Nous avons abandonné Disqus il y a environ 2 mois. Beaucoup d’entre vous ont notifié cette modification et nous ont demandé d’écrire un Avis sur Disqus expliquant pourquoi nous avons changé. À propos de Disqus, nous avons remarqué plusieurs inconvénients qui nous ont forcés à revenir aux commentaires WordPress. Dans cet Avis Disqus, nous allons mettre en évidence les raisons pour lesquelles nous avons changé et comment cela a aidé à augmenter nos commentaires de 304%.
Nous avons commencé à utiliser Disqus en avril 2014. Nous l’avons abandonné il y a plusieurs mois. Nous apprécions vraiment votre patience et nous nous excusons d’avoir pris autant de temps pour écrire à ce sujet. Nous savons que plusieurs d’entre vous ont demandé pourquoi nous avons abandonné Disqus, alors voici notre dernier avis sur Disqus.
Pourquoi avons-nous abandonné Disqus ?
Nous avons abandonné Disqus pour plusieurs raisons.
Insertion de liens d’affiliation sans droit
Disqus offre aux éditeurs la possibilité de gagner un peu plus d’argent si vous activez Promoted Discovery qui affiche des stories sponsorisées dans la section des publications similaires que Disqus peut ajouter.
Comme nous ne voulions pas de publicité de leur part, nous avons décoché tous les réglages.
Cependant, nous avons accidentellement rencontré ce qu’ils appellent un « bogue » où Disqus insérait des liens d’affiliation dans le contenu de nos publications de blog sans notre droit.
En fait, Disqus a un partenariat avec Viglink qui examine votre contenu et modifie tous les liens avec lesquels ils sont partenaires en liens d’affiliation.
Nous avons découvert cela lorsque nous avons remarqué que Viglink renvoyait des ventes à OptinMonster depuis notre site WPBeginner. Quelle ironie puisque ces deux sites sont les nôtres. Hmmm.
Après avoir examiné le problème, nous l’avons signalé à Corrigé, qui l’a corrigé et l’a qualifié de « bogue ».
Nous avons été assez déçus de la manière dont cela a été traité. Nous ne sommes pas sûrs de savoir combien d’argent Disqus a gagné grâce à ce bogue d’injection d’affiliés, ni à quel point cette pratique était répandue. Il n’y a pas eu d’annonce publique à ce sujet, et nous n’avons certainement pas reçu de crédit en dollars pour les annonces qu’ils ont placées sur notre site pendant je ne sais combien de temps.
Cela nous a laissé un mauvais goût dans la bouche.
Pour plus de détails sur le bogue, vous pouvez consulter cette page.
Commentaires sponsorisés
Nous avons appris l’existence de ce problème grâce à notre ami Michael Hyatt, qui a remarqué que des commentaires sponsorisés s’affichaient sur son site sans son droit.
Il a indiqué qu’il n’était pas possible de refuser sans l’aide de l’équipe de support de Disqus.
Nous avons donc contacté Disqus pour obtenir une responsive officielle concernant ce problème.
Ils ont confirmé qu’il n’y avait pas de moyen facile pour un individu de refuser sans contacter leur équipe de support. Étant donné qu’il existe des critères spécifiques pour les commentaires sponsorisés, la plupart des utilisateurs/utilisatrices ne seront pas affectés par ce problème.
Très bien ! Comme si la lutte contre les commentaires indésirables n’était pas déjà assez difficile, nous devons maintenant garder un œil sur Disqus et les contacter rapidement s’ils activent les commentaires sponsorisés sur notre site. Aucun merci.
Matt Mullenweg, fondateur de WordPress, résume le mieux la situation dans sa responsive à l’annonce de Disqus : « Ce n’est pas du spam de commentaires si nous sommes payés pour cela ! ».
Note : lors de ce fiasco des commentaires sponsorisés, nous avons découvert un Réglage auto-activé pour le suivi des cookies. Il est défini dans l’onglet « Réglages avancés ». Confirmez votre choix en le désactivant si vous utilisez Disqus.
Baisse significative de l’engagement dans les commentaires
Lorsque nous avons activé Disqus, quelques lecteurs se sont plaints que Disqus rendait plus difficile le fait de commenter en tant qu’invité. Étant donné que Disqus était largement utilisé sur plusieurs sites de premier plan, nous n’avons pas prêté une grande attention à ces plaintes.
Au fil du temps, l’engagement de nos commentaires a chuté de manière significative. Après avoir désactivé Disqus, nous avons constaté que nos utilisateurs/utilisatrices commençaient à laisser plus de commentaires. Depuis la modification, nous avons constaté que le nombre de commentaires avait augmenté de 304 %.
Interface de modération
Nous étions très enthousiastes à propos de la nouvelle interface de modération lorsque nous l’avons changée, mais au fur et à mesure que nous l’utilisions, nos éditeurs/éditrices ne l’ont pas appréciée.
Note : Il s’agit d’une préférence personnelle terminée, et nous sommes certains que d’autres utilisateurs/utilisatrices adorent l’interface Disqus.
Qu’est-ce qui va nous manquer chez Disqus ?
Bien que nous n’ayons pas apprécié certaines pratiques commerciales de Disqus, il y a quelques éléments de la plateforme qui nous manqueront sûrement.
Évolutivité et performance du site
Les commentaires sont très gourmands en ressources. Si vous avez beaucoup de commentaires sur une publication, son chargement prendra beaucoup de temps.
Si un grand nombre d’utilisateurs/utilisatrices laissent des commentaires en même temps, cela aura également un impact sur la charge de votre serveur. L’avantage d’utiliser un système de commentaires tiers tel que Disqus est que vous réduisez la charge de votre serveur et l’envoyez à Disqus.
Même si votre site est attaqué par un utilisateur/utilisatrice malveillant(e), cela n’aura pas d’impact sur votre serveur car cela doit d’abord passer par Disqus. (Note : Ceci est uniquement vrai si vous avez désactivé Comment Sync).
Redondance
La meilleure partie de Disqus était que les commentaires étaient stockés sur une base de données tierce, ce qui est extrêmement utile pour la redondance. Cela nous manquera certainement.
Pour l’instant, si nous devons procéder à un basculement, nous désactiverons simplement les commentaires jusqu’à ce que nos serveurs principaux soient de retour. Bien que ce ne soit pas l’idéal, c’est l’option la plus simple dont nous disposons.
Quelles sont les prochaines étapes ?
Pour l’instant, nous utilisons l’interface de commentaires par défaut de WordPress. Dans le passé, nous avons essayé Disqus et Livefyre, mais nous sommes revenus aux commentaires WordPress parce que cela semble être la meilleure option disponible.
Nous envisageons certainement d’utiliser De:Comments, une extension de commentaires WordPress que nous avons examinée précédemment.
L’autre option est de renforcer les commentaires WordPress avec une suite d’autres plugins de fonctionnalité comme Subscribe to Comments, Reply Notifications, Simple Comment Editing, et peut-être quelques autres.
Nous espérons que cet Avis a expliqué pourquoi nous avons abandonné Disqus. Nous apprécions vraiment votre patience et nous nous excusons d’avoir pris autant de temps pour écrire sur ce sujet. Nous savons que plusieurs d’entre vous se sont interrogés sur cette modification.
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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!
Jim says
Disqus does have some significant positives. The biggest one is that a lot of people use Disqus so they don’t have to go through the hassle of registering on your website. They are already registered with Disqus so they are good to go.
For a new or moderate size website that is a huge positive. WPBeginner is a very well established website, I can see where they don’t need a service like Disqus.
I’ve tried using the WordPress commenting system on several websites and Disqus has outperformed the WordPress commenting system by many times.
Another nice advantage to Disqus is that it will send you traffic. Whenever I look at my site analytics there is some that come through Disqus. That’s nice.
Mich says
I hate Disqus showing a running list of all my comments across the web, privacy breach central! What have users to gain from this?
This wpbeginner site also contains Facebook tracking, Google tracking, Gravatar widgets and OptinMonster beacons, privacy concern.
Elizabeth says
Thank you! I just ran into the « bug » issue on my site! I worked on a sponsored post that asked for no affiliate links. I figured that was not a problem since I wasn’t an affiliate with them anyways. Turns out (after hours and hours of investigation) that Diqus was making it an affiliate link and sending it to an account that I had no affiliation with on Commission Junction (aka someone else was making money off the post that I wrote!) So it was all super sketch town and they are not helping me with anything in regards to fixing this « bug » so I am done with it. Thanks for this post! It was so helpful as I make this decision and made me feel a little less crazy when I noticed it on my site as well.
Thanks!
Tig says
Excellent post and very timely as i’m looking into switching comment systems
From my tests with disqus (Which I do like by the way) it just seems to add too much to the site (seriously check the requests when running a site profile – a lot of disqus going on there.. too much if u ask me ..)
what are the good alternatives apart from sticking with wordpress comments?
WPBeginner Support says
We currently use default WordPress commenting system. We think De:comments is a good enhancement.
Administrateur
Steve (JoeBugBuster) Case says
As a reader, I share your observations on 3rd-party comment systems. Anything that makes it harder for me to comment means I’ll be less likely to comment. I’ve seen sites switch to Disqus or Facebook commenting, and it hasn’t helped the quality of the comments.
As a blogger, I’ve decided to stick with native WordPress commenting, with the help of the Akismet plugin that you use. (Yes, I pay for it.)
Arinze oparaugo says
Disqus Is not the best option, you better stick to the default wordpress commenting system.
Joe Prism says
Good advice! I’ll steer well clear of Disqus in the future.
Andrew Miguelez says
I appreciate the honesty in this post. I’ve been reading through a bunch of your posts concerning WP comments and I keep having the same question:
Are you paying for Akismet?
Akismet is not free for commercial use. Many businesses who have WordPress sites use the default comment system and talk about how great Akismet is. They frequently tout its « free » cost and ease of use. So that leads me to believe that most people are not paying for it even though they are supposed to.
I know you have a post on alternatives to Akismet and may not be using it anymore, but the question remains. Have you ever paid for Akismet or did you use the free option and just wait and see what they did about it?
I want to keep my client sites simple and use default comments with Akismet, but at $5/month, that’s just unreasonable. Thanks for your response.
Steve Wilkinson says
Interesting article and good warnings about things Disqus might be up to.
But, on the other hand, the WP comment system is particularly terrible in usability. For example, I just left a reply to one of the comments above. After hitting the ‘submit’ my browser was busy for a good long time and then page-refresh (so I’d lose my place if I care). With Disqus, it just places the comment.
And, while I understand the complaint about the lack of styling control, IMO, DIsqus looks better than pretty much any native style I’ve ever seen implemented… though, sure, maybe it won’t match some styles of sites.
But, the biggest reason I’m considering Disqus is the follow-up. When I leave a comment on a site, and someone replies…. simply clicking in the e-mail I get takes me RIGHT TO THE COMMENT! That’s something I miss about every other comment system I’ve seen, from the end-user perspective. Some try, Disqus is the only one I’ve seen really work very well.
That said, is the trade-off too much? If these ‘bugs’ don’t get fixed, maybe. But, I want a good comment system that actually works, and isn’t an end-user usability nightmare. It seems most of the points, besides the spam/ads, are more about the plus/minus to the site admin.
Also, I’ve heard that Disqus can be configured to not require a Disqus account. Any feedback on that? I’m not a fan of single-sign-on or forcing people to create an account, so if what I’ve heard isn’t true, that might be a deal-breaker.
But, w/o Disqus, where does that leave me? I guess folks like Postmatic, but if it’s like subscribe to comments reloaded (which I already run), I’m not that interested. That’s only a slight improvement. I just wish WordPress would get serious about making a reasonably good comment system… but much like BBS functionality, it sees like most of the ‘shiny-new’ systems have a long way to go to catch up with usability from decades ago.
Fred says
Thanks for this useful article!
Paweł says
Hello there!
I also switched off Disqus comment system.
It just didnt look nice with logo and some extra links at the bottom. Even when I made some change and disable that I was still getting lots of complains about « I must login in to comment ».
Now I know, WP comments system is the best. Simple as that.
Terri M., the Director says
Great article. One thing I do love about Disqus is the ability to edit my comments. Sometimes I get a little over excited and mistype something. Does Postmatic (or any other comment plug-in, for that matter) allow you do correct your mistakes after submission?
WPBeginner Support says
Yes there are some plugins like DeComments that allow users to edit their comments. You can also try Simple Comment Editing plugin.
Administrateur
Mike says
You still have Disqus on your top plugins for 2015. You should take it off.
Katrina McClain says
Not to mention the fact that sometimes Disqus just didn’t load. I cringe every time I see that sadistic little emblem.
Andrés says
Wow, what a great conversation going on!
I tried the default WP comments, the Jetpack comments and Disqus; but now I’m a big fan of Postmatic. After years of seeing everyone leave comments on Facebook but not on the blog post page it looks like comments via email did the trick to bring people back. I’m pretty happy with it and its integration with WPdiscuz
Cendrine Marrouat says
I enjoyed Disqus at the beginning. Then, something happened and comments stopped. People didn’t like the login or signup process. That’s what some told me, anyway.
Postmatic has been a wonderful plugin so far. And I love the team, as well. So responsive and supportive!
I don’t think I will ever get back to a regular commenting system.
Steve Wilkinson says
From what I’ve been told, there is a setting which allows comments without login or signup. I haven’t actually tried it yet (I’m in research phase).
Danny Brown (@DannyBrown) says
Just jumping back and going through the comments, it’s very telling in a couple of ways – no sight of the Disqus team to address concerns, and plenty of interaction from recommended plugin devs like Postmatic.
Says a lot, I think, and validates the move away from Disqus.
Sacha says
Yes, I have had many issues with Disqus too.
I decided to enable Disqus comments on my main website which gets about 200 visits per week and many comments.
So that day I published a few articles as I always do and I started getting a several emails within hours.
Now I frequently get emails asking about the topics I cover in articles, but I’ve never had an email asking how to leave a comment. All of these emails were asking or complaining about commenting on my site. For example, one them said ‘It keeps asking me to create a ‘Disqus’ account. I don’t want any accounts, I just want to leave a comment on your site!’.
At the start I just answered them, but it was getting to the point where I would get emails whenever I published an article! I decided I was just tormenting my users and I went back to the good old WordPress comments and I haven’t had a problem since.
It really amazes me that so many websites use Disqus and I think they are low quality and sneaky.
Editorial Staff says
Yup our experience was the same Sacha.
Administrateur
Dan says
I’m in the same position, and I want to move back to WP comments. Can you guys follow up this post with one that walks you through the process? I’m totally confused as to whether I will lose my comments if I do this?
Or is it really as simple as just disabling the Disqus plugin?
Editorial Staff says
Hi Dan,
Disqus automatically syncs comments with your WordPress database. However if you turned that setting off, then make sure to turn it back on. Then go to the comments area to verify that all of your comments are there.
After that, it’s as simple as disabling Disqus
Administrateur
Muhammad Imran says
Great change, I don’t remember how many times I had wish to appreciate awesome posts of this blog but I was just closed browser windows due to disqus signin problem. But now its awesome again.
Editorial Staff says
Glad to have you back Muhammad
Administrateur
Josh says
You can add my voice to those who have been very pleased with Postmatic. It is easy to use for blogger and commenter and has had a positive impact upon my blogs.
Leo says
Yes, it’s really pain the * to setup disqus, syncing, and loading especially in mobile. The worse part, there’s even unclean installation and a lot of leftover in database. So make sure you clean those upon uninstalling.
I’ve tried postmatic during it’s beta phase and impressed with the new way of commenting, but had to stop and now using wpdiscuz it’s a breeze, integrate nicely with desktop and wptouch.
Jason Lemieux says
Hey Leo,
Postmatic now integrates with wpdiscuz. You can have the best of both worlds!
Adeel Sami says
Wow! This puts Disqus on my not-try-things!
While it is great of offload some of the server load but the thing they called it « bug » is a flat bad!
Thanks for the insight about Disqus, I am sure gonna have to share it so it reaches to as many people as possible.
~ Adeel
Albert Albs says
Try using Jetpack Comments. It has social login and many more features. And it is completely FREE.
Ahmad Awais says
This is pretty bad. I used to have Disqus on my sites, until one day I disabled it due to the similar story ads they were putting inside every article. Thanks for an eye-opening article.
Bob Dunn says
Well, I know it’s been said already, but I have also moved to Postmatic. And without repeating what has been said, in a nutshell, I have tried them all. A lot of them were okay but I seemed to always end up back at the basics. Have to say I’m damn impressed with Postmatic so far, more than others. I’m a happy camper. Cheers!
Dan Knauss says
I second Bob on Postmatic, coupled with their Epoch plugin. I’ve been using it since the beta myself and on the public side at Tom McFarlin’s blog, which is a great working example to check out. Started rolling it out for some clients recently too. Postmatic works in combination with wpDiscuz too.
sofia says
nice overview. disqus is disgusting.
Umer Iftikhar says
Hi! Hmm I am feeling bad to read this post.. I didn’t know that the disqus could make money from our blogs. I am going to remove it from all of my blogs. Thanks WPBeginner. Also post about how to speed up the comment system when we have lots of comments on a page as discussed above. Thanks
Editorial Staff says
Umer, the only reasonable way to speed up page with lots of comments is to either paginate comments or use Ajax comment loading.
Administrateur
Connor Rickett says
I went through this with Livefyre a little while back. It seems like such a wonderful idea but in practice it rarely works that way. Some people loved it, some users hated it, but the overall engagement when up when I jumped back over to the vanilla WP comments. The added bonus was the drop in page load times . . . Turns out half the time my page spent loading was actually just waiting for Livefyre to get its act together.
Not to say WordPress couldn’t use a few improvements in the way they handle comments.
Dennis Freedman says
I went from Disqus to Livefyre. My comments leaped through the roof. Main reason is that they bring in the twitter and Facebook comments. I have over 25k followers on those channels so instead of getting 5 comments a piece, sometimes I now get 150+
Editorial Staff says
Hey Dennis, yes that was definitely a plus side of Livefyre when we used it, but what we found was that a lot of those social conversations were irrelevant (i.e people replying and asking an off-topic question).
Administrateur
Danny Brown says
Yep, that was one of the main reasons I moved away from it. Loved he concept, but when you get a hashtag argument around a post, or tweets in a language not your own and you have no idea what’s being said (positive or negative), it can get time-consuming to monitor.
muhammad ismail says
i was thinking of to start disqus.. but thanks to Wpbeginner for reviewing it.. may i know which plugin will be good for a tech blog.. Livefyre ,, commentluv … Intense Debate,, Intense Debate
or any other..
i will be thankful
Editorial Staff says
Right now we’re just using native WordPress comments which has always done a great job for us
Administrateur
Alasdair Page says
I wonder whether IntenseDebate would be a good alternative to Disqus and Livefyre. It looks good if you’re going to use WordPress’ own comments system anyway.
Pete Davenport says
I have to second a vote for Postmatic. The whole email thing to comment is amazing. I’ve deployed it on several sites for clients now and everyone is thrilled with it.
I have had good luck with a combination of WPdiscuz and Postmatic. One thing Discuz does well is mimic that nice interface that Disqus has made popular across the internet. For all of Disqus’ problems, the user interface is pretty nice and the guys behind WPDiscuz have done a good job implementing the better features like comment voting and sharing. If you are keen on Disqus’ user interface, that’s an option. WPdiscuz works nicely with Postmatic and the two together are brilliant. Postmatic is the commenting feature you didn’t realize you needed until you have it.
Postmatic also recently released Epoch as an add-on to its main plugin. Epoch adds a nice ajax experience to the commenting, and quite frankly is awesome. Postmatic and Epoch are so good, that if I was Matt Mullenweg, I’d buy the company and integrate its features into WP.com by default. If you don’t need the comment voting and sharing that WPDiscuz borrowed from Disqus, then the combination of Postmatic and Epoch is a great way to go.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for the suggestion Pete — will definitely take that into account
Administrateur
Jason Lemieux says
Dang, Pete! Those are some serious words. Thanks so much for your support and for being a brave beta tester.
Dan Knauss says
That is pretty close to my experience and recommendation, but wpDiscuz has some issues with how it handles languages, and it’s interface on the WP admin is not ideal. De:comments looks like it ought to be the leader if you want all the bells and whistles; I’ve never heard of it and will definitely watch it now.
The cool core thing about Postmatic is how close it is to a fire and forget solution. It just works, and you’ll operate it ever after by email. It is ethical by default and stops you from accidentally spamming people. Transitioning from Subscribe2comments is drop dead simple, and the people behind it are right there is you need to reach out.
The claim that it will increase engagement seems absolutely true. If you have to deal with sites still using Feedburner, Feedblitz, or even Mailchimp or Jetpack to send out new posts there is a lot of friction involved. Actually you could call it punishment for your visitors. Take it away and your comments DO go up. Strangely I’ve seen a fairly dead site commentwise shift from a few cranky comments on new posts to more and better comments from engaged readers. Being able to reply and manage comments by email eases things up for everyone involved; you might see a dip in visitor stats, but I’d call that a boost in efficient resource usage and visitor engagement. They’re still getting and interacting with your content, just via email.
I’m impressed enough to think it’s going to just get better, and there’s a lot of trust Postmatic has to maintain since they’re pushing out all that mail for their users. I’m not sure how they’re doing it, but it is crazy fast. I got a Postmatic new comment email today from Tom’s blog BEFORE the form submit finished and the page refreshed.
Jackie says
Thank you Syed for this great article.
I changed my Disqus comment system because of loading speed and my comments privacy. Disqus has lots of issues but it’s most professional third comment hosting by now. However, I agree with you, It makes some problems for guest commenters and it has slow loading bugs. I see some alternatives for native comment system. @Pete mentioned Wpdiscuz, Postmatic and Epoch. I know very well wpdiscuz and just want to say, that it’s not just a « native » + « comment voting and sharing ». It seems you don’t familiar with wpdiscuz plugin. It’s premium level plugin for free with dozens of very useful features. You can read those on plugin description page.
Most of my clients, partners and friends use wpdiscuz and they are more than happy. I’ve also used Facebook comments and G+ comments, but it’s time to keep my commenters and my comments private. I have 100% integrated powerful comment system with wpdiscuz, which is the best alternative by now.
I also checked the Epoch, but to tell the truth I’m not impressed, nothing special and attractive. It’s just an alternative to WP Ajaxify Comments plugin.
Bjarni Wark says
Has there been an increase with spam and extra time to moderate comments since switching? Thanks for sharing too.
Tom McFarlin says
Hey guys,
I’d normally leave a much longer comment than this, but my vote is for Postmatic. I’ve written three, relatively lengthy posts about my experience with them and why I use them on my site.
At the risk of coming off as if I’m promoting my own site, here’s a URL to my post on « Why I Use Postmatic For WordPress »: https://tommcfarlin.com/postmatic-for-wordpress/
It links to my other comments as well as why I enjoy using it in my work.
Good luck in choosing a new system!
— Tom
Editorial Staff says
Thanks Tom — have huge respect for the work you have done, and I really appreciate the recommendation. Will surely give them a try
-Syed
Administrateur
Tom McFarlin says
Thanks Syed – and thanks for the great content always being published here. Such a good resource for people who are getting started with WordPress.
At any rate, best of luck finding something that suits you and your teams needs. You’ve got your work cut out for you, for sure :).
X. Nkhoma says
Hi Syd, we have integrated our wordpress comments with Jetpack on our site and it has all these features: Subscribe to Comments, Reply Notifications, & Simple Comment Editing. Discus is crap I think
Katharine says
I used to hate discus. Then they finally let me make comments. I kept plugging away until that day came.
Y’all are smart to take them down. Yay for you! I can comment here! It’s lovely!
Editorial Staff says
We’re glad to have you here Katharine and happy that we removed the barrier for you to comment
Administrateur
Lisa says
I’ve had good results with Postmatic.
I have used it for both public facing comments and am using it for members – only comments, it has beautiful emails, and a lot of widgets that allow you to add more. Definitely worth checking out.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks Lisa for sharing your experience. Really appreciate your insights
Administrateur
Danny Brown says
Hi guys,
Not surprised you switched away from Disqus. While I enjoyed it in the early days, I found it becoming less intuitive and useful, and more about what it could do for the developers as opposed to its users. And don’t get me started on its performance when trying to comment via mobile!
I’ll unashamedly throw Postmatic into the hat as something you should seriously consider. I’ve been blogging for about 15 years now, and 7 years solidly on my main blog. I’ve tried pretty much every comment system there is: native, Disqus, Livefyre, Echo, Comments Evolved, wpDiscuz, Intense Debate, and on, and on.
Each has been missing something. Even native comments, which I’ve flirted with the most, with the exception of three years with Livefyre until last year, is lacking (the need to add extra usability to notify of follow up comments, for example). So, I was skeptical when the Postmatic guys reached out to me on Twitter to have a look at their platform. But I’m glad I did.
I wrote a post recently on why Postmatic is the only comments system I’ll use on my WordPress blog, and here are some of the points from that:
– Seamless integration with any WordPress blog. Because Postmatic uses email to reply to, and receive, new comments, your existing native WordPress comment styling isn’t touched. All that changes is you have a little box below the comments to sign up for Postmatic comment replies, and you’re good to go.
– Moderation via email. Postmatic makes it really easy to moderate via email, even when on the go. As a moderator, you can use “Approve”, “Trash” or “Spam” as a reply to a comment notification and Postmatic takes care of the rest. This is a major bonus if you don’t have time to jump into your WordPress dashboard (or third party comment system admin area) to quickly moderate spammy or abusive comments.
– Responsive HTML email for posts, comments and invitations to subscribe. Using the Postmatic Premium template, you can add your own header, end of email widgets (for promotional banners, email sign-up, or anything else you’d normally put in a WordPress widget), and footer template. This lets you have a branded email and comment reply notification that is immediately recognizable as yours – and it’s all responsive, so will look good on any display.
– Email notification throttling. If a post gets more than six comments in an hour, Postmatic will pause notifications and instead send out an email that advises the post discussion is taking off. The post commenter/subscriber then gets an option to leave it on pause and resubscribe to the conversation at a later time, or rejoin there and then. It’s a slick implementation that puts full control into the commenter’s hands – if you rejoin, you know what you might be getting yourself into. If you no longer want notifications, you won’t get them.
– Past commenter invitation. When you switch Postmatic on, you have the option of sending an email out to people who have commented on your blog before, but may have dropped off the radar. You can send a personalized invite out to those folks, advising of your switch to Postmatic and inviting them back to the conversation, with the promise of never contacting them again if they don’t reply. It’s a great way to reach out to members of your community that may have slipped out of sight.
I could go on and on, but you probably get the message. Since switching Postmatic on, my own comment numbers have increased, easily doubling and often tripling the comment count from pre-Postmatic.
Given my readers and subscribers have also praised it, and said it’s encouraged them to comment again due to the more inclusive feel of an email exchange, and as a blogger I really can’t praise the team over there enough for what they’re doing.
They’ve also just released Epoch into beta mode, which mixes Ajax-powered real-time commenting with native styling. It’s also speed and SEO-friendly, and a nice addition to Postmatic-powered blogs, though both can be used as a standalone.
OK, I’ll shut up now, as this is turning into a major Postmatic love-in. And I’m meant to be a grump Scotsman…
Seriously, though, I’d heartily recommend checking Postmatic out. It’s a blogger’s comment system made by blog lovers.
Jason Lemieux says
Hey.. Thanks Danny. That does read like a Postmatic lovefest. I blush.
One point of clarity though: Postmatic *is* a native commenting system. It’s really just a dressed up version of Subscribe to Comments/Reloaded. Fully native.. just a magic email gateway. A bit more on that at http://gopostmatic.com/technology
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for dropping by Jason — always great to have the founder of a company leaving comments. Kudos!
Administrateur
Ariel M Stallings says
Hey! Nice to see another fan of Postmatic. I’m on week 2 of testing it out, and thus far have been super impressed. It’s been exciting to watch Postmatic’s tools reengage my readership.
Danny Brown says
Cheers, Ariel, and yes, that seems to be the gist of conversations I’ve seen across blogs that are using Postmatic. Bloggers like Tim Bonner, Josh Wilner, etc., have all said their engagement levels are way up.
Given many bloggers live for conversation after a post, and that blog comments are meant to be « dead », it’s been nice to watch Postmatic prove that concept more than false.
Editorial Staff says
Wow thanks for the very detailed and thorough comment Danny. I talked with Jason from Postmatic and will surely keep your strong recommendation in mind
Administrateur
Danny Brown says
No worries, and glad the comment was useful. Like I mentioned, I didn’t want my comment to be flushed with praise, but the Postmatic guys really are doing some cool stuff.
If you are interested, here are a bunch of posts I’ve written about the solution, including what features I felt it still needs (just to show it’s not 100% love, hehe).
http://dannybrown.me/?s=postmatic
Please, feel free to delete the link if it doesn’t fit with your comment policy.
Cheers again, interested to see what you eventually go with.
Chris Lovie-Tyler says
Danny’s pretty much said it all, but Postmatic gets my vote as the plugin that’s most likely to reignite blog commenting.
Laurence Anthony says
I’ve been around the block with several systems and I would not recommend anything other than
Postmatic. Complete game changer.
Sub and unsub via email or website.
Unsub from specific posts via email.
Invitation to sign up by replying with : agree.
Reply and post comment via email.
We even customized the email templates to suit our needs.
We use it for newsletters and discussion list like a listserv.
DJ Thistle says
We’ve tried Livefyre & Disqus over at SteamFeed, I wasn’t aware of the affiliate links, but finally settled on a newer commenting system, Postmatic, that uses native WordPress and allows users to get notifications and reply right in their email. We’ve definitely seen a significant increase in comments, and responses to comments, since we’ve made the change a few months back. Plus Jason over there has been incredibly supportive and responsive.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks DJ for dropping by — I really appreciate your thoughts and feedback. Hope all is great at Steamfeed
Administrateur
Chris Lovie-Tyler says
+1 The last sentence!
Matt Steele says
I’ve always used Disqus but am thinking of switching to WP comments. The only thing holding me back is ‘losing’ all the past comments from Disqus.
Did you use a tool to import your Disqus comments into WP?
Editorial Staff says
Matt, you don’t lose any past comments because Disqus syncs the comment with your database. If you had sync turned off, then you can turn it on, then sync your comments and disable Disqus.
Administrateur
Jason Lemieux says
Hey Matt,
We have a lot of experience doing these conversions. Sometimes it doesn’t go totally smoothly and you end up with a variety of odd usernames (such as Friend, Friend1, Friend2).
If that happens to you we have a fix for it. I haven’t gotten around to releasing it yet but we have a small plugin which will regenerate usernames based on the email address for those that need it. Get in touch if you need help: @gopostmatic.
Marlena H. says
I’m thrilled to hear that you have dumped Disqus. I do not have a Disqus account and I have no plans at this time to get one. I’ve considered it a few times and come to the conclusion that much as I would love to comment in some places, I am not willing to get a Disqus account to do so. This has forced me to not comment in some places and to reach out to site owners through other means if I want to let them know how much I liked something they posted about.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for leaving a comment Marlena, and we’re glad to have you here
Administrateur
Josh Pollock says
Great article about the many perils of not controlling your data, and what it means to your business and your users.
I strongly recommend native WordPress commenting, plus Postmatic for comment subscriptions and reply via email. In addition, Postmatic has a live commenting plugin called Epoch, currently in beta, that live updates the page with new comments, including from other users.
For transparency’s sake, I’ll point out that I am paid, as a contributing developer for both of these plugins. But I use them myself, because they deliver on their promise.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for the recommendation Josh. I really appreciate it.
-Syed
Administrateur
Mark Sadler says
Thanks for the article. I’d seen Disqus and wondered how it worked. BTW, the « tweet » button for the article is not working.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for letting us know. Just fixed the issue
Administrateur
Frank Schwarz says
What are you doing to kill spam comments?
Editorial Staff says
We’re using Akismet and Sucuri.
Administrateur
Jesse Brede says
Thanks for posting this. I’ve had my suspicions about Disqus.
On the flipside, I’m sure they are struggling as a business model. Users need to make sure they have a backup of their comments in case they fold without notice.
Editorial Staff says
Yeah they definitely need to make money to keep up with the bandwidth cost. If you have sync enabled, then all comments are backed up in your database.
Administrateur
Kushal Azza says
Hello Syed, thanks for review. Even I was one of the person about Disqus
Glad that you did a write up.
Cheers !
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for your patience Kushal. It took us a while to write about it, but glad you enjoyed it
Administrateur
Louise Findlay says
I hate Disqus comments. The interface is so clunky and I like the simplistic WordPress comments with an easy email subscribe feature.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks for leaving your comment Louise. Yup several of our users reported the same issue. We definitely value your feedback
Administrateur
Matthew says
I agree Louise. Disque is just to junky and bulky.
Abhisek says
I’m also facing sponsored content issue, even though I haven’t turned on the monetization option in disqus.
Reading this post inspired me to switch back to default wordpress comment. Can you please help me how to output a declaration below « ADD A COMMENT » like wpbeginner has one that says – « We’re glad you have chosen to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and all links are nofollow. Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let’s have a personal and meaningful conversation. »
Jef says
Hi Abhisek, I think you need this hook to output the custom message before the comment form:
https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/comment_form_before/
Editorial Staff says
Hey Abhisek,
Glad that this inspired you to make a switch. As for comment policy, you can do that by using the comment form parameter comment_notes_before or comment_notes_after
Instructions are here:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/comment_form
We will do a detailed writeup on this as well.
Administrateur
Jitendr Vyas says
The reasons you gave are mostly your problems not user’s problems. And one of the problem is for those who doesn’t have disqus account (which is very easy to create by the way with social logins)
I can see if any site has disqus comments it increases chances to add a comment compare to non-disqus comments.
and disqus has some more useful features too.
Editorial Staff says
Completely agree with you Jitendr. Choosing not to use Disqus is definitely a personal decision that we made. We wrote this article because several folks asked us about it.
Our comment engagement increased after we disabled Disqus and it decreased when we had it enabled, so the numbers speak for themselves.
The ability to guest comment is not as easy with Disqus and anytime you require user registration it adds friction.
Definitely agree that Disqus has some neat features such as easily manage all your comment subscriptions at one place, and others that we mentioned in the article that we’ll miss.
Administrateur
Aakash says
That is what I was thinking about Disqus comments.
I myself many times just turned away from making comments because it’s Disqus.
And I didn’t want to make account just to leave a comment.
This is really a great news, people will now realise that Disqus is
Really a great mistake.
Jennifer Rose says
Exactly what I was going to say!
Steven Gliebe says
Same here.
I abandon commenting when I see Disqus. Just not worth the hassle. Most blogs don’t (know to?) turn on the guest commenting option.
I also didn’t like how Disqus would basically let the universe see a listing of every comment I ever made on every website. I found that to border on privacy invasion.
Sweet and simple comments are the way to go.