A community or website can operate better if users can engage more over it. If your website already doesn't have the commenting system then you are missing a lot from your users. Users prefer to be over the website where one can engage actively i.e. discuss, comments, react to the articles/content etc. Don't you prefer the same way?
If you also prefer having users on your website engaged then you have made a wise decision being here. Today I am going to talk about the user engagements in any website in general.
Introduction
Users, including me, would love to have any sort of engagement method when visiting a website. I prefer to talk actively with other users and discussion about various topics. If I find website which doesn't allow me to comment for any article published there, then most likely I won't visit the website again. Talking from the perspective of website developer it is a huge loss. So better not delay a moment to implement the commenting system in your website/blog if you know how to do it. But if you are not aware where and how to start then proceed through the article till the end. After that you will be able to implement comments in your website with no problem at all!
Implementation
If you are a big company or a big project with dedicated resources and members then implementing comments in your website won't be hard at all. But what if you are a solo developer or a small team with limited resources? Things can be really tough right? Yeah it can be, but do not fear. I have you covered this time!
I took a day out of my life and invested it all to help everyone out there just like me; just like me who wanted to implement comments system in their website but were in a hard spot with no knowledge about where to start. I have made a small list with every necessary details possible so that you won't have to wonder anywhere else to start with adding comments to your site.
These commenting plugins below are what I found by searching around the internet. There may be many more out there, but after knowing about these you won't have to wonder anywhere else. So let have a look at them:
Disqus
Disqus is the most popular commenting system that lots of websites use. Its amazing features and ease of use makes it the most popular choice amazing many users and developers. It comes with really amazing features, so lets have a look at them:
- FREE
- Supports devices from desktop to mobile, including Google AMP
- Supports 70 languages and counting
- Real time comments
- Reactions
- Automatically adapts to your site's design and colors or you can set it to your own liking
- Allows users to comment with rich media i.e. picture, gif and videos
- Complete moderation options
- Pre moderation options
- Banned and trusted lists
- User reputation
- Email moderation
- Temporary user bans
- Automated spam moderation
- Notifications
- Content recirculation
- Subscriptions
- Analytics
- And many more...
Sorry if I went for only listing the features. Because if I had to describe them all then this article would get super long. So I though to keep and short and meaningful. If you want to have a detailed information about all the feature you can head to the official disqus site and get detailed information about anything you want to know.
Although I would love to mention that disqus is FREE. But you do have the options to update to a paid version with addition features on the line. It's completely your choice if you want to upgrade or not. But if you are a solo developer or small team then I would suggest to work with the free version. Because It is REALLY AWESOME even when used as free.
Even my site has various blog articles with disqus comments plugin installed. Which means if you are reading this article on my site then you can let me know in the comments below. If not head over to this article originally posted on my site and let me know I love when people interact with me!
Facebook is a really well known global brand. Even if you don't user it you might have heard about it once in your lifetime. That already explains how famous it is. There are millions of people using facebook and that is one of the reason why facebook launched it's own commenting system.
If your website is focused upon user base from facebook or if your site is related to facebook by any means then you should go for this system. If not I would suggest not to add extra pain in your life. Wonder why? Lets get to the feature and you will know by yourself!
- FREE
- Can be used with users registered on facebook only. That's why not good for site targeting audience outside of facebook!
- Facebook life feel. It is exactly as what you would see in the platform itself, so gives the home like feeling to the users!
- Admin panel for all moderation and related stuffs
- Webhooks
- And many more...
Although facebook itself is really well known global brand, the commenting system provided by it is not good outside the scope of Facebook related stuffs. So better realize and think about it if you are planning to use it on your site already!
Spot.IM
Spot.IM is a really new thing for me as well. I had never heard about it till date. Thanks to you guys I learned something new But after looking at it the only thing I can say is WOW. It looks really promising because of all the features it has, but I could not find any details about it's pricing so you guys got some task to do if you plan to use it! Lets dive into it's features:
- Conversations; yeah thats simply commenting system but with really rich detailing though!
- Community spotlight
- Live blogs; to give real time updates to your users for anything critical, important or emergency
- Reactions
- Powerful moderation options with AI integrations
- User profiles and notifications
- Analytics and insight
- And many more...
All these features look really promising for sure. I am already thinking of doing a small project to test it out with amazing people like you. If you are eager just like me or if you already use it then let me know in the comments below.
HTML Comment Box
HTML Comment Box is simple yet powerful commenting system. There is nothing much to describe about it because it is just plug-and-play stuff. But if you have a look at the site you will see additional widgets available. Those are really awesome. So make sure to have look at them!
Viafoura
Viafoura is another of those promising looking commenting system I found while working on this article. Lets dig right into its features:
- Real time conversations Includes rich features display
- Live stories for live streams
- Community chat
- Automated moderation
- Moderation possibilities
- Community reviews
- Integrated login
- User personalization
- And many more...
It is yet another of that amazing stuff which I want to try out someday.. Let me know in the comments below if you are impatient just like me to test it out!
List goes on
The list goes on to be honest. There are lots and lots of free and paid commenting systems out there. But in the end it is your choice what you want to use! If I have to be honest the only ones I knew about are Disqus and Facebook commenting system. All the rest are the result of my research I did for this article alone. Usually most of the people prefer disqus for the first choice. So did I. But I know everyone is unique so everyone would not go for the same one I did, or others did. So in addition to all the sites listed above I wanted to notify the source that introduced me to these other sites. You can yourself check the ones listed here and more system from the link below:
g2.com/categories/commenting-systems
Closing notes
It was a really fun time writing article. And I learnt something new today about all the possibilities of commenting system. I did realize that disqus or facebook is not the only stuff that is taking the market. There are really awesome stuffs, maybe even better than those existing that is still unknown to many people just like me.
As I discussed in the entire article Let me know about all your thoughts and feedbacks about this article. I will be hearing them all and hopefully you will teach me something new as well.
Until next time, farewell, Stay Safe!