this and websites switch away from that garbage service (IMO). Thanks for your time.
Millo Lailang says
I have been using disqus on one of my websites for a long time.
I just created a new website and had been thinking of which comment system to use. I initially thought of facebook comments but uninstalled it because of some personal design problems and inability to import wordpress comments to facebook comments. Removed wordpress comments also because of some personal design problems.
I got fed up of having to choose and finally installed disqus. I wish it had the option to comment anonymously (which I heard is possible).
Facebook comments seem interesting to me if not for a few things.
Arpad says
Thank You for the honest review! As the most of us “wordpressers” I also planned to change to the Disqus platform but result what I read Im staying with the WPs own comment system.
Thx, again!
Liana says
Thanks for the information very helpful.
Doug says
Inserting affiliate links was not a bug, it is turned on by default. Unreal.
Ian says
Apparently I’m the exception to what WP Beginner experienced and what some others have stated here; I recently switched to using the native WP comments on my site and after a couple of weeks the comments had gone down, not to mention we were getting some complaints from users. We ultimately decided to switch Disqus back on and the commenting traffic has picked back up again.
That having been said, there are plenty of things to not love about Disqus. I’m using the Disqus wordpress plugin for the first time and while it works overall, I set it to not sync the Disqus comments to my WP database but it continues to do so. We have a lot of comments so this is consuming a lot of space/resources. I plan to try resetting the plugin’s settings to see if I can get it to take effect but need to wait until an off peak time when traffic is down on the site should that lead to any problems.
Also, Disqus touts its revenue it pays to publishers as an advantage of using it. When Disqus first started offering the paid ads, we were getting over $1000 per month in revenue off of it. Nowadays, I’d be lucky to break $100 in a month. The type of ads being offered is less desirable also from my standpoint (they used to blend better with the content, now they are predominantly obvious ads with an image that goes above and below the comments and most of the ad subjects are on par with your average soap operas in terms of their content). My guess is this has something to do with the massive drop in revenue.
We also tried out WP-Discuz in the hopes it would replace some of the features we and our users liked about Disqus (namely up voting) but I was disappointed in what I found, namely that anybody can up or down vote a comment an unlimited about of times which would skew those. The social login integration with it also meant that it would lead to new user accounts being created in our WP database every time somebody logged in with Facebook, Twitter, etc. which we didn’t want.
I’m not really sure why the volume of comments seemed to taper off in using the native WP comments; my guess is our users are unusually resistant to change and didn’t take it well. When we first started using Disqus, the same thing happened (complaints) but they eventually adapted. I just didn’t want to wait out the several months it might take for the adaptation process to hopefully permeate our user base and have traffic pick back up.
D.J. says
What paid ads are you referring to? I have only seen that they have this “Reveal” program where you are required to have 10,000 avg page views monthly or else you cannot participate. Is there another program that does not have such a minimum traffic requirement?
Kyle says
That’s because WP has some kind of filter that knocks out comments for the dumbest of reasons. People don’t know it and wonder where their comment went assuming it’s their own computer being weird.
Franka Baly says
Thank you for the honest post about using Disqus. I had considered installing it but I am all about performance so I wanted to see if there was another perspective from someone who had used it for a while. Glad I read this!
Ed says
Thanks! Great article!
Leonardo says
I was thinking about using Discuss, but I guess I won’t do that.
Their “reveal” product (ads) sounded like a good thing for me at first glance and I was going to consider it, but I can’t trust a company that tries to outsmart its users (link without nofollow in its noscript), forcefully pushes its own brand over the website (add discuss to your site, clicking anything opens a lightbox literally overshadowing the site) and then tramples over the authority a content writer should have over their own content (affiliate viglink ads turned on by default, hidden in advanced settings)
Philip says
Great thanks for the detailed post. I was thinking about switching to Disqus but now I have reconsidered. Cheers
Strafniki says
Pretty much this.
Whenever I read an interesting article, alongside (potentially) great discussions, I often felt the inkling to contribute as well.
Then I realized it is Disqus, at which point I decided “never mind” and closed the tab.
Victor Stepanchikov says
Thanks for the information. I was actually about to install the Disqus plugin, but I think I’ll put it on hold for now. Cheers!
Him K says
Found this article while I was shortlisting which comment system to install on my blog. And this is the fourth article that discourages Disqus. I think I’m going to follow your advice, and rely on native WordPress comment to begin with. Thanks for the insight.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you found it helpful.
Administrador
Bruno says
Disqus is horrible.
I was earning a measly $3-4/day and figured I’d keep it cause something is better than nothing. My blog, mind you, sees something like 1,000,000 Pageviews per month from about 150,000 Unique Visitors worldwide and there’s great engagement. Then, after recent changes that they don’t care to get into specifically, I (and likely thousands if not tens of thousands of other publishers) started earning way less than even those minuscule amounts. I’m down to $0.30 a day after they continue “improving” their service.
Ian says
I’ve run into the same thing and am planning to move away from Disqus for this reason (and others as well). I was earning a little over $1,000 per month with Disqus ads when they first launched, now I would be doing well to break $100 per month. My guess is that the ad formats Disqus uses changed from ones that looked more like article links to very obvious ads with an image and a summary beside them. No way to know for certain but just my hunch…
D.J. says
Hmm, not a good sign it seems.
Richard Davis says
I was literally about ready to leave the site and a pop-up came for OptinMonster. I just figured I would let you guys know that it is still occurring.
Emmanuel says
i still prefer disqus
Hamdani says
Can you pls tell how you have styled your present commenting system. I love the neat and simplistic look.
Would be v nice if you get back on this. Thanks.
Shelly says
I hate Disqus more than words can describe!
Mary Ann Redfern says
Discus is trashy. Full stop.
James Shupp says
Thanks for this information. I love the WordPress blogging features and kept noticing the company you mentioned on WordPress sites. This confused me so I did a quick search and found your post. Thanks a MILLION!
Graham says
I see this was posted back the middle of last year. Have you stuck with WP commenting? I was wondering how people were finding the moderation tools when the volume scales? Disqus still seem to dominate comment site installations or are you now seeing some new emerging third party?
CleverK says
I’m a newcomer to the site, but oddly you immediately hit on an issue I had. I was looking at a list of good plugins for making a portfolio on WP, when it suggested Disqus for comments. I immediately went on the hunt for an alternative, because no way was I doing that.
I deleted my Disqus commenting account several months ago – almost a year now I think, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made, in my whole “digital life.” I will still occasionally comment on a site that has Disqus, if guest posting is available, but I refuse to create a new account no matter what site it prevents me from commenting on. I have been on many community network over the years, and I’ve never seen the level of trolling, harassing and nearly stalking anywhere, compared to what I experience on Disqus. I don’t know what it is about that platform, that brings in the loons, but it drove me right out.
Nice to know there are other, less personal and strictly anecdotal, reasons to avoid them on my own site. de:Comments is a bit pricey for me, so I might just use your beefed up native comments solution, unless my research of alternatives kicks up something useful and cheap (preferably free). Thanks for this info.
WPBeginner Support says
Thanks for sharing your feedback.
Administrador
John Dowles says
I`ve been thinking of starting a blog and I think Worldpress and Disqus seems a good combination. If somebody don´t have an account they can comment as guests so I don´t lock anybody out. I hate when you lock people out. I hate Facebook, Twitter, Google plus etc and if they can´t figure out how to comment as a guest I am not interested in their comments.
Haydrion Rayel says
You sound like Hate Smurf. Disqus has an login option with Twitter, facebook and the rest, so If you are hate it, don’t use it, but don’t bash it. Like you said, you are not interesting in their comments, than don’t use comments on your blog.
Mvaldez says
Actually, John has a point (already mentioned in the article), that if you don’t use any of those login options you cannot participate posting comments in any blog using Disqus (however, I think Disqus has an option to allow “guest comments” or similar). I prefer (from the perspective of a blog reader) to post without having to login in anyway (yes, there are many of us, so forcing us to login will exclude us from your blog).
Regarding the article, I agree that (from the perspective of the blog writer) the affiliated links insertion and the sponsored comments seems like enough reasons not to use Disqus at all.
Regards, MV.
Sarah Klass says
I was interested to find this article and also all of the comments. I would love to depart from using Disqus, as I have had a number of people over the years let me know that they haven’t been able to comment and dread to think how many others there were that didn’t bother to let me know!
Trouble is, I can’t find a way to ensure that my comments still show up on my blog. I am not using WordPress, so the several mentions I read about the feature of syncing with the blog database to have comments just show up in the native system once Disqus is disabled is not an option for me.
I wonder if anybody knows if there is a way to export Disqus comments…? The only reference to exporting that I could find on the Disqus website was in reference to backing up comments rather than importing them elsewhere.
I would love it if anybody knows a workaround!
Nathan says
Very interesting topic! I was searching for the right configuration of commenting on my site and this article definitely removed Discus from that list.
I just installed WPDisquz on my site. I think this plugin has a lot of the advantages of Discus without the disadvantages. Do you agree?
Ian says
I just recently tried WP-Discuz when I moved away from Disqus and wasn’t impressed. For me, two big things stood out: our users like the up/down voting in Disqus which WP-Discuz had, however, it doesn’t limit the amount of votes one user can post so you could sit there and click up vote a million times and it kept recording it. I thought surely this would be something the plugin would deal with (maybe I had it installed incorrectly or misconfigured but I don’t think so).
We also wanted users to be able to log in with social media accounts and discovered that when they do, it creates an account for them in the users table inside of our WP database. While this makes sense in hindsight, it wasn’t what I was expecting and I didn’t like the idea of suddenly having thousands or tens of thousands of new user accounts in our database that I would then have to wade through given how our site operates. Others might not care though.
WP-Discuz has pretty good functionality in the base plugin, but if you want any of the add ons (like flagging comments for example), you have to pay for upgrades which was another drawback.
Disqus solved all of those problems and kept the user accounts, data storage, etc. off of our site, and with our volume of comments it just seemed to suit our needs better. Plus we got some complaints when we dropped Disqus which I admit I hadn’t expected; I really thought people would prefer the WP commenting system.
Ian says
You can export comments out of Disqus. The problem arises if you plan to then import them into WordPress; Disqus uses its own unique XML file that doesn’t play nice with WP, so you would be forced to write a custom script to import the comments into your database as a practical matter. If you do some Googling on that, you can find some examples where people have written code to do the importing which might help or work, but I haven’t personally tried any of those scripts.