I’m going to present 9 of the finest WordPress comment plugins for setting up and operating complex commenting systems and replacing WordPress’ default comment form in this post.
As you are probably aware, WordPress started with a basic commenting system from the start, and although it has since been enhanced, it still lacks a slew of useful and essential capabilities.
Each of the WordPress advanced commenting plugins has a slew of additional features such as spam detection, customising the comment form, simple login through your preferred social networking site, filtering comments based on preset sorting choices, and sharing pictures via comments.
These features increase engagement by encouraging users to share and debate their ideas more often, which ultimately results in the formation of a community around your site. After all, the longer visitors remain on your site and engage with it, the more advantage you will receive.
Let’s take a look at nine of the finest WordPress commenting systems and plugins available, but first, some background information:
In the first part of the list, I’ll compare six of the finest WordPress comment plugins currently available in a feature-rich comparison. These are your final options for setting up and managing a whole commenting system with the goal of boosting interaction and organising your comments and viewers. I’ve split them into two broad categories:
Server-Side Plugins – This kind of plugin makes use of your website’s database as its primary storage:
- Deeper Comments (Free)
- wpDiscuz (Free and Pro)
- Jetpack Comment Forms (Free and Pro)
- ThriveComments (Pro)
Hosted-Comments Plugins – Has a sizable community with its own database:
- Disqus Comment System (Free and Paid Subscription)
- GraphComment Comment System (Free and Paid Subscription)
Once I have covered these six, I will add more WordPress comment systems that you can use in case you do not want to use any of the 6 best that I am going to talk about first.
Makes sense?
Let’s start!
#1. Deeper Comments
Deeper Comments has an attractive style and appearance, and as per the developer team, they utilized cutting-edge UI/UX techniques while developing this product, which is why it’s the top pick on our list of the best WordPress comment plugins.
In terms of functionality, Deeper Comments excels with features such as participatory comments, a restriction on where the comment form is displayed, a word blacklist for spam, on-the-flow Ajax loading forms, custom avatars for comment authors, comment sorting filters, customizability, social login, and a brilliant WYSIWYG live editor.
The sorting criteria, which include “Newest, Oldest, Popular, and Trending,” enable readers to locate their preferred material in comments more quickly than ever before.
Additionally, there are voting options for like and disliking remarks, allowing users to express their feelings about the comments others leave on your site.
The on-the-fly real-time Ajax comment form along with popup alerts for new responses encourage visitors to connect and participate in conversations, extending their time on your website.
Finally, it’s worth noting that customization options allow you to change the looks of virtually every element of the frontend of the comment form, including borders, colors, sizes, and margins.
Availability of Features
Social Login
Available: For signup and login, Deeper Comments integrates with popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Ajax Forms
Available: Deeper Comments features real-time Ajax functionality on the comments form, as well as popup notifications, quick login and registration forms, and administrator area settings.
Spam Guard
Available: The Deeper Comments plugin’s word blacklist enables it to detect spam and inappropriate comments and automatically set them to ‘pending’ status.
Visual Editor
Available: With its Deeper Comments’ TinyMCE live editor, which happens to be the most sophisticated WYSIWYG HTML editor available, provides comment writers with text editing styles, hyperlink or picture insertion, and an emoji list, among other features.
Deeper Comments Advantages
- Advanced Sorting System
- Comments Analysis
- Custom Avatars for Authors
- Like and Dislike Buttons
- Modern & Responsive Design
- PHP 8.0 Compatibility
- Quick Login and Register Options
- Redux Based Admin Area
- Social sharing Buttons
- WP Post-type Limitation
Deeper Comments Disadvantages
- Its number of current installs and user ratings on the WordPress plugins repository are quite disturbing.
Pricing for Deeper Comments
- Deeper Comments is completely free to use. There are no premium versions available.
#2. Thrive Comments
Thrive Comments has a similar look and feel to the insanely famous Disqus commenting system, which is completely flawless and has been shown to have an effective user experience for attracting people.
It has amazing features such as social network sign-in integration, user accomplishment badges, featured comments display, voting buttons, and subscribing to a post’s comments, among others, that help you increase user engagement on your website.
One of the plugin’s finest features of Thrive Comments is comment conversion. You have the option of what occurs when a comment is made, such as redirecting to a new URL, soliciting social shares, displaying a message, displaying related articles, or even displaying an opt-in Lightbox form (but for that, you must install Thrive Leads on your site).
Thrive Comments embodies true real-time on-the-fly Ajax capability in that you do not even need to click the “save button” in the admin area to save your modifications.
You may create a list of keywords that will be dynamically hyperlinked when administrators or users use them in comments content.
Additionally, there is a helpful function for modifying labels that is built-in to the plugin, eliminating the need for additional translation plugins.
Availability of Features
Social Login
Available: Thrive Comments integrates with Facebook and Google accounts for social login.
Ajax Forms
Available: It comes with real-time Ajax capability on comment forms, admin area, WordPress default login page through an opt-in Lightbox, and real-time comment loading on any post.
Spam Guard
Available: There is a box for specifying the terms that, if included in a remark, will cause it to be placed in the moderation queue, and another area for automatically discarding the comments.
Visual Editor
Not Available: Yes, it is unfortunately, but Thrive Comments lacks a WYSIWYG editor. That can be a bit disappointing.
Thrive Comments Advantages
- Custom Avatars
- Like and Dislike Buttons
- Minimal Flat Design
- Real-Time Admin Area
- Simple Sorting System
- Social Sharing Buttons
- Users Achievement Badge
Thrive Comments Disadvantages
- Thrive Comments does not have a free version available.
- The opt-in login form offered by Thrive Comments is based on the default WordPress login page.
- There is no fast registration option, and visitors must search your website for it.
- You need to either enable the site-wide option for allowing Thrive Comments on pages and posts, or you have the option of individually enabling it on each post. This means that there is no restriction on the display of the comment form depending on the WordPress post type.
Pricing for Thrive Comments
Thrive Comments offers three pricing plans with unlimited lifetime updates and premium support for one year. The three pricing options are:
- $39 – allows installing Thrive Comments on 1 site.
- $47 – allows installing Thrive Comments on 5 sites.
- $97 – allows installing Thrive Comments on 15 sites.
#3. wpDiscuz
If money is not an issue, the best option among the WordPress commenting systems is wpDiscuz and its paid addons package, which costs $99.
The core plugin is completely free and includes a variety of helpful features that are not included in other paid plugins such as Thrive Comments.
I’ve attempted to list a few of them here: integration of social login, Ajax comment forms, option to load scripts in the footer, ability to edit phrases and labels, controlling the display of comment form components, live comment update, automatic conversion of image URL to HTML img tag, and invisible spam protection.
You may modify a variety of aspects of your comment form’s appearance and style, including colors, font sizes, and custom CSS.
The Gravatar cache speeds up the loading of your comment forms by avoiding the need to submit a request to gravatar servers every time a page is refreshed by a user.
Additionally, it integrates with Users Ultra, BuddyPress, Ultimate Member, User Pro, PeepSo, and MyCred.
They also have various premium addons available that include Comment Search, Ads Manager, Online Users, Emoticons, Private Comments, Comment Censure, Mentioning Users and Comments, Google reCAPTCHA, among other features.
Availability of Features
Social Login
Available: wpDiscuz integrates social networking platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, OK, and VK, thereby allowing users to login quickly.
Ajax Forms
Available: wpDiscuz has real-time Ajax capability in its admin area, comment forms, and live updating for new responses.
Spam Guard
Available: It features invisible built-in anti-spam protection based on server-side and front-end unique key comparison.
Visual Editor
Not Available: As with Thrive Comments, wpDiscuz lacks a visual WYSIWYG editor and requires the Emoticons plugin to provide an emoji list. However, it’s worth noting that certain quicktags, such as “b tags,” may still be utilized.
wpDiscuz Advantages
- Advanced Sorting System
- Custom Comment Fields
- Eye-catching Design
- Lazy-Load Comments
- Like and Dislike Buttons
- Multi-level Comment Threads
- Social Sharing Buttons
wpDiscuz Disadvantages
- It takes the place of the WordPress’ native comments form, and you cannot restrict it to certain post types in WordPress.
- Some features, including Emoji list, Google reCAPTCHA, Report & Flagging, Online Users Status, and Media Upload, are included in the Deeper Comments addons package, which is completely free.
- There is no fast login or registration option in the comments form, and visitors must check in through your site’s main login page and then return to the comment form.
Pricing for wpDiscuz
Core Plugin:
- It is complete free.
Premium Addons Bundle – to be paid yearly for updates and support:
- $99 – allows installation on unlimited sites.
#4. Disqus Comment System
I’m sure we’ve all heard of Disqus, or even seen it in action. Disqus is the world’s largest online discussion and debate community. According to Wikipedia, “Disqus is a global platform for hosting blog comments on websites and even online communities that run on a networked platform. Disqus’ platform is equipped with a variety of features, including social networking, social integration, spam and moderation tools, user profiles, analytics, mobile commenting, and email alerts.”
Although the primary plugin has a higher number of 1-star reviews than anticipated in the plugin repository of WordPress, has not received any update for the last 365 days, and has not been tested with the current three major WordPress versions, it continues to function flawlessly.
To activate the Disqus comment system plugin, you must first install it and then attempt to establish an API in your Disqus account to allow your site to communicate with their servers.
Note that since your website comments are not saved on your own site, you will lose everything if you move or uninstall the plugin. This is because the plugin utilizes their Disqus profile to track activity and comment on the website you are installing it on. Additionally, all settings are made on the Disqus site since you’re integrating through an API.
However, if you are sure that you are not going to uninstall the plugin in future, Disqus offers an eye-catching design and assortment of useful functionalities such as social sharing buttons, real-time Ajax commenting, voting feature for engaging users, comment sorting options, and of course, an editor that allows formatting texts in different ways.
Additionally, there is an intriguing engagement-boosting tool called “Reactions” that enables users to respond to other people’s comments similar to how they do on Facebook for posts and is customizable with your preferred Emojis. However, do remember that reaction customization is possible only and only when you go for the Disqus Pro plan.
Availability of Features
Social Login
Available: Disqus allows social media login. People are allowed to use the Google, Twitter, or Facebook account to login to the Disqus account.
Ajax Forms
Available: The Disqus comment system plugin utilizes real-time Ajax technology to connect your site’s plugin to their servers. As a result, everything will occur in real time, without the need to refresh the website page.
Spam Guard
Available through 3rd-party integration: While it is possible to flag a remark as spam, the Disqus comment system does not have any built-in spam prevention. However, the good news is that they’ve been collaborating with the Akismet team since 2016 and have developed a satisfactory integration with them.
Visual Editor
Not Available: While Disqus does not provide a visual WYSIWYG editor, it does include a text formatting editor that enables you to include HTML elements such as strong, hyperlinks, italic, image, underline, etc., that will work as HTML once a user posts a comment.
Disqus Advantages
- Free Major Functionalities
- Brilliant Sorting System
- Does Not Use Site DB
- Reactions Feature
- Simple Minimal Design
- Social Media Login
- Social Sharing Buttons
- Voting Buttons
Disqus Disadvantages
- As stated before, the plugin just allows your site to connect with the Disqus.com API, which means that if you move or deactivate the plugin, you will lose everything.
- Script files may increase the time it takes for your website to completely load in some regions, depending on the speed of your visitors’ connections or even on the availability of Disqus servers in such areas.
- The plugin hasn’t received any updates for the last 1 year.
Pricing for Disqus
Free Core Plugin: It is free to use. You can get a free subscription. The free plan offers unlimited daily views.
Disqus Monthly Subscription Plans:
- Plus: $10 – Daily views restricted to 50,000
- Pro: $99 – Daily views restricted to 150,000
Disqus Yearly Subscription Plans:
- Plus: $108 – Daily views restricted to 50,000
- Pros: $1068 – Daily views restricted to 150,000
#5. Jetpack Discussion Comment Forms
Jetpack continues to be one of the most famed and helpful WordPress plugins for performance, security, and marketing. With over 5 million active installations, Jetpack adds amazing new capabilities to WordPress websites.
It contains a built-in commenting system that includes a part that may be used to replace the original WordPress comments. However, Jetpack doesn’t completely redesign the native form like other options on the list. Jetpack commenting system actually looks very much like the native comments system with slightly enhanced capabilities.
The anti-spam technology that Jetpack uses is called Automate Spam Blocking. It is powered by none other than the famous Akismet. It is only accessible on the Personal plan and above, therefore the free version of Jetpack is not going to give you that feature.
Jetpack Comment Forms also includes two more features, which are ‘liking’ a comment, and ‘subscribing’ to comments to get email notifications for replies.
To summarize, it’s a slightly more advanced form compared to native WordPress comment form and is beneficial for anybody looking for a slight change in appearance. What is interesting is that it comes with markdown syntax support.
Availability of Features
Social Login
Available: This is perhaps the most significant feature of Jetpack Comment. Users can log in to your website using their Facebook, Google, WordPress.org, or Twitter accounts.
Ajax Forms
Available: It uses real-time Ajax technology to submit comments and likes, as well as control admin area settings for conversations, but there are no on-the-fly alerts for new responses.
Spam Guard
Available for premium users: Jetpack Comment Forms has an integrated spam prevention feature provided by Akismet called Automate Spam Blocking, however you must purchase and activate their Personal subscription at the very least.
Visual Editor
Not Available: It does not have a visual WYSIWYG editor, but it does include support for the markdown syntax system.
Jetpack Comment Advantages
- Automate Spam Blocking powered by Akismet
- Comment Like Button
- Gravatar Hovercards
- Social Media Login
- Subscribe to Comments
Jetpack Comment Disadvantages
- It is not a complete commenting system. It only adds a couple of extra features to the commenting system.
Pricing for Jetpack Comment
Free: The core plugin is free and comes with the Jetpack free plugin.
Paid: Monthly Personal Plan – offers spam protection and costs $3.25 for the Personal Plan.
Paid: Yearly Personal Plan – costs $35.73 per year and offers spam protection.
#6. GraphComment Comment system
GraphComment is a hosted comment system just like Disqus. There is no clear winner here. Some prefer Disqus, while others prefer GraphComment. The one that you will choose will depend on your personal preferences.
Unlike Disqus, GraphComment has a feature that allows you to sync and backup the comments to your WordPress site database using a cronjob. This means that if you decide to leave GraphComment at some point, you will not lose the comments and that they can be indexed by Google and other search engines. It also allows users to import previous comments (ones that were posted before installing the plugin) to the GraphComment database.
Because GraphComment is a complete social comment community, it comes with an assortment of features designed specifically to increase user engagement. Some of those features include:
- Advanced comment moderation with the possibility of assigning moderators.
- Real-time email notifications.
- Rich content editor.
- Word blacklist.
- Social media login.
- Multilingual support.
- Dark theme support.
- Comments export in CSV format.
Additionally, the free membership has a monthly engagement restriction of up to 1,000,000 data loads each month. Take note that each interaction counts as a single data load, and you cannot use reaction buttons on a free plan. You will need at least the Personal Plan to do so.
Additionally, it has a built-in lazy loading function that prevents your pages from loading slowly.
Availability of Features
Social Login
Available: Individuals may log in to GraphComment using their Twitter, Facebook, or Google accounts.
Ajax Forms
Available: The GraphComment Comment System is entirely built on real-time Ajax technology that powers the reaction buttons, frontend comment boxes, admin area and push notifications. Note that push notifications are available only on premium plans.
Spam Guard
Available: It allows setting up a word blacklist. Once you define the words, the plugin will automatically disapprove comments including those words that you define. It also comes with a Signal as Spam button that users can use for reporting spam. This allows its machine learning mode to understand and identify spam comments more effectively.
Visual Editor
Available: The GraphComment Comment System provides a variety of rich content features, including the ability to enter hyperlinks and code-formatted text. They can also upload images, style their texts, and insert Emojis.
GraphComment Advantages
- Link Preview Available Just Like Facebook
- Major Features Are Available for Free
- Powerful Comment Sorting
- Smart Moderation
- Social Media Login
- You can retain comments when you remove GraphComment.
GraphComment Disadvantages
- Reaction buttons, which are critical for boosting interaction in WordPress Commenting systems, are accessible exclusively in premium subscriptions.
- It loads various script files from its servers, which can significantly slowdown your website.
- The plugin does not yet have a sufficient number of active installs in the WordPress plugin repository.
Pricing for GraphComment
Free: The core plugin is free and allows up to 1 million data loads per month.
Monthly Premium Plans that bring reaction buttons and push notifications to the table:
- Starter: $8.6 – allows 1.5 million data loads per month.
- Pro: $95 – allows 5 million data loads per month.
Yearly Premium Plans that bring reaction buttons and push notifications to the table:
- Starter: $90 – allows 1.5 million data loads per month.
- Pro: $958 – allows 5 million data loads per month.
Okay, that completes the list of the best 6 commenting systems or WordPress comment plugins you can get.
But hey, that’s not all. There are many more comment plugins that you can try out in case you don’t want any of those mentioned above.
Let us go through a quick list of a few available options.
#7. De:comments
De:comments advertises itself as the most efficient comment plugin for WordPress. Although this is a big statement, it is a strong candidate for the solution with many astounding features. To begin, developers and site owners desire complete control over the comments area. De:comments enables CSS file modification for customisation of their appearance. De:comments enables social logins and is multisite compatible.
Another consideration is the plugin’s language support, which includes French, German, and hundreds more.
The voting mechanism is one of the most intriguing aspects of the plugin. The mechanism is similar to what you experience on Reddit, where users may like or dislike comments, thus pushing low-quality ones to the bottom. Additionally, De:comments comes with a badge system that encourages users to write more often, thus turning your website’s comment area into a game. The De:comments plugin also offers media attachment. The plugin is designed quite brilliantly, too!
Pricing for De:comments
It is a premium plugin. There is no free version available. For a single site license, you must pay $50. For three sites, the price is $100. For 10 sites, the price is $300.
#8. ReplyBox
ReplyBox happens to be one of the finest privacy-protecting WordPress comment plugins on our list. It’s akin to Disqus, except that it collects no personal information, is ad-free, and does not monetize your posts. It is solely recommended for that purpose.
ReplyBox is a cloud-based platform with a streamlined API, which is just below 100 KB in size. It has social network login, nested comments enabling navigation, beautiful comment layouts, markdown support for emojis, Akismet integration, custom CSS settings. It is compatible with a vast array of WordPress themes.
ReplyBox turns out to be one of my favorite WordPress comment plugins not for the features it has to offer, but for the company’s adamant adherence to privacy. Also, the plugin syncs all comments with WordPress database, allowing users to switch back to WordPress native comments.
Pricing for ReplyBox
ReplyBox is a premium service with subscriptions starting at $10 a month.
#9. Replyable
Replyable comes from the same developer who created another popular plugin called Postmatic. It amplifies the option for subscribing to comments.
Replyable is empowered by machine learning to select comments and alert users to the most critical ones, rather than inundating them with every single one. This promotes engagement by highlighting the most insightful comments. Of course, people may reply through email as well, but you can prevent users from using that feature, and instead come to your site to respond to comments.
Additionally, the plugin may consolidate multiple comments into a single email, enabling users to remain engaged without wasting time. It is needless to say that Replyable is one of the smartest WordPress comment plugins you will come across. In fact, it is so smart that it can automatically adapt to your website’s colors, thereby offering a seamless and unified experience.
However, do remember that Replyable hasn’t been tested with the last three major WordPress version releases. So, be careful!
Pricing for Replyable
Replyable comes with a subscription model. The price starts at $2.99 a month and can reach as high as $9.99 a month.
Conclusion
There is no shortage of WordPress comment plugins. The one you select should depend on what you want to achieve with the commenting system. However, one needs to understand that unless your whole purpose is to turn your website’s comments segment into a community, the native comment system of WordPress is good enough.
But if you want to go for a comment plugin to supercharge your WordPress site’s commenting area, I strongly recommend using one of the top 3 options mentioned above. In fact, Deeper Comments is the one that I strongly recommend over any other.
However, do not go by my words. Test out the different options available and find out the one that suits your needs the best.
