
Ask HN: Best Self Hosted Comment System? - CM30
Because every recommendation I see seems to be a Disqus esque service requiring a third party server, or have some dependence on an external business and their &#x27;network&#x27;.<p>So what&#x27;s the answer for those who want to host every part of the system themselves, with no reliance on third parties? Cause my site has a &#x27;no third parties&#x27; policy, which means I want every single aspect self hosted rather than reliant on a service that can either go out of business, shut down, be sold off or be encouraged to stop serving me because of an angry mob.<p>I&#x27;m currently using WP Disqus, but it costs a fortune because of their business model (charging for every extra feature).<p>Any recommendations here?
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decasteve
Build a minimal one in php. Basic JavaScript and php form validation before
the php sends an email to a comments@domain account. The email spam filter
takes care of the spam. Your moderation tool becomes the email client.

Have a script that runs locally to read the email and automatically insert it
into the appropriate page. In my case I insert it into a Jekyll page yaml
before recompiling and publishing the comment.

~~~
maceurt
Why would you write it in php over django or node?

~~~
decasteve
Any mention of WordPress and I automatically think php. It’s pervasive and
simple enough to setup. To validate a form and send an email you can use
whatever is there — whatever is quickest and easiest for you.

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hazz99
If there is a demand for this, I will happily build it! I've been looking for
a new FOSS project to start.

Please either upvote or comment to let me know :)

~~~
osdiab
Yes! If it’s something that I can host as cloud functions or something that
would be even cooler :) I’d contribute.

~~~
avinassh
Using Cloud Functions would be interesting. But how would you handle
persistence?

~~~
captn3m0
Haven't looked, but I distinctly remember AWS Lambda +Dynamo DB based solution
long back on a Show HN. I'm on mobile now, but will find and post a link later

~~~
avinassh
Found it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11644042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11644042)

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KajMagnus
Talkyard looks like Disqus, is open source self hosted. Plus serverless
hosting no ads no tracking:

Demo: [https://www.kajmagnus.blog/new-embedded-
comments/](https://www.kajmagnus.blog/new-embedded-comments/)

More info: [https://www.talkyard.io/blog-
comments](https://www.talkyard.io/blog-comments)

There're Discourse + Hacker News discussion forum features too, if later on
you want to start a forum / community around your blog. Email notifications.
Sign in with Gmail / Facebook / GitHub / email+password. I'm developing
Talkyard.

~~~
osdiab
It looks like the comments aren’t showing up properly when I’m on Safari on
iOS in the blog post :P

[http://imgur.com/kFPTMaC](http://imgur.com/kFPTMaC)

~~~
KajMagnus
I've started fixing this now ... by removing cookies completely (unless one
logs in to post/edit a comment; then there's a session cookie).

\+ adding a cookieless _just-type-name-and-email_ Guest login. (Session id
remembered only for the current page load; everything forgotten on page
refresh. This should make it impossible for iOS etc to classify this as a
tracker.)

------
se7entime
[https://posativ.org/isso/](https://posativ.org/isso/)

[https://github.com/posativ/isso](https://github.com/posativ/isso)

------
guu
I’ve never tried self hosting it but commento
([https://gitlab.com/commento/commento-
ce](https://gitlab.com/commento/commento-ce)) might work for you.

~~~
adtac
Heyo, thanks a lot for the shout-out. Original author here, happy to answer
any questions you guys might have. Here's a demo of what Commento looks like:
[https://demo.commento.io](https://demo.commento.io)

I should mention that there's also an enterprise edition that adds
proprietary, enterprise-y features like audit logs, SSO, etc. that you can
purchase for a one-time fee [1]. It also supports the project :)

But worry not, the community edition will always be fully functional and I'll
never make it crippleware.

[1] [https://commento.io/pricing](https://commento.io/pricing)

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iamgopal
Shouldn't Hacker news be open source, since monetization is not their primary
intent ? That could be a nice comment system.

Edit: since Hacker news uses firebase, it would be nice to have some
statistics for Their firebase usage and costing etc, if available anywhere ?

~~~
krapp
The software Hacker News is based upon is open source[0], however Hacker News
itself is not, because the site is run by a venture capital firm and
monetization is the primary intent of many users who are YC's potential
clients.

[0][http://arclanguage.org/](http://arclanguage.org/)

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mantlepro
I wouldn't mind seeing an ActivityPub-based
([http://activitypub.rocks](http://activitypub.rocks)) comment system. It
would enable a decent self-hosted, experience that works with other AP-based
platforms. The landscape for such a thing should be forthcoming given the
popularity of Mastodon, PeerTube, and others supporting the protocol. Doesn't
seem overly hard to implement for a comment system.

------
ivankolev
Not affiliated in any way, haven't actually used it and I see no development
happening lately, so caveat emptor, but
[https://github.com/s-gv/orangeforum](https://github.com/s-gv/orangeforum)
might be worth a look, it is written in Go and it does look decent.

------
iKevinShah
On a related note, say I want to build my own commenting system (self hosted),
any good papers / articles / discussion topics to share?

Topics from db structure to how to handle nesting(display wise), sorting (top
/ trending), etc. Some gotchas which we might miss.

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fosco
Lobsters[0] put their code up, might need some massaging, but maybe you could
use it for inspiration.

[0]
[https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters](https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters)

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wortelefant
we use staticman for a static / jekyll site, it adds comments via forms and
github pull requests. works well if you're not exactly drowning in comments
and if only minimal moderation is required.

some recent blog articles describe similar systems, e.g.
[https://www.bhnywl.com/blog/comments-for-your-static-blog-
wi...](https://www.bhnywl.com/blog/comments-for-your-static-blog-with-
staticman/)

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jedimastert
Are we talking about comments on things like blog posts? I guess it depends on
the features you want. Do you want:

* Moderated by yourself or other?

* Nested comments?

* Register before commenting?

What would be your feature wish list?

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pythonik
Check Talk [https://coralproject.net/talk/](https://coralproject.net/talk/) .

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sideproject
HelloBox is another alternative

[https://www.hellobox.co](https://www.hellobox.co)

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oboroten
Look at [https://remark42.com/](https://remark42.com/)

~~~
dddw
nice but I wouldn't want to use sso

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zzo38computer
Use NNTP perhaps

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javipas
Discourse ([https://www.discourse.org/](https://www.discourse.org/)) would be
my bet.

