- Discourse, https://www.discourse.org/. One needs to navigate to a separate page, to post a comment. Not threaded. Min $20/month. Open source. Facebook and Gmail login.
most people that use a service such as disqus use it in tandem with a static blog hosted on maybe github, gitlab or whatnot and these have a really neat alternative to this setup, and that's actually committing the comments automatically instead of serving them through js.
there is a FOSS appliance for just that, and it even offers a free hosted service
A better alternative is to have no comments at all (not joking). If the 'activation energy' of replying is higher, more thought will go into the reply.
It's hard as hell working on a startup for 10 years, and their team's consistent commitment is so impressive.
My first startup was YC W08, Tipjoy. We were just two people, my wife and I. I feel lucky to have shared an office with Disqus way back in 2008. Besides the founders, they and an engineer and an engineering intern. It was a great vibe in the office.
In that time since, I've shut down a startup, worked at two unicorns, started my 2nd startup, and just sold it. Time is voracious. This really highlights the marathon sprint Disqus has been through.
An acquisition was pretty much an expected outcome since there was no way a company with $10.5 million in VC funding over 10 years could go public. IMO the comments as a service space is a terrible fit for the VC model. It's easy to get to scale by offering a free service, but very very hard to monetize. You can force ads on your users, but you end up being at the receiving end of users' wrath, as was the case with Disqus.
I've tried talking to VCs with the idea for a Disqus alternative [0] and many of them shared the same concern : market size. It's tiny. A back of the envelope calculation gives me a number between $100 million and $200 million in ARR potential with most of the revenue being generated via ads instead of paid subscriptions. Disqus serves 17 billion monthly pageviews which translates to roughly $1.7 million in MRR. So yeah, I guess this space is more suited for the artisanal variety (bootstrapped companies) than the VC model. Another guy who's been working on an alternative for 3 years is `foxhop with Remarkbox [1].
For a marketing and ads company, any script that's embedded on multiple websites is an attractive target for acquisition.
There's nothing terribly special about Disqus in this regard: they just have a decent install base. Some lip service fluff about AI/ML mining the comments for sentiment, likely to give the impression for ad sellers that they can target specific demographics, but this is something they can fake -- grouping user cohorts solely by the overlap of sites they visit is an adequate proxy.
It does, however, show that Disqus' business model was the usual fantasy: burn cash to acquire users, coast by waiting for an acqui-hire until you're desperate, then introduce ads, hemorrhage users, then firesale cash out. This is a tried-and-true strategy for many web properties, from image hosts to chat services, but it truly doesn't make sense here, because you'd figure that their subscription plans should've been priced high enough to pay the bills. They badly misjudged their market.
>Disqus gives these marketers the ability to target users based on their interests. You can infer quite a bit about people simply based on which sites they comment on, after all.
So we can expect more targeted ads in Disqus embeds from mining user patterns. The platform is a already a mess; between making 105 network requests to 20+ domains associated with tracking, malware, ad platforms, and shady fingerprinting services, and the fact that adding Disqus costs you upwards of 6 seconds [0], this announcement is making things more user-hostile.
Disclosure: I created an open-source, privacy-focused alternative called Commento [1] so my views on Disqus might be somewhat biased :)
I will also be offering it as a subscription-based service very soon as many people have asked me for one (the open source version will stay free software forever). It'll have near feature-parity with Disqus and you'll have the option to import all your Disqus comments. If you're interested in beta-testing, please let me know (email in profile). Apologies if I'm breaking HN etiquette.
Neat ! I wanted to add a comment section on my personal blog but I didn't want to use Disqus for privacy reason. I tried using Isso[1] but installing it on my server is really a PITA (I don't know the Python ecosystem, is it always such a mess ?). I was on the verge of developing my own commenting system in Rust, so I can have a stand-alone binary for ease of installation, but Go has the same property, which makes your system really attractive, thanks !
Nit: I think you mean "disclosure", not "disclaimer". I don't usually correct this, but to me the poster seems less legitimate saying disclaim when they mean to disclose a conflict of interest.
Series F?! Heh. It's amazing that Disqus is worth anything at all. Standard Wordpress spam filtering takes care of bots on low-traffic sites, and the friction of yet another pile of tracking junk seems high enough to dissuade people from commenting, or "engaging with your brand," or whatever it's called.
>Disqus gives these marketers the ability to target users based on their interests. You can infer quite a bit about people simply based on which sites they comment on, after all.
Not only that but also they will get a partial browsing history (on subset of websites with embedded Disqus comments) of users which have third-party cookies allowed.
Mozilla, NY Times, Washington Post & others have contributed to creating the Coral Project which looks like it has a much better comment system for websites to use. It's no where near as easy to use but you can get it up & running with Docker pretty quick if you know how to use Docker. If you have a larger audience, the engagement features really seem worth the effort.
A source close to the two companies tells us that the acquisition price was close to $90 million. This marks Zeta’s eleventh acquisition since it was founded in 2007.
Apparears adding ads worked out well for them. However distasteful most of us think they are, obviously they were able to get some non trivial monetization from them.
There are a lot of competing services and projects around, it's a mystery to me why none of them have gotten any traction yet. It's also fairly trivial to self host an opensource comment system, or roll your own. Does anyone here have any insight into why this isn't a more popular option?
I think this is mostly due to services like Disqus targeting the CMS space like WordPress or Squarespace heavily, while at the same time making deals with established online presences like online newspapers, etc. Essentially, while it may seem trivial to you or me, we aren't their target user, they want low hanging user fruit. Eg, copypasta this one line and it all works!
All comments now sold?! Somebody/we need to focus on self hosting JS comment system like isso but more user friendly and less paranoia (Gravatar and social media support and email notifications). Still have not seen any good comment system self hosted... the best is maybe Wordpress but even with Jetpack it's not as good as Disqus IMHO. Talk by Mozilla looked promising (but I did not liked the UI design too much) but it requires registering/sign in. Any alternatives?
Effective Discussions (ED) is an open source & track free & ad free alternative to Disqus. There's €2 per month hosting too, if you don't want to maintain your own server.
I deleted my disqus after they installed ads a few months back. I am not anti-ads but these ads were very distasteful (ie shady stuff like weight loss products)
It's a pity since they provided nice commenting platform, much lesser evil than Facebook comments.
Was seriously gaining traction on politics sites since all trolling will reliably drown, and you could ban annoying people on per person basis. If only they also solve how to drown undesirable downthread comments...
[+] [-] KajMagnus|8 years ago|reply
- Mozilla's Talk, https://github.com/coralproject/talk. Open source, install yourself.
- Discourse, https://www.discourse.org/. One needs to navigate to a separate page, to post a comment. Not threaded. Min $20/month. Open source. Facebook and Gmail login.
- Isso: https://posativ.org/isso/. Open source, install on your own server.
- Commento, https://github.com/adtac/commento. Open source. Moderation, spam-protection and hosting is under development.
- Schnack, https://www.vis4.net/blog/2017/10/hello-schnack/. Open source, install yourself. Has GitHub and Facebook login.
- HostedComments, https://www.hostedcomments.com/. Proprietory. Min $10/month
- Remarbox, https://www.remarkbox.com/. Proprietory. Min $4/month
- Gitalk. https://github.com/gitalk/gitalk. Open source, install yourself. Comments stored as GitHub issues.
- https://github.com/skx/e-comments. Open source, install yourself.
- And my own: EffectiveDiscussions: https://www.effectivediscussions.org/blog-comments. Open source, or $2 per month. Has Facebook and Gmail login.
[+] [-] judah|8 years ago|reply
I blog. Then post the link to social media. I'll get tens or hundreds of comments on social media, but maybe 3 on the blog itself.
Do any of these commenting systems have a way to say, "Any comments that happen on [Facebook/Twitter] should be added to the blog comment thread"?
[+] [-] y4mi|8 years ago|reply
most people that use a service such as disqus use it in tandem with a static blog hosted on maybe github, gitlab or whatnot and these have a really neat alternative to this setup, and that's actually committing the comments automatically instead of serving them through js.
there is a FOSS appliance for just that, and it even offers a free hosted service
https://staticman.net/
[+] [-] PuercoPop|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaarn|8 years ago|reply
It also seems like the project is working on a moderation UI, I'm waiting on that.
[+] [-] the_common_man|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivankirigin|8 years ago|reply
It's hard as hell working on a startup for 10 years, and their team's consistent commitment is so impressive.
My first startup was YC W08, Tipjoy. We were just two people, my wife and I. I feel lucky to have shared an office with Disqus way back in 2008. Besides the founders, they and an engineer and an engineering intern. It was a great vibe in the office.
In that time since, I've shut down a startup, worked at two unicorns, started my 2nd startup, and just sold it. Time is voracious. This really highlights the marathon sprint Disqus has been through.
[+] [-] dnaquin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ploggingdev|8 years ago|reply
I've tried talking to VCs with the idea for a Disqus alternative [0] and many of them shared the same concern : market size. It's tiny. A back of the envelope calculation gives me a number between $100 million and $200 million in ARR potential with most of the revenue being generated via ads instead of paid subscriptions. Disqus serves 17 billion monthly pageviews which translates to roughly $1.7 million in MRR. So yeah, I guess this space is more suited for the artisanal variety (bootstrapped companies) than the VC model. Another guy who's been working on an alternative for 3 years is `foxhop with Remarkbox [1].
[0] https://www.hostedcomments.com/
[1] https://www.remarkbox.com/
[+] [-] ttul|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] schiffern|8 years ago|reply
Add this to uBlock Origin's "My Rules" tab to block Disqus comments on all sites:
[+] [-] DarronWyke|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorhill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisisit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlgaddis|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] randomString1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] temp-dude-87844|8 years ago|reply
There's nothing terribly special about Disqus in this regard: they just have a decent install base. Some lip service fluff about AI/ML mining the comments for sentiment, likely to give the impression for ad sellers that they can target specific demographics, but this is something they can fake -- grouping user cohorts solely by the overlap of sites they visit is an adequate proxy.
It does, however, show that Disqus' business model was the usual fantasy: burn cash to acquire users, coast by waiting for an acqui-hire until you're desperate, then introduce ads, hemorrhage users, then firesale cash out. This is a tried-and-true strategy for many web properties, from image hosts to chat services, but it truly doesn't make sense here, because you'd figure that their subscription plans should've been priced high enough to pay the bills. They badly misjudged their market.
[+] [-] adtac|8 years ago|reply
So we can expect more targeted ads in Disqus embeds from mining user patterns. The platform is a already a mess; between making 105 network requests to 20+ domains associated with tracking, malware, ad platforms, and shady fingerprinting services, and the fact that adding Disqus costs you upwards of 6 seconds [0], this announcement is making things more user-hostile.
Disclosure: I created an open-source, privacy-focused alternative called Commento [1] so my views on Disqus might be somewhat biased :)
I will also be offering it as a subscription-based service very soon as many people have asked me for one (the open source version will stay free software forever). It'll have near feature-parity with Disqus and you'll have the option to import all your Disqus comments. If you're interested in beta-testing, please let me know (email in profile). Apologies if I'm breaking HN etiquette.
[0] http://donw.io/post/github-comments/
[1] https://github.com/adtac/commento
[+] [-] littlestymaar|8 years ago|reply
[1]: https://posativ.org/isso/
Edit: from the readme
> if you're going down the self-hosting route, using Docker to run Commento is recommended.
Why ? What would be the problem with distributing a binary ?
[+] [-] pgt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nasredin|8 years ago|reply
Thanks for being pro-freedom (pro-privacy), but you are selling a privacy-respecting system and your name is "Adtac"?
For privacy-conscious out there, anything with "ad" in its name screams "acceptable ads"/shady advertising corp masquerading as a privacy company.
[+] [-] xab9|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patleeman|8 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/patrickleenyc/beware-of-disqus-17fb58cfab...
[+] [-] leephillips|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bberrry|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vinnl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cr0sh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] username223|8 years ago|reply
Series F?! Heh. It's amazing that Disqus is worth anything at all. Standard Wordpress spam filtering takes care of bots on low-traffic sites, and the friction of yet another pile of tracking junk seems high enough to dissuade people from commenting, or "engaging with your brand," or whatever it's called.
[+] [-] SonicSoul|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r721|8 years ago|reply
Not only that but also they will get a partial browsing history (on subset of websites with embedded Disqus comments) of users which have third-party cookies allowed.
[+] [-] mattferderer|8 years ago|reply
https://coralproject.net/ https://coralproject.github.io/talk/index.html
[+] [-] le-mark|8 years ago|reply
Apparears adding ads worked out well for them. However distasteful most of us think they are, obviously they were able to get some non trivial monetization from them.
There are a lot of competing services and projects around, it's a mystery to me why none of them have gotten any traction yet. It's also fairly trivial to self host an opensource comment system, or roll your own. Does anyone here have any insight into why this isn't a more popular option?
[+] [-] arca_vorago|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealmarv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tn_|8 years ago|reply
Personally, I like Disqus because you aren't required to log in to one specific social media account and integrating it with your site is pretty easy.
[+] [-] KajMagnus|8 years ago|reply
Demo: https://www.kajmagnus.blog/new-embedded-comments (scroll down. that's a static Gatsby.js blog).
ED is inspired by HN, and I'm adding some new & unique features that I think HN & Disqus would have needed, demo:
https://www.effectivediscussions.org/-32/how-hacker-news-can...
If you want to start using it — a beta version is available — go here: (that page isn't finished yet)
https://www.effectivediscussions.org/blog-comments
(I'm developing it.)
[+] [-] AznHisoka|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealmarv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jaruzel|8 years ago|reply
1) I never used it much anyway.
2) SO glad I created an account and didn't link my Facebook!
[+] [-] Tepix|8 years ago|reply
https://github.com/adtac/commento
"A lightweight, privacy-focussed comment engine alternative to Disqus."
You can easily host it yourself.
There's a live demo at https://commento.adtac.pw/
[+] [-] gadders|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thriftwy|8 years ago|reply
Was seriously gaining traction on politics sites since all trolling will reliably drown, and you could ban annoying people on per person basis. If only they also solve how to drown undesirable downthread comments...
[+] [-] crabasa|8 years ago|reply
https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/1104797-imp...
[+] [-] alexdoma|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-discourse/
[+] [-] foxhop|8 years ago|reply