4 website commenting systems compared
Return to accompanying article
Analysis by Anthony Collebrusco
| Disqus | Livefyre | Intense Debate | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PROS | CONS | PROS | CONS | PROS | CONS | PROS | CONS |
| Realtime commenting | Difficult to migrate comments | Realtime commenting | Young; not as popular as Disqus | Comments stay on your blog! | No CommentLuv | Names and identities connected to Facebook; less spam | Anonymity/identity issues(1) |
| E-mail follow-up notification/participation | Poor customer support?(2) | E-mail notification | Does not yet allow Guest commenting | Follow-up comment notification | Increased moderation overhead | Viral | Unlikely to incorporate Twitter or Google |
| Post as: Guest, Disqus, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, OpenID | Post as: Livefyre account, Facebook, Twitter | Doesn’t support CommentLuv(3) | Comment as Guest, Twitter, OpenID, Intense Debate | Automatic sign-in | Not everyone uses Facebook | ||
| Smartphone compatible | Smartphone friendly | Potential for e-mail bombs(4) | Commenter reputation and comment voting | Like function | Difficult to migrate comments | ||
| Anti-spam, lets moderators blacklist certain words/commenters | Ban abusive users | Add polls to comments | Comment with Yahoo/Hotmail as well | Limited access in areas where Facebook is blocked (work, etc.) | |||
| Most popular of solutions reviewed here | Focused on building a strong online community through “@ Function” (5) | Multi-author moderation | Spam blockers; excellent moderation tools | ||||
| Add images/videos | Like/dislike function and strong user reputation paradigm | ||||||
| Like/dislike function | Multi-author comment moderation | ||||||
| Organize by Most Liked, Most Popular, and by Time | |||||||
| Multi-Author Comment Moderation |
(1) Anonymous comments can be useful in cases where users want to share private information. Additionally, some don’t like how FB comments homogenize user identities. Read more here: http://stevecheney.posterous.com/how-facebook-is-killing-your-authenticity
(2) We have found that Disqus has been criticized a number of times for not offering satisfactory customer support. Read one such example here: http://spicycauldron.com/2009/07/06/disqus-vs-intensedebate/
(3) CommentLuv is a WordPress plug-in tool used by some bloggers primarily to drive more traffic to their sites and build better online communities. Read more here: http://www.evolutionarydesigns.net/blog/2010/07/23/what-is-commentluv/
(4) Livefyre sends commenters updates when users respond to their comment. However, it also has a setting where commenters can receive e-mails for every single comment posted to a story. On high-traffic websites, this could flood one’s inbox if this setting is used.
(5) Similar to Twitter, commenters can enter @(username) to not only reply to a specific comment but also invite multiple users to comment as well.
PDF
An excellent comparison! In reality, there is food for further analysis)
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeI have been using the disqus comment system on my blogs for at least one year. It does allow me to moderate those blogs efficiently using my mobile phone. In many cases because of the popularity of my blogs there is a lot of spam and disqus helps me greatly with it's moderation features.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeExcellent Information. I have normally used intensedebate this is the first time i'm trying livefyre. Intensedebate is autoapproval but livefyre just awaits for approval that sucks. But the best part of livefyre is you can share any comment on facebook or twitter.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeIt's nice to see a side-by-side comparison like this.
One question though.... Your favourite?
I personally prefer LiveFyre as it seems to be evolving very nicely with some recent additions which make it very competitive :)
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeI've been using Disqus comments system for my blog www.studentscrunch.com for the past 4 months,i find it is very coomfortable wit my readers..before that i was using intensedebate,which is little poor in prfmnce.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeA recent paper digs deep into the origin of email spam and concludes that behind the vast majority of emails offering you cheap Rolex watches, Viagra, Gucci handbags, etc. are only a handful of suppliers and credit card payment processors. Amazingly, the paper finds that 95% of all spam-related credit card payments are processed by only three banks, based in Latvia, Azerbaijan and St. Kitts and Nevis. What is more, spam processors tend to operate in specific niches.
It turns out that most herbal and replica sales are processed through the same bank in St. Kitts, while most pharmaceutical affiliate programs used two banks, one in Azerbaijan and another Latvia, and software was handled entirely by two banks, one in Latvia and another in Russia. http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/what-do-email-spam-viagra-and-credit-cards-have-in-common
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeI really like the LiveFyre comment system. I tried all these from above but still LiveFyre was great to me and I think it will be the biggest comment system in the future. Great compare list! Keep on the good work.
My latest conversation: Conference call guidelines
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Likeb.nijhoff Just now i came to know about Livefyre system,hope i'll use it on my blog <a href="http://www.studentscsrunch.com">www.StudentsCrunch.com</a>
Thank You!!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeI myself opted for Livefyre on my own blog like you have here, but opened a dozen enhancement requests. Livefyre plans on having guest commenting very very soon and Blogger support. One other note is that IntenseDebate does work with older version of CommentLuv, I have seen blogspot blogs using IntenseDebate+CommentLuv. Facebook also never gives you a dofollow link to your site "ever" whereas Disqus, Livefyre does (I don't remember if IntenseDebate does).
My latest conversation: Canon Launches Cinema EOS C300 Camera for $20k
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Like