I don't know why a $5 VPS and a random CMS isn't the default for developers blogs. Dead simple, runs for years without maintenance, minimal cost, no ads.

Disqus is a great idea turned into hot garbage by (inevitable) lowest-level monetization. I once worked on a blog with Disqus. Whenever we had a hit, such as an HN front page, horrific ads would be injected into the comments section for that page. Any page without significant traffic had no ads, lulling you into a false sense of security. If a page 'hit' in your off-hours, the ghastly and repulsive ads could be running for a day, or even a weekend.

They could be turned off at the time but only on a case-by-case basis. In the end, I got rid of Disqus.

I think the concern of "blog comments" is best left to external platforms eg HN, Reddit etc

What would be more useful would be an automated list of places where the post has been discussed (and maybe pull the top comments from there through API?)

I ditched Disqus for the exact same reason, too many ads

Then I built an alternative using free Cloudflare Worker

https://github.com/est/req4cmt

It's a simple service that transform comment POST form data to JSON, append to a .jsonl file, then do a `git push`

It renders comments by `git fetch` from a .jsonl file from a remote repo, or simply via raw.githubusercontent.com if your repo was hosted by Github.

The advantange over Github issue/discussion based comment plugins:

1. All data is stored a .git

2. no login of any sort

Github OAuth login might leak all your repo data along with your `access_token` to the plugin provider.

The `git push` works for any remote. You can choose github/gitlab or whatever.

I was in the same boat and built my own commenting system. It has an importer for disqus (so you don't lose your old comments) and also imports Mastodon replies.

https://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2025-03/26-meh_another_comme...

I tried we mentions for a while, but then switched to just POSSE (publish (on your) own site, syndicate elsewhere). So the comments are moved to other platforms atm.

I did the same. I was sad to lose the comments, but the ads were awful and I don't particularly want someone elses ads / tracking on my hobby site. I switched to gisqus [1], which is powered by GitHub discussions, which seems to be working ok. (The site is hosted on GH pages so seems reasonable to also use GH discussions for the comments.)

[1] https://giscus.app/

I blocked Disqus locally on my computer via /etc/hosts many years ago. Reason is very simply. Because comments as genre is almost useless.

Removed Disqus from my website after getting huge spam waves (not the classic garbage spam but "real" comments, but for completely different sites, like they were intended for other sites but instead posted to mine. They were all from a few days old accounts). I wish I'd have used the built-in WordPress comments from the start but well, it was a different time back then. Related: I've used WordPress Jetpack Stats until they extorted every free website, no export possible. Would've cost me 200 € per year, that's more than I pay for my website. Switched to self-hosted Umami but 10 years of data just gone.

When the ads showed up I immediately put disqus loading behind a "load comments despite ads" button, and instead just had a static export of the comments loaded by default.

But that's a temporary solution.

Sure, I can code an in house comment system within an hour, but the real work is to combat spam. Because people (and now also disqus) suck.

For those of you stuck with this issue reading this, there is a nice open source commenting system I found on GitHub https://valine.js.org/en/index.html

Here is another one https://docs.coralproject.net/

I've found https://remark42.com/ works well with static sites, and has plenty of user login options.

But, the solution I've been looking for/prototyping is one that lets people comment from the Fadiverse, so it will also double as a feed. Nothing to show yet, but one-day maybe.

I have used https://github.com/giscus/giscus on my site https://deploy-on-friday.com which creates comments in your public github repository as issues. Users post with their real github accounts, and can also react to posts.

A clever way to leverage another platform

I just can't be bothered to have comments on my site. It adds nothing but headaches. Cross-posting articles to HN or Reddit for comments is a much nicer way, I think.

Mailing lists are still the superior format.

The barrier to entry is a feature and not a bug.

Try using a Bluesky-based solution so that everyone owns the content?

I made Bluniversal Comments partly for this, but there are other Bluesky-based solutions out there if you prefer.

Utterances: https://utteranc.es/

I use Hyvor Talk - https://talk.hyvor.com - for ad-free and privacy respecting commenting on my blog. I really wanted something that I can just use as a service, not host anything myself. But it's quite expensive.

If I where to ditch it to save the money, I'd look into integrating Mastodon into the page, I saw somewhere that they used Mastodon as their comment system (it's basically a thread on Mastodon that is embedded in the blog page).

I keep using isso https://isso-comments.de/ I installed it on my static blog very easily, and I own all the data. Also it is GDPR-compliant (because it provide hints on how to remove data like IPs) and it is very light. For me Disqus and similia are a dead end.

For everyone saying "just have the comments on social networking sites" - that fragments the conversation, makes people sign up to a service if they want to comment, and exposes them to ads on 3rd party sites.

You also get no control over the level of abuse, misinformation, and spam on those external sites.

The joy of having comments on your own site is that you can moderate the bad-faith discussions and curate a friendly / helpful atmosphere.

Yes, you need a small database to receive and serve comments. Spam is mostly taken care of with a hidden field. It is great to build a community of commenters who want to offer their thoughts.