If you’ve visited 40Tech since its inception back in June, you may have noticed a few changes to the system for visitor comments. We’ve been searching for the "perfect" system, and we’ve tried out Disqus, Intense Debate, and JS-Kit Echo on this site and a test server. For a few reasons, 40Tech is now back to using the default WordPress commenting system, with some enhancements. What are the reasons for not going with one of the third- party systems? Let’s take a look at our experience with each of these three third-party commenting systems.
Disqus
Likes
I really wanted to like Disqus. When it works, it is the most elegant and visually appealing solution of the three external systems. It is also powerful, while maintaining its simplicity. Disqus allows visitors to use their Disqus dashboard to monitor their comments on all Disqus-enabled sites. For blog owners, Disqus will seek out and retrieve comments and mentions from other sites, such as Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, and YouTube. Disqus supports real-time posting and updating, as well as threaded replies and comment replies.
Dislikes
We used Disqus for an extended period here on 40Tech. We ran into a problem, though, with the comment count on the home page and individual post pages either not displaying the count, or not even displaying the word "comments." A checkbox to fix this in the Disqus dashboard did nothing to fix the problem, and Disqus support never responded to either a support request, or a post in the Disqus forums (those forums have since been replaced). Eventually, I was able to fix the problem by hacking the Disqus plugin.
Recently, though, Disqus updated to version 3, which broke Gravatar integration here at 40Tech. The only images that were showing were the images of registered Disqus users, and Twitter users. This time, I at least got a response to my support inquiry. One of the developers asked for more information, but I received no follow up after that. This also happened when I made an inquiry via Twitter. I understand that Disqus is a free service and top notch support can’t be expected, but I couldn’t use a broken system on a site, and deactivated Disqus.
Intense Debate
Likes
Like Disqus, Intense Debate was also visually appealing, and it worked as advertised. Intense Debate also allows users to monitor all of their posts on various sites from one central location, and will retrieve comments from FriendFeed and republish them back on your blog. Intense Debate also allows users to associate multiple sites with their profiles, and supports "reputation scores," so that other users can "thumb up" or "thumb down" comments.
Dislikes
I liked Intense Debate, but it had one fatal flaw. Specifically, if you click on an Intense Debate user’s name in a comment header, the link takes you to that user’s Intense Debate profile, not to the user’s blog. If you hover over the user’s avatar, then a link to his or her blog appears, along with other information, but this won’t be obvious to many visitors. We want to give visitors a chance to promote their own sites, so this was a deal breaker. If a visitor isn’t an Intense Debate user, that visitor can comment as a guest, and then his name will link to his own site. This is a curious design choice by the Intense Debate developers, as it actually discourages use of Intense Debate profiles. I have an Intense Debate profile, but never use it on sites powered by Intense Debate, because I’d rather have my name link go to my site, instead of to my Intense Debate profile.
JS-Kit Echo
Likes
JS-Kit Echo is perhaps the most powerful of the three commenting system. JS-Kit Echo provides a base commenting system, but also captures all sorts of conversations related to your blog post from across the internet, and displays it within your comments. Within the comments section of an Echo-powered blog, you’ll find a stream of comments, twitter posts, Delicious bookmarks, Google Reader feeds, and more. Each one of these pieces of content has been pulled to your site because it references the initial post in some way or another. Echo gives commenters the option to share their comments with multiple "recipients," sending comments to Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or Twitter. Echo therefore is almost all-encompassing, both in the content it retrieves, and the content that users can send out to other sites.
Dislikes
Because Echo is so powerful, it is also the most convoluted and hard to understand. For casual visitors to a site, it takes a bit of study of the comment form to figure out exactly what is going on. It is even more difficult for casual users to get their brains around exactly what Echo does.
I also found the default skins to be ugly and unwieldy, and I wasn’t confident that I could modify them enough with CSS to make Echo easier to swallow. Echo also was slow in my testing. When loading my pages, I would keep an eye on my browser status bar, and at times Echo would take 30-60 seconds to load. The same happened with other sites I visited. That was several weeks ago, though, and I’ve since visited other Echo-enabled sites that now load much faster. Echo might be worth another visit once it has gone through its growing pains.
Echo’s pricing also seems to be somewhat of a moving target. There was a free version when I tried it out, but now the cheapest version appears to cost $12, and the price of the other versions isn’t even listed on the JS-Kit site.
Decision
For now, because of the above "dislikes" with each system, 40Tech is back to using the default WordPress commenting sytem, with some modifications. Although the other commenting systems do allow customization and even some theming options, this doesn’t match the customization options built into the default WordPress commenting system. The WordPress commenting system is also supported by a treasure trove of extensions.
The ultimate factor in deciding on a commenting system comes down to how it affects the quality and quantity of comments left on a site. The number of comments at 40Tech actually spiked the first time I dropped Disqus for the default commenting system (before I reenabled Disqus). That, though, could have been due to the site content at the time, which did feature a few higher traffic articles. I wonder, though, if that was the sole reason. I suspect that most people aren’t interested in bells and whistles, and want to be able to say what they’re thinking with a minimum of fuss and confusion. While streams of information from other sites might be of interest to blog owners, and may even stimulate more conversation, it also can clutter a blog and distract visitors.
That said, don’t be surprised if you see continued exploration of comment systems at 40Tech. We like pain.
If you comment at sites, do you have a system that you prefer? If you have your own site, which commenting system are you using on your site, and how do you like it?
Chris Saad says:
Hi Evan,
I’m Chris from JS-Kit!
Thanks for such a thorough review of Echo and other tools in the space!
Just to address some of your dislikes…
As you noted, we have considerably sped up our service and our goal is to make it lighting fast all the time.
Also regarding look+feel, our support team at http://support.js-kit.com would be glad to help you heavily customize Echo to suit your needs – almost everything can be overridden using some CSS and JavaScript and our community can help you work out the scripting.
Regarding your usability concerns, I would very much like to learn your thoughts on how we can improve usability – we are working on this every day!
Also – I’d be happy to comp you a copy of Echo for free for taking the time to share your thoughts with us :)
Just drop me an email to chris@js-kit.com and I will make it happen.
Cheers,
Chris
September 27, 2009 — 1:07 pm
Evan Kline says:
Wow, thanks Chris. If I can get JS-Kit working as well for the end user as the built-in comments, I’ll definitely be interested. I’ll drop you a line some time this week.
September 27, 2009 — 6:42 pm
Nicholas Z. Cardot says:
I maintain that the WordPress default commenting system is the best anyways. You can completely customize it in the template files to make it do whatever you want . There’s great spam plugins including akismet and others. I use the WordPress default on my site and I think that it’s pretty amazing.
.-= Nicholas Z. Cardot´s last blog ..Fight Writer’s Block: Creativity on Command =-.
September 27, 2009 — 2:17 pm
Evan Kline says:
I do like being able to skin the template files (which is what I did to highlight author posts here, similar to what I’ve seen on your great site). I think I am going to take Chris (above) up on his offer, and work on skinning JS-Kit on the test site to see if I can get it working with similar functionality and appearance as the default system. If I can do it in a way to make it as easy for the end user, I’ll move it here. If not, then I’ll stick with the default comments.
September 27, 2009 — 6:45 pm
Nicholas Cardot says:
If they want to move their product into peoples hands then they need to develop a very nice looking and easy to use default layout. Not everyone is going to be able to style it to make it look nice so they are going to pass up at the chance to buy it. If they can make it look really nice by default then they will be able to clinch many more sales.
.-= Nicholas Cardot´s last blog ..Fight Writer’s Block: Creativity on Command =-.
September 27, 2009 — 7:47 pm
Bobby Travis says:
I’m a fan of Disqus, personally, and am seriously interested in JS-Kit. Couldn’t get Echo to work properly with my configuration on my own site’s marketing tips blog (www.bluetoquemarketing.com/blog) at the time, though, but am interested in testing it again soon, if there is a simple method of adding it and maintaining it with Joomla.
Also, I am generally a fan, both as a user and as a site designer/writer of the multiple feeds in comments, as long as it doesn’t get too convoluted to look at. Options to turn those things off or hide them, would be a good one for users. The concept is fantastic though, especially with JS-Kit Echo, as it really helps to bring the conversation from across the web into one place.
September 27, 2009 — 3:39 pm
Evan Kline says:
I was really intrigued by Echo as well. I was sad to see that it was pretty slow previously, and I’m glad to see now that it is much faster. I hope I can get it working in such a way that it will address my other concerns, because it does show promise.
September 27, 2009 — 6:50 pm
Chris Saad says:
Bobby I’d be happy to support you to get up and running as well – again we have a vibrant support community at http://support.js-kit.com who can help you nail any concern!
September 27, 2009 — 10:36 pm
Bobby says:
Thanks Chris, I may take you up on that! :)
September 28, 2009 — 8:44 am
john says:
hello
March 20, 2010 — 8:03 am
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer says:
“I wonder, though, if that was the sole reason. I suspect that most people aren’t interested in bells and whistles, and want to be able to say what they’re thinking with a minimum of fuss and confusion. ”
I suspect this might be the case. it’s definitely the case for me :)
.-= Kosmo @ The Casual Observer´s last blog ..Inside Kosmo’s Brain =-.
September 27, 2009 — 5:24 pm
Evan Kline says:
Yep, I hear you. I’m going to try working with JS-Kit on our test site, to see if I can make it work with a “minimum of fuss.”
September 27, 2009 — 6:46 pm
Giannii says:
Hey Evan,
I wanted to also apologize for our developer not getting back to you. All the changes above will be addressed in our next plugin release. Also the issue regarding gravatars should be fixed by the end of the week. It was a tad bit more complicated than it seemed.
If there is anything I can do for you in the future, feel free to shoot me a message http://disqus.com/help
-Giannii
September 28, 2009 — 7:17 pm
Evan Kline says:
Thanks Giannii. I’ll be interested to see how Disqus comes along with the upcoming changes. You definitely have a great product, despite the problems I had.
September 28, 2009 — 10:36 pm
David Pierce says:
I hear you about Disqus – as much as I love it when it works, and want to keep using it, there are too many little niggling issues for me to deal with. I wish they’d give me the option to pay a few bucks for good service, I’d gladly do it! For now, I guess, off to try one of your other options. Thanks!
September 29, 2009 — 9:52 am
Evan Kline says:
The paid option is an interesting one. With free alternatives, that might be tough, but if they made it could enough, I could see it working.
September 30, 2009 — 9:24 am
Ching Ya says:
Having commented on sites using all 3 types of commenting systems, my favorite one will be Disqus; while the least is JS-Kit. I’ve got used with Disqus a long while ago whereas JS-Kit is the one I find hardest to grasp at earlier points. I agree on the beginners may take a few trials to get the message sent properly, also the loading speed. Glad to know they’ve finally done something about page loads.
Still, my no.1 pick of the most user-friendly commenting system is WP’s. I do enjoy reading the reviews though, a clearer picture overall. Stumbled.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
September 30, 2009 — 2:59 am
Evan Kline says:
That’s about how I feel, too, Ching Ya, although I am probably going to see if I can skin JS-Kit on my test site to see if I can get it working as well as the built-in system. Thanks for visiting.
September 30, 2009 — 9:25 am
benwaynet says:
I’m running Disqus on one of my site and JS-kit on the other. I agree JS-kit seems to confusing to a basic user and to get all the bells and whistles you have to pay.
I like with Disqus, I can easily post something and have the option to post it to my facebook and/or twitter account.
If WP comments had facebook and twitter integration (the plugins to do this, never seem to work right) I’d stick with them!
With WP owning ID it will be interesting moving forward.
.-= benwaynet´s last blog ..Dungeons & Dragons on Microsoft Surface =-.
October 29, 2009 — 10:05 pm
Evan Kline says:
Sounds like we had similar experiences. I am soon going to try to tweak JS-Kit on my test site. If I could simplify it, it might be nice. We’ll see.
October 30, 2009 — 3:38 pm
प्रवीण त्रिवेदी...प्राइमरी का मास्टर says:
thanks a lot!!!!!!!
.-= प्रवीण त्रिवेदी…प्राइमरी का मास्टर´s last blog ..इस तरह हम भी पहुंचे हिंदी चिट्ठाकारी की दुनिया – राष्ट्रीय संगोष्ठी में =-.
November 3, 2009 — 6:28 pm
xian tour says:
I think it ‘s a perfect things to commenting and discussing .
The function really does work !
November 27, 2009 — 3:16 am
anselm says:
Thanks for the run-down on the three commenting systems, it was extremely helpful – I am personally trying to decide on one. I have used disqus for a few months now but the fact that increases the loading time by 150% really frustrates me.. I am wondering if Echo undergoes similar issues? If that’s the case I might just switch back to default system… until improvements from third-party commenting systems are made.
November 29, 2009 — 9:47 pm
Evan Kline says:
I haven’t tried Echo in a while, although they were gracious enough to give me an account. I just need to find time to try it out on our test site. In the beginning, I found Echo to be slow, but then after an update it seemed to get much faster. I can’t speak for it today, but hope to be able to report back in the future.
December 2, 2009 — 9:26 pm
anselm says:
Thanks for the reply Evan! For now I plan to work with disqus and optimize other parts of my blog to enhance speed, I see a definite upside to their system hopefully they can continue to improve!
December 2, 2009 — 9:59 pm
Jack Stow says:
I’ve had various problems integrating IntenseDebate with a .NET blog. Discussions about it here -http://www.jackstow.com/blog/post/2009/10/08/Integrating-IntenseDebate-With-A-BlogEngineNET-Blog.aspx
Also, as ID is all JavaScript based, I’m finding it slow to load. Is that just me?
Hanging in with ID for the moment though.
December 8, 2009 — 4:45 am
Evan Kline says:
It’s now been a while since I tried ID, so I don’t know what it was like, but I don’t remember thinking it was slow back when I used it. Things could have changed, though. I had some other issues with it, but I occasionally check back to these various commenting systems to see how they’re coming along.
December 10, 2009 — 8:05 pm
albert says:
Hi
I have tried very shortly IntenseDebate, just to find out that the link
with Twitter is basic, it does not send the written message to twitter, only a link with the
standard and annoying text: albertxx has commented
call that integration of twitter and IntenseDebate, no debate at all this way
have I missed something?
also regarding Js-kit
it looks simple to use , to me , cannot see anything confusing at first sight
albertoxic on twitter
December 22, 2009 — 9:50 am
Evan Kline says:
I wish I had an answer for you, Albert. It’s been so long since I’ve used IntenseDebate, that I don’t know if you missed something or not.
December 22, 2009 — 9:25 pm
Cahya says:
I wish something would be appear as a good option :)
January 11, 2010 — 1:05 pm
albert says:
Hello again
I finally run Disqus
not to shure tough if comments go to twitter
is there a trick to pay attention to
to get twitter link correct?
Thanks
January 12, 2010 — 3:04 am
Evan Kline says:
It’s been a while since I’ve used Disqus, but you may want to check out your account settings in disqus.com, and see if there is an option there for that.
January 12, 2010 — 9:29 am
Amy @ Thoughts of THAT Mom says:
I’m currently still using the Blogger commenting platform. I only get a couple of comments on each of my blogs, but I get a good number on my Facebook & Twitter pages. I’d really like to find something (like JS-Kit) that will allow me to consolidate all comments from my blog, Facebook, Twitter to my blog.
I like the functionality that JS-Kit appears to offer my readers, but I’m a bit nervous about the issues on the back-end that I’ve heard discussed. I have little programming experience and need something that is user-friendly. I’m willing to pay the $12/year, but not for something that will just be a big headache.
January 26, 2010 — 1:01 am
Evan Kline says:
Way back when I tried it, Echo was the most complicated, but mostly because it seemed more customizable, if I recall. That was a while ago, tough. If I remember right, it was pretty easy to go with the “out of the box” settings.
January 26, 2010 — 9:48 am
Amy @ Thoughts of THAT Mom says:
Thanks! That makes me feel much better about it.
January 27, 2010 — 1:41 pm
TSG says:
Amy, I installed Disqus on my blog. It’s very very good.
I wrote some instructions if you get stuck
http://tvtechgirl.blogspot.com/2010/01/supercharge-your-blog-comments-with.html
February 2, 2010 — 6:38 am
John says:
Have you found a good WP plugin that let’s you re-tweet comments, or share comments? I can’t seem to find anything other than using ID or Disqus.
Thanks,
John
.-= John´s last blog ..The Investigation is Launched =-.
February 4, 2010 — 9:20 pm
Evan Kline says:
I would have to think somebody made something that does that, but I don’t know of anything off hand, no. If you find something, though, I’d love to hear about it.
February 5, 2010 — 11:23 am
Matt Jurek says:
I have had numerous issues with Echo, right now I cannot update to the latest version without messing up my site :(.
February 13, 2010 — 12:53 pm
Nancy Bond says:
I like reading a blog and I put the comment to blog with the help of Disqus.I think Disqus is too greater than Intense Debate because when we used Disqus that time we used Facebook,Twitter,Open Id..
February 16, 2010 — 3:13 pm
Kenneth says:
Blog comments are a GREAT way to get backlinks and traffic! Not sure why more people don
February 22, 2010 — 8:54 pm
Julianna Nelson says:
I am a happy Disqus customer. Implementing Disqus comments on this blog, enabling people to track their conversations around the Web
March 16, 2010 — 11:41 am
ishmaeldaro says:
Thanks for the reviews. I recently implemented Intense Debate on a site I run and I’m mostly happy with it. I share your frustration with being linked to a person’s Intense Debate profile rather than their blog/site.
JS-Kit seems rather elegant but I’m looking for something free.
Great post.
March 28, 2010 — 7:41 pm
Evan Kline says:
Since I wrote the post, I’ve gone back to the stock WordPress commenting system. I’ve always wondered about going back to something else. It’s a bummer that Intense Debate still links to the profile.
March 28, 2010 — 9:14 pm
Dmitry says:
cool -)
September 6, 2011 — 6:43 pm
Daina Hayes says:
Wow … this is a great blog! Pretty informative as well! That has really helped me a lot in learning some of this stuff that I wasn’t familiar with.
March 29, 2010 — 11:11 am
Nabeel says:
I am using the same commenting system and plugins that you are using on your blog currently.
I wanted to know if i should use any of these 3 commenting systems, but honestly, still confused :s
April 14, 2010 — 10:40 pm
Jason says:
My vote goes to disqus. I run it on multiple websites and have not had a problem yet.
May 12, 2010 — 1:29 am
Daniel says:
I have no problems with the wordpress commenting system.
May 21, 2010 — 4:53 pm
Global Outsourcing Manager says:
You dont have problems with wordpress but much persons got problem with wordpress etc themes and plugins. WordPress easy to install but little a bit hard to configure. anyway I am glad for you that you dont have problem with wordpress ;)
July 27, 2010 — 5:05 am
Tom says:
All very good ideas on commenting systems! I’ve used JS-Kit before and found it easy to implement.
Now though, I haven’t seen any further comments on JS Echo, but it now is no longer $12/yr, it is $99/yr.
Does that seem like a lot to anyone excpet me?
There is another freebie out there which I’ve used, Google “Old Guy Scripts”, that is fabulous.
Since I cannot get Plesk to let me change permissions on my databases, I am forced to find another host or simply use an i-frame based system which doesn’t care about DB permissons.
tt
May 23, 2010 — 5:57 pm
Herbert says:
I think intense debate works the best over disqus, but i haven’t heard of the js kit.
.-= Herbert´s last blog ..Chegg Promo Code CC128281 =-.
May 28, 2010 — 1:03 am
finid says:
I’ve been thinking about using one of these commenting systems for my site, but after reading this article, I think I’ll pass until something better comes along, or until IntenseDebate takes care of its cons.
June 2, 2010 — 2:27 pm
santhosh says:
I’m currently still using the Blogger commenting platform. I only get a couple of comments on each of my blogs, but I get a good number on my Facebook & Twitter pages. I’d really like to find something (like JS-Kit) that will allow me to consolidate all comments from my blog, Facebook, Twitter to my blog.
I like the functionality that JS-Kit appears to offer my readers, but I’m a bit nervous about the issues on the back-end that I’ve heard discussed. I have little programming experience and need something that is user-friendly. I’m willing to pay the $12/year, but not for something that will just be a big headache.
June 29, 2010 — 2:57 am
Michael Ashworth says:
Hi Evan,
Great article. I just stumbled across this asI have just written a similar article on next generation commenting here:
http://blog.nublue.co.uk/next-generation-website-commenting-options-reviewed/
We use Echo ourselves on our website and so far so good. Took a while to get it all working but it seems to be ticking away nicely now :)
July 5, 2010 — 10:50 am
Evan Kline says:
Very nice, Michael. It’s nice to see an article bring this up to date, since this one is now several months old.
July 5, 2010 — 8:30 pm
Dhruv says:
I am using Disqus, it’s good. Since my site is based on Joomla and doesn’t have a default commenting system, Disqus is a great choice. Since base default system for Joomla are commercial and do not even support social media.
July 31, 2010 — 1:35 am
Jason Manheim says:
Have you thought about giving either one another shot? It seems most complaints around the web have been dealt with. I went with IntenseDebate and it seems great so far.
September 4, 2010 — 4:26 pm
Evan Kline says:
I have been thinking about it, Jason. I think it would come down to Disqus or Intense Debate if I switched, because JS-Kit Echo is a bit too pricey right now.
September 6, 2010 — 8:55 am
kids video camera says:
Disqus has a very good product, probably better than what IntenseDebate is offering at this time. This balance could swing very quickly as IntenseDebate adds new functionality, and the 900lb gorilla in the corner (Automattic) can’t be ignored. I am putting my money on IntenseDebate due to this alone.
September 9, 2010 — 7:13 pm
Rick says:
Private commenting capability? I’m looking for a comment management tool that provides various levels of privacy for my group and sub-groups. Some comments should only be seen by certain people in our situation…. We recognize that some sort of licensing agreement might be needed to get this using a third party company. Thoughts?
November 19, 2010 — 9:11 am
Evan Kline says:
Interesting idea, Rick. I imagine that would have a smaller audience (and thus have less developer resources devoted to it), but I could certainly see its utility on certain types of sites. I’m not aware of anyone who offers this, but I know some of these commenting systems have undergone updates since this article was written.
November 19, 2010 — 9:19 am
Rick says:
My not make customized privacy an upgrade? Philosophically, this contradicts the idea of open collective intelligence power… However, for some orgs, it’s simply not legal for certain comments to be made on certain topics, and yet those commenters would still like to have the discussion with those legally allowed to engage in the discussion… and perhaps, the discussion would be made public in the future…
That said, maybe I just need to get my programmers to make an internally-logged commenting system. I’d rather not do that because an existing org (Echo, Intense, Disqus, e.g.) has already thought thru many of the issues we will encounter.
November 19, 2010 — 9:30 am
Roa says:
Personally I like Disqus, but now I’m thinking of whether I should implement wordpress on my blog’s commenting system right now, nothing is up yet.
December 6, 2010 — 4:17 pm
Funvblog says:
Nice article, I like you comparison, currently my blog using disqus but we will think about likes and dislikes
Thanks for Nice article
February 5, 2011 — 2:15 am
Catherine A. Murphy says:
I also want to use Disqus on my WP blog, because i like its comments box.
March 8, 2011 — 1:26 am