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What’s the best WordPress comment plugin to use?

What’s the best WordPress comment plugin to use?

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Wondering whether to use WordPress comment plugin or go with the native option? Here are our thoughts and recommendation on which one to choose. Ultimately, the final decision is up to you; we’re here to provide you with enough information to make that decision as easy as possible.

To let the comments be or not to let the comments be that is the question

– Hamlet

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Forget about Hamlet for now. Don’t be like that guy. If you’re wondering whether or not to let commenting on your blog or site, here are just a few pro and con facts.

Pros

  • Comments are an engaging magnet for your blog or site
  • They help you understand what your audience wants from you
  • Comments are a way of social proof
  • They help you understand which content drives more attention
  • Comments improve your site’s awareness and help you build community
  • They can transform your post into a forum

Cons

  • (Some) People still use the comments section as a link building spam technique
  • They are spam bot magnets
  • Time-consuming if you moderate them

Although cons can be an issue, they aren’t serious enough for you not to include comments on your site. As you can see, they provide far more value to your blog or site to be ignored. That being said, if you run your blog or business site on WordPress, what would be the best WordPress comments plugin to use?

To save you the time in researching and trying so many of them out there, we’ve prepared a list of the most popular and used comments plugins to choose from. Take your time to get to know these eight and let us know which one you picked in the end!

But wait, doesn’t WordPress come with its native commenting system?

Sure does! The thing about WordPress native comments is that it is the simplest way to manage your comments. However, it doesn’t come with Social Media integration; some may say it’s not aesthetically appealing; it doesn’t have automatic comments approval, and so on. So, if all you need is the quickest and most straightforward way to have comments, this integrated native commenting system will do you just fine.

And if you need something more versatile, slick and improved, these are the comments plugins that get the job done!

WordPress comments plugin – list of top 8 to choose from

In most cases, having comments on your site add and improve the value of your site, drive more interaction, not to mention it is a great source of feedback and a way to get more content ideas. With that in mind, here are some of the best WordPress comments plugins you can choose from, to step up and improve your comment section.

CommentLuv

comment-luv-wordpress-comment-plugin

Once you install this plugin, you’ll find its settings within WordPress’s dashboard Settings, where you can set up and customize the use.

The thing with this plugin is, it’s more than just an ordinary comment plugin. Once you set up registrations for your readers to comment, you encourage and reward them by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. The COMMENTLUV plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit. That way, you’re encouraging a community to comment more and discover new posts at the same time.

Disqus Comment System

disqus-wordpress-comment-plugin

Certainly, one of the web’s most popular comment system that helps you increase engagement, retain readers and grow your audience. Easy to set up and use, comes with one-click installation and built-in anti-spam filter by Akismet. To use it, you’ll need and Disqus account, which you can open either with Social Media accounts or via email. The basic plan comes with ad support and Disqus Core features, such as:

  • Real-time comments
  • Rich media commenting
  • Automatically adaption to your site’s design and colors
  • Mobile/desktop/Google AMP support
  • In class moderation panel and tooling

and more!

For personal blogs, .edu sites, nonprofits, and small sites that do not run other advertising, Disqus advertising is optional. If you are a small, non-commercial site, you can self identify for a free subscription to Disqus’s Plus plan.

Premium features include features like:

  • More sites support
  • Ads-free
  • Advanced moderation tools
  • Shadowbanning
  • Timeouts
  • Advanced analytics
  • Custom reactions
  • White labeling and more!

The price starts at $9/month for 3 site support and there’s a 30 days trial period that you can use to tryout Plus and Pro options.

GraphComment

graphcomment-wordpress-comment-plugin

GraphComment is a free WordPress comment plugin that helps you have a meaningful conversation on your site without trolls and with the easy reading flow. It improves community interaction and engagement, as well as overall user experience – thanks to features like:

  • Discussion votes
  • Shares
  • Social integration
  • Media embedding
  • Smart moderation
  • Filtering system
  • Analytics
  • Spam protection and more.

GraphComment organize comments on your site by formatting them in a way that it ties comments that replies to previously posted comments so you always have clear conversation flow. On top of that, there’s also a Bubble Rank feature that sorts comments and replies by relevance, making the conversation more valuable while controlling trolls and spam.

Pro version comes with more advanced features, such as:

  • Keyword alerts
  • Advanced customization
  • PUSH notification center
  • Direct assistance and more.

The price starts at $7/month.

Jetpack Comments

jetpack-wordpress-comment-plugin

Initially made as a security, performance and site management plugin, Jetpack can be and is used as a reliable comment plugin as well.  Once you install it, it will replace WordPress native comments and serve as a replacement, where readers can use WordPress.com, Twitter or Facebook accounts to comment:

jetpack-wordpress-comment-plugin-screenshot

That way, you’re integrating social commenting into your blog or site, making it easier for readers to engage with you and make content more visible.

Replyable by Postmatic

replyable-wordpress-comment-plugin

This is a freemium plugin that notifies you and your readers about comments, so you get a more engaging audience on your site. Replyable lets you send beautiful, smart email notifications to your commenters. But email shouldn’t be just one-way. Replyable lets you, your authors, and commenters hit reply to send a follow-up comment and keep the conversation going.
Enabling a two-way email requires that Replyable’s server connects to yours. By doing so, you’re granting these permissions:

  • Your profile overview
  • Your site overview
  • Admin notices
  • Current plugin events

Two-way plans start at $2.99 and come with a no-risk 30-day trial.

replyable-wordpress-comment-plugin-screenshot

If you chose to stay with the one-way conversation, this plugin sends a simple notification that a comment has been posted. You can customize your Replyable template and choose a color palette, email header, and footer text, define a custom welcome message. Furthermore, you can define comment subscription options, as shown below:

Super Socializer

super-socializer-wordpress-comment-plugin

Super Socializer is a free WordPress comment plugin that lets you integrate Social Login, Share and Comments to improve your commenting system and engagement on your site. With it, you’re enabling your readers faster user experience, they can interact with your content, comment on it, like it and share without being forced to register to your site due to social integration features.

That way, you’re boosting conversation, visibility and virality of your site or blog, and reduce spam.

And if all that is not enough, there are several add-ons to further improve your commenting system, like:

  • Facebook comments moderation
  • Facebook comments notifier
  • Social Share myCRED integration

The price starts at $7.99 for single-site use.

Thrive Comments

thrive-comments-wordpress-comment-plugin

Thrive Comments is a premium WordPress comment plugin that works similar to social networks such as Facebook, meaning you can like someone’s comment, or assign user badges and so on. Furthermore, you can also turn your comments into a Reddit lookalike thread with up-vote and down-vote features.

Some of the useful features that come with Thrive Comments are:

  • Different CTA for first time commenters
  • Audience Insights
  • Lazy Load for speed optimization
  • Comment sorting
  • Comment filtering
  • Social sharing and more.

The price is $39 for single-site use and comes with unlimited free updates and a 1 full year of support.

wpDiscuz

wp-discuz-wordpress-comment-plugin

Known as Disqus’s alternative, this is a free comment plugin that automatically takes and transforms WordPress’s native comments upon installation. Once you activate it, you can customize the comment system to meet yours and the needs of your visitors. It comes with all sorts of features and options to make commenting and engaging that much better. And all that for free! Features like:

  • Interactive comment pox on posts and other content types
  • Responsive comments form and threads design
  • Social media integration
  • Lazy load comments
  • Anonymous comments
  • Multi-level comment threads
  • Allowed/disallowed comments and more.

wp-discuz-wordpress-comment-plugin-screenshot

And if all these features aren’t enough, there are 16 more add-ons to choose from, with the starting price from $25 for single-site use.

Final Thoughts

Depending on your needs, these eight WordPress comment plugins are a great start to choose from. Whether you’re looking for the simplest solution or all-in-one plugin, we did our best to provide you with the most popular and reliable choices.

WordPress comment plugins

Want to talk more about WordPress comments or have a question about it? Leave a comment and let’s chat on!

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Ivana Cirkovic

Ivana is a Digital Marketing, PR and Social Media consultant with over nine years experience in the field. She is also a WordPress enthusiast and an active member of WordPress community who lives online almost 24/7. In love with Twitter, WP, photography and NYC.

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