Show HN: I'm working on a open-source, self-hosted alternative to Disqus(cusdis.com)
cusdis.com
Show HN: I'm working on a open-source, self-hosted alternative to Disqus
https://cusdis.com
175 comments
Slightly OT but if I'm ever in need of a comprehensive list of alternatives to services, I'm just going to post that I'm building one. I just knew when I saw this post that the thread would be full of preexisting projects.
If you're ever in need of alternative methods of finding alternatives to services, you could always check out the alternatives to AlternativeTo page: https://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/
I checked the alternatives to AlternativeTo, but they didn't provide good alternatives to AlternativeTo. Can you suggest an alternative?
I know you are joking, because they actually list alternatives: https://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/ Big kudos to them.
Hah. Fair play to them.
Following the word play of the main post may I suggest nativealter.net?
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted Is also sometimes quite helpful, at least when you search for something to self host.
> the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
Maybe this should be formalized as a corollary of Cunningham's Law.
Slightly OT but have you heard of Cactus chat? It's a great alternative to disqus.
https://cactus.chat/
https://cactus.chat/
Smart strategy. Maybe someone could even make a project out of that called RedditAlternativeTo.
You dont need to. Check the awesome self hosted lists on github. Work is already mostly done.
but those alternatives are all self-hosted, which doesn't help much if you don't plan on self-hosting anything
Neat! I checked out your source code, and if there's one comment I have, it's the way you query for comments. Currently, response times are around 300-400 ms for just 79 bytes of data. That's likely because you recursively fetch nested comments from a serverless function, which potentially has to make multiple network request to talk to the database. Coincidentally, a past Disqus employee has a great write up on the faster solution (recursive CTE): https://cra.mr/2010/05/30/scaling-threaded-comments-on-djang...
Regardless, great work! Choosing Svelte to hit that 4.7kb mark is super sweet!
Regardless, great work! Choosing Svelte to hit that 4.7kb mark is super sweet!
Wow thank you! When I implemented this I am worried about the performance too. But I don't know what's the better solution. Thanks for your info!
That article mentions "modified preorder tree traversal" but the link is broken. Is that technique essentially the same as nested sets? [https://bobbyjack.medium.com/storing-deep-hierarchies-in-a-d...]
Coral is poorly advertised outside it's ecosystem, but should be considered. https://github.com/coralproject/talk
See https://docs.coralproject.net/coral/v5/integrating/cms/ to get an idea of it's use.
See https://docs.coralproject.net/coral/v5/integrating/cms/ to get an idea of it's use.
Coral is definitely more focused on larger communities than it is for smaller sites. Mainly because of the multi-tenant, multi-site, and moderation features that allow it to be used for larger organizations!
(We're also hiring to work on this open source project!)
(We're also hiring to work on this open source project!)
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A somewhat related solution for comments is to piggyback on the Mastodon ecosystem, which I really like: https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/29/adding-comments-to-your-sta...
that requires very sophisticated users and ends up alienating most ppl on the web (basically this'll only work for tech users)
yeah, I doubt any of my visitors have a mastodon account
> that requires very sophisticated users
For a commenting system, that sounds more like a feature than an issue to me.
For a commenting system, that sounds more like a feature than an issue to me.
Or hook up webmentions with something like https://brid.gy/
See also https://webmention.io/
I wonder how many people who are using comments don't need comments. I have seen so many places where comments are enabled but even good comments are not replied to, especially when the post is from 5 years ago.
Also, trying to ensure the correct quality of comments is time-consuming. If someone asks "Why would I use C#?", it might seem low quality and won't be published but what if someone asks "You are using C# but Go would make a lot of this easier", it might warrant publishing and even a reply but how many people really want to start a long discussion with a stranger about the merits of different languages?
Also, trying to ensure the correct quality of comments is time-consuming. If someone asks "Why would I use C#?", it might seem low quality and won't be published but what if someone asks "You are using C# but Go would make a lot of this easier", it might warrant publishing and even a reply but how many people really want to start a long discussion with a stranger about the merits of different languages?
> how many people really want to start a long discussion with a stranger about the merits of different languages?
Plenty of programmers, actually. Just see the comments on HN or reddit on posts about programming languages for example.
Plenty of programmers, actually. Just see the comments on HN or reddit on posts about programming languages for example.
I would suggest that always show on screen the label of the input, is not a good practice put the label inside the input and make it disappear when the person start typing.
Example: https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tjzXjhViDt3ArR1zUkFiRw.png
From: https://uxdesign.cc/best-practices-for-form-design-ff5de6ca8...
Hope can help.
Example: https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tjzXjhViDt3ArR1zUkFiRw.png
From: https://uxdesign.cc/best-practices-for-form-design-ff5de6ca8...
Hope can help.
This is called a placeholder, and I don't think it's best practice, it's a matter of taste.
Labels are a best practice for accessibility. Placeholders should be used as example input, if at all.
Absolutely. I was curious to see this practice encouraged by a document about UX design and the linked page actually lists all sorts of drawbacks for it and encourages using labels at the top or at the left of the input (right aligned to make the label close to the input).
Do not use placeholders for labels please.
Do not use placeholders for labels please.
When i click on "try it now", then click the browser's back button when seeing "log in with github" I and up at https://cusdis.com/dashboard and get a 500 error page.
How does this compare to Commento?
https://commento.io/
https://gitlab.com/commento/commento
https://commento.io/
https://gitlab.com/commento/commento
Commento doesn't work. I tried to integrate it with my site a while ago. Didn't work. Got some server error. So I tried to contact the guy behind it. He didn't respond.
It's dead, as far as I can tell.
It's dead, as far as I can tell.
I'm the guy behind it. Was this with commento.io or were you self-hosting? I'm truly sorry it didn't work out, but if you want to shoot me another email, I promise to respond this time.
So there's a whole bunch of improvements actively going on the behind-the-scenes (essentially a Commento v2) and I hope to announce things soon. I know support has been lackluster and I intend to turn that around too. It's certainly not dead :)
So there's a whole bunch of improvements actively going on the behind-the-scenes (essentially a Commento v2) and I hope to announce things soon. I know support has been lackluster and I intend to turn that around too. It's certainly not dead :)
Commento.io
I actually sent you two emails.
I will send you another one.
I actually sent you two emails.
I will send you another one.
Great to hear! I tried using it at CommunityRule.info but ran into no-go issues, which I posted here: https://gitlab.com/commento/commento/-/issues/391
Also would love for it to be easier to match the CSS to the host site.
Was running it self-hosted on Cloudron but would be happy to try the paid, hosted product if it worked for me.
Also would love for it to be easier to match the CSS to the host site.
Was running it self-hosted on Cloudron but would be happy to try the paid, hosted product if it worked for me.
> It's dead
Last commit is last month
> So I tried to contact the guy behind it. He didn't respond.
Did you buy support from the author? As the author of an unrelated open source project, I receive an enormous amount of messages from people feeling entitled to receive support for free on the pretext it's open source. Answering and following up on those message could well be a full time job in itself except it doesn't pay for my bills
Last commit is last month
> So I tried to contact the guy behind it. He didn't respond.
Did you buy support from the author? As the author of an unrelated open source project, I receive an enormous amount of messages from people feeling entitled to receive support for free on the pretext it's open source. Answering and following up on those message could well be a full time job in itself except it doesn't pay for my bills
Thanks for that unjustified hostility.
I am sure the creator of Commento is happy you are here exacting vigilante justice against his customers for their imaginary entitlement.
I signed up for a free trial of his commento.io service, and immediately tried to integrate it with my static site.
When I ran into difficulties (bad responses from commento.io) I contacted support.
If I had got it working, I would have gladly paid him, and I would still be paying him.
I think I was within my rights to request a modicum of support during the free trial period for a paid product, and then to not pay for it when I did not receive a response.
In this context, I find your story about some open source project you have to be quite irrelevant.
I am sure the creator of Commento is happy you are here exacting vigilante justice against his customers for their imaginary entitlement.
I signed up for a free trial of his commento.io service, and immediately tried to integrate it with my static site.
When I ran into difficulties (bad responses from commento.io) I contacted support.
If I had got it working, I would have gladly paid him, and I would still be paying him.
I think I was within my rights to request a modicum of support during the free trial period for a paid product, and then to not pay for it when I did not receive a response.
In this context, I find your story about some open source project you have to be quite irrelevant.
Yep, same experience here, dead as a doornail.
I run commento on my blog right now, and it works fine for me.
You can even deploy it relatively painlessly. A little googling brought up an ansible playbook to set it up with minimal configuration: https://github.com/kathawala/commento-ansible-playbook
You can even deploy it relatively painlessly. A little googling brought up an ansible playbook to set it up with minimal configuration: https://github.com/kathawala/commento-ansible-playbook
What is the pricing for the enterprise? It's hard to get excited about IF usage < X then $99/yr ELSE undefined as a pricing model.
I've heard that if something goes wrong and you need support... good luck. Even if you're a paying user.
Nice project!
I've been using RemarkBox for the last couple of months and like it. It's privacy respecting, hosted, pay what you want.
https://www.remarkbox.com/
I've been using RemarkBox for the last couple of months and like it. It's privacy respecting, hosted, pay what you want.
https://www.remarkbox.com/
Thanks for the shout out, I built Remarkbox and it's now "pay what you can"
https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can....
https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can....
Thanks for sharing! Looks amazing.
The main advantage to Disqus (and other hosted solutions) is that their spam protection applies across all comment sections. You'll never get that with an open source solution.
Also one account where I can see all the comments I've left on the various sites with their replies. And if I feel like it, I can easily remove old comments - even after my nickname and/or email changed, I've deleted all my cookies and/or got a whole new system. I just need to be able to log into my Disqus account. And the site I'm commenting on doesn't know my email address.
You could use a closed source spam protection API from an open source project. Best of both worlds. Oh that is actually what Wordpress does with Akismet
Yep
There are privacy-friendly alternatives like OOPSpam API you could integrate to any comment systems.
Nice self promotion w/o any disclaimer
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Could you (or anyone) give some insight into what spam protection really entails?
Talk about a useful open source chunk of software.
Talk about a useful open source chunk of software.
Abuse is an arms race, so I'm not certain it can entirely be "open source". Someone has to man the servers to adapt as the assault develops. There can be tools that are open source, but without a foundation that is running services, it's just a bunch of dead end code.
Absolutely. I agree the key is less code than rapidly updated data. Source networks, browser headers, client behavior, target links, content markers. Spammers may be awful, but some of them aren't stupid. IF they discover something isn't working, then they'll change up their approach. And it can't be an open service, because you're just helping the smart ones to hide better.
The main thing is training a model. Every time you mark something as spam or off topic, it trains a model so that it can identify similar things in the future. You can train your own model, but it will work better with a lot of data.
Open sourcing it would be hard, because you'd have to trust everyone else to classify things correctly, or you'd have to review every input yourself. A spammer could easily sneak in a lot of false positives or false negatives to throw the entire model off.
Open sourcing it would be hard, because you'd have to trust everyone else to classify things correctly, or you'd have to review every input yourself. A spammer could easily sneak in a lot of false positives or false negatives to throw the entire model off.
Why is spam score always weighted as a single outcome and never as a population-based result? I mean, you’re processing more data, I get it, but it feels like that would be a model much more resilient to tampering, bad actors, and just different social norms.
For example, if one set of users started rating a specific subset of posts as spam, then those users could be bucketed together into a “doesn’t want to see message type A” group while others, who minded other messages, would be bucketed into a “No B-messages” group.
This would need to be applied selectively, as it could easily result in an echo chamber for normal discourse, but I would’ve given my left arm to have that sort of filtering available in the game during my WoW days. Those city spammers were unbearable!
I, of course, would have fallen into the “I don’t care how great a deal your Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, is, I’m just here to socialize” bucket.
For example, if one set of users started rating a specific subset of posts as spam, then those users could be bucketed together into a “doesn’t want to see message type A” group while others, who minded other messages, would be bucketed into a “No B-messages” group.
This would need to be applied selectively, as it could easily result in an echo chamber for normal discourse, but I would’ve given my left arm to have that sort of filtering available in the game during my WoW days. Those city spammers were unbearable!
I, of course, would have fallen into the “I don’t care how great a deal your Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, is, I’m just here to socialize” bucket.
> Open sourcing it would be hard, because you'd have to trust everyone else to classify things correctly, or you'd have to review every input yourself.
There's not a way you could choose which people/groups you trust (and don't) to classify spam correctly? Don't open source adblockers work like this?
There's not a way you could choose which people/groups you trust (and don't) to classify spam correctly? Don't open source adblockers work like this?
Don't they use some reasonably reviewable methods, like regular expressions? And, more importantly, reviewable volumes? Also, an ad blocker can always have a debug mode, where it can show you a rule that removed the element.
With ad blocking you have none of that. Gigabytes of text go into training, kilobytes of inscrutable numbers go out. And all the debug info you get is how certain the computer sounded saying no.
With ad blocking you have none of that. Gigabytes of text go into training, kilobytes of inscrutable numbers go out. And all the debug info you get is how certain the computer sounded saying no.
Disqus has passable spam and toxicity detection (the latter via a third party) but many sites don't bother to make use of it. As a result a great many disqus comment sections are absolute cesspools of spam, bigotry, and threats of violence.
I can imagine implementing reCAPTCHA can prevent a lot of spam.
Sadly not anymore. There are click farms in third world countries that will solve 10 captchas for a penny. Not to mention how many people will just not leave a comment if presented with a captcha.
It's not that sad tbh, as a legitimate user I'm sick and tired of proving I'm not a robot 20 times a day. I'd love for recaptcha to become irrelevant.
I see, I was thinking about reCAPTCHA v3, working invisible in the background.
reCAPTCHA v3 just gives you a score, and you have to decide what to do with it. This means that you should never under any circumstances use reCAPTCHA v3 as a gate with no alternative—otherwise you will certainly be preventing real users from using the system with no recourse, which will regularly have at least theoretically dire legal consequences.
Also, I get the impression that reCAPTCHA v3 is waaaaay less smart than people think. At a small scale, it’s near trivial to tweak your browser so it’ll give scores at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Also, I get the impression that reCAPTCHA v3 is waaaaay less smart than people think. At a small scale, it’s near trivial to tweak your browser so it’ll give scores at opposite ends of the spectrum.
reCAPTCHA is an accessibility and privacy nightmare.
There are better alternatives like OOPSpam API that gives a score and works in the backend so no interaction with the user.
There are better alternatives like OOPSpam API that gives a score and works in the backend so no interaction with the user.
ReCAPTCHA v3 gives a score and works in the background too.
That is not entirely true. If your threshold is low then it appears and you get accessibility issue. Not to mention tracking hell of out the users.
You’re confusing multiple badly named products by Google. You’re thinking of Invisible reCAPTCHA rather than reCAPTCHA v3.
reCAPTCHA v2 is the “I’m not a robot” checkbox widget followed by challenges if Google doesn’t like you.
Invisible reCAPTCHA is reCAPTCHA v2 but the site initiates verification instead of the user being given an “I’m not a robot” checkbox widget to click; but if Google doesn’t like you, it’ll still trap you in the purgatory¹ of puzzle solving. Site operators can then blame Google, for all the good that does. “Invisible reCAPTCHA” is a bad name for the product, because it’s not invisible.
reCAPTCHA v3 never presents a challenge for you to solve, but decides a score (in practice, I’ve only seen 0.1, 0.3, 0.7 and 0.9) where higher means Google’s feeling more friendly towards you, and it’s up to the site operator to decide what to do with that score—whether to simply deny access to people that Google doesn’t like (catastrophically bad and widely illegal, as it blocks legitimate users with no recourse) or to do something else. But now the liability for blocking real people is clearly with the site operator and not Google. But of course far too many people will ignore Google’s “don’t gate on this alone” direction and just see the higher version number and assume it must be better than reCAPTCHA v2. “reCAPTCHA v3” is a bad name for the product because it’s not a CAPTCHA, as there’s no challenge; it’s straight fraud detection.
—
¹ Some hold it’s hell, rather than purgatory.
reCAPTCHA v2 is the “I’m not a robot” checkbox widget followed by challenges if Google doesn’t like you.
Invisible reCAPTCHA is reCAPTCHA v2 but the site initiates verification instead of the user being given an “I’m not a robot” checkbox widget to click; but if Google doesn’t like you, it’ll still trap you in the purgatory¹ of puzzle solving. Site operators can then blame Google, for all the good that does. “Invisible reCAPTCHA” is a bad name for the product, because it’s not invisible.
reCAPTCHA v3 never presents a challenge for you to solve, but decides a score (in practice, I’ve only seen 0.1, 0.3, 0.7 and 0.9) where higher means Google’s feeling more friendly towards you, and it’s up to the site operator to decide what to do with that score—whether to simply deny access to people that Google doesn’t like (catastrophically bad and widely illegal, as it blocks legitimate users with no recourse) or to do something else. But now the liability for blocking real people is clearly with the site operator and not Google. But of course far too many people will ignore Google’s “don’t gate on this alone” direction and just see the higher version number and assume it must be better than reCAPTCHA v2. “reCAPTCHA v3” is a bad name for the product because it’s not a CAPTCHA, as there’s no challenge; it’s straight fraud detection.
—
¹ Some hold it’s hell, rather than purgatory.
such a mess.
As @j3th9n mentioned, reCAPTCHA v3 does have challenge and you can invoke it based on a score.
https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3#programmatic...
As @j3th9n mentioned, reCAPTCHA v3 does have challenge and you can invoke it based on a score.
https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3#programmatic...
They shouldn’t have called it a “challenge” there. It’s not a challenge; it’s just executing the verification function. Chalk up another one for harmfully incorrect terminology. (Admittedly “verification” is also an overloaded term, as it gives you a token which your backend subsequently needs to verify.)
(As they confirm near the start of the document, “reCAPTCHA v3 will never interrupt your users, so you can run it whenever you like without affecting conversion.”)
(As they confirm near the start of the document, “reCAPTCHA v3 will never interrupt your users, so you can run it whenever you like without affecting conversion.”)
It doesn't appear automatically, it's programmable [1], you as a developer decide what to do with a low score, you could ask for extra verification for example. I agree with the tracking and privacy issues with ReCAPTCHA.
[1] https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3#programmatic...
[1] https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/v3#programmatic...
Thanks for the link. I didn't know the developer could prevent reCAPTCHA from appearing.
Not to rely on it, but I've implemented ReCAPTCHA v3 on a couple of websites and got under the impression spambots are detecting and skipping websites who have implemented it altogether.
Unsurprisingly, there are services for that now that provide a guaranteed minimum score.
Another similar project:
https://remark42.com/
https://github.com/umputun/remark42
Other (older) projects trying to fill a similar need :
isso: https://github.com/posativ/isso
juvia: https://github.com/phusion/juvia
But cusdis looks great so far!
isso: https://github.com/posativ/isso
juvia: https://github.com/phusion/juvia
But cusdis looks great so far!
Isso works great. Install and forget!
I'm late to the game, but I'm surprised that no one has mentioned StaticMan yet:
https://github.com/eduardoboucas/staticman
Just uses Git(Hub|Lab) to triage and approve comments for your static sites, like Jekyll.
https://github.com/eduardoboucas/staticman
Just uses Git(Hub|Lab) to triage and approve comments for your static sites, like Jekyll.
I’ve used staticman on a few sites and I think it’s great. My sites don’t get a lot of comment action, so merging PRs isn’t an annoyance.
I'm maintaining a list of commenting systems [1]. It's great to see more alternatives coming up every few months. I've just updated the list with 3 new projects from this thread.
[1] https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/
[1] https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/
I worry about the echo chambers people are subjecting themselves to when something with applicability as general as a commenting widget requires a GitHub account to sign in. That's narrowing it down to a subset of a subset of one's audience.
It's a trade-off. GitHub comments are free and rather easy to set up and maintain. If I had a highly developer-centric blog or even a blog supporting an open-source project, using GitHub as comments is a perfectly fine solution. But sure, this solution is limiting your target audience.
Make it decentralised, it is the new black.
Two implementations using the Fediverse:
https://cactus.chat/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26371813
https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/29/adding-comments-to-your-sta... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25570268
https://cactus.chat/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26371813
https://carlschwan.eu/2020/12/29/adding-comments-to-your-sta... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25570268
Cactus isn't really the fediverse though: I consider (maybe mistakenly) the so-called fediverse to be broadly activitypub-based, while cactus leverages Matrix.
Comments need moderation. The blockchain/decentralization ain't great for moderation... And not everything has to be "discoverable" (= have a public database)
Unless you're fine with re-inventing known best-practices ofc.
Unless you're fine with re-inventing known best-practices ofc.
Being decentralized is orthogonal with moderation. You can for example allow people to post to some rooms that represent the blog posts threads, and keep yourself as admin and moderator there.
See https://cactus.chat, which is on the Matrix network.
See https://cactus.chat, which is on the Matrix network.
Dunno about blockchain, but decentralized works great. Watch "Decentralized Social Networks vs. the Trolls" on (decentralized) PeerTube:
https://conf.tube/videos/watch/d8c8ed69-79f0-4987-bafe-84c01...
https://conf.tube/videos/watch/d8c8ed69-79f0-4987-bafe-84c01...
How would you make a comment system decentralized? Like where would they be stored? Genuine question by the way, I'm not familiar with decentralized computing.
Local storage: solves the spam issue and the issue of annoying commenters.
https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js
https://github.com/tessalt/echo-chamber-js
The same way a chat system can be. See https://cactus.chat, on the Matrix network, for example.
IPFS is a cache, not persistent storage.
Pinned objects persist.
Correct me if I am wrong, if I am the only person pinning it, wouldn't that mean we are back to a single server?
Like, if I am the only one pinning (and storing) the data, everyone downloads it from me correct? Why not just use a regular storage at that point?
Like, if I am the only one pinning (and storing) the data, everyone downloads it from me correct? Why not just use a regular storage at that point?
[deleted](1)
Presumably the comments would be sharded and encrypted. Then each those chunks would have a hash generated for it, and each chunk would be stored as transactions on a blockchain, or more likely multiple blockchains for redundancy.
This is how the blockchain storage companies do it.
This is how the blockchain storage companies do it.
This sounds insanely complicated for data that could just be stored in a SQLite database...
Decentralizing Disqus is trivial. Just go back to each blog has its own local comment system with commenter identities disconnected from all other sites they comment on or even anonymous. There's no reason you need a single global identity and storage backend for all content sources that support commenting.
It can even be otherwise identical to Disqus except self hosted.
It can even be otherwise identical to Disqus except self hosted.
The edit box doesn't seem to indicate what sorts of markup, or "url looking thing is converted to link", etc, is available. Might be good to have a little help box to explain what's allowed/supported, even if that's just text.
Edit: I now see the "support markdown" commit. You might want a "preview" button so people can see what they have. At the moment I see only a "Post Comment" button.
Also, does it understand the concept of canonical urls so that pages that are the same one, but with different urls, share the same comments? I searched the repo for "canonical" and didn't see anything.
Edit: I now see the "support markdown" commit. You might want a "preview" button so people can see what they have. At the moment I see only a "Post Comment" button.
Also, does it understand the concept of canonical urls so that pages that are the same one, but with different urls, share the same comments? I searched the repo for "canonical" and didn't see anything.
Cuss & diss Disqus. Loving the name.
Can I suggest you add something of an architecture diagram/flowchart od the website? Just a little something that illustrates what the frontend talks to, where the data is stored, that sort of thing?
Can I suggest you add something of an architecture diagram/flowchart od the website? Just a little something that illustrates what the frontend talks to, where the data is stored, that sort of thing?
Thanks for you feedback! I will add a `how it works` in the document later. But I'd like to answer your question here first.
Since Cusdis was designed for self-hosted, the data should be stored in your own server. The Docker image provides both sqlite and pgsql options. Then the comment widget that embed in your web page talks to this server through a http call, which fetch all the approved comments and display them.
The "Try it now" is a demo server that I've hosted for the people who want to just look around what is it look like, it's not scalable and shouldn't be used in production yet. It run in my vps on Digital Ocean, data is stored in this vps with a pgsql instance.
Since Cusdis was designed for self-hosted, the data should be stored in your own server. The Docker image provides both sqlite and pgsql options. Then the comment widget that embed in your web page talks to this server through a http call, which fetch all the approved comments and display them.
The "Try it now" is a demo server that I've hosted for the people who want to just look around what is it look like, it's not scalable and shouldn't be used in production yet. It run in my vps on Digital Ocean, data is stored in this vps with a pgsql instance.
Fix: The server is hosted in Vercel, the pgsql instance is hosted in my vps on DigitalOcean.
I have a plan to migrate the pgsql to a DigitalOcean managed database.
I have a plan to migrate the pgsql to a DigitalOcean managed database.
Disqus -> qusDis -> cusDis -> cusdis
I hope that's not too close to the original name
I hope that's not too close to the original name
Is there a mail-based solution out there?
Kind of like a public mailbox that you send comments to, and articles get recompiled with the comments on a static blog.
Plus, it would be naturally threaded if your mailto: link includes a thread ID.
Kind of like a public mailbox that you send comments to, and articles get recompiled with the comments on a static blog.
Plus, it would be naturally threaded if your mailto: link includes a thread ID.
I was thinking about this recently and really like the idea. You get the benefits of spam filtering, and it would work on any device with no JS or anything (“Leave a comment”/“Reply” button is just a mailto: link).
i am working with a platform that makes this possible. it is essentially an object storage that works as a backend to your website. every object (such as a blog post) can be annotated with messages, and these messages can be sent by email, so that effectively every object gets an email address. it has a permission system to control who can create annotations which allows you to turn off email access on any object. it also has an imap interface for those with an account on the backend to access the discussions from your mail client.
the platform itself is stable and in production. the REST api needs some work to support accessing comments and a frontend for comments needs to be built.
unfortunately, i lack the resources to work on this right now with family and paid work taking priority.
the platform itself is stable and in production. the REST api needs some work to support accessing comments and a frontend for comments needs to be built.
unfortunately, i lack the resources to work on this right now with family and paid work taking priority.
Thinking of it, IMAP wouldn't be a bad fit as an API to blogs and forums :)
(since someone asked)
the platform is licensed as GPL2. it was created by a german university, and i forked it after they stopped development on it, and added the REST API myself.
frontends using the REST API could be in any license of your choice, since the code would not be derived from the backend.
the implementation language is pike. (a language similar to python, but with C-syntax) adding new abilities to the REST API should be easy enough, by looking at the existing API code. though i'd also like to create a graphql API.
the project lives at https://gitlab.com/societyserver and http://societyserver.org/
the platform is licensed as GPL2. it was created by a german university, and i forked it after they stopped development on it, and added the REST API myself.
frontends using the REST API could be in any license of your choice, since the code would not be derived from the backend.
the implementation language is pike. (a language similar to python, but with C-syntax) adding new abilities to the REST API should be easy enough, by looking at the existing API code. though i'd also like to create a graphql API.
the project lives at https://gitlab.com/societyserver and http://societyserver.org/
The reliance on JavaScript is a big turn off for me with these third-party comment systems, and why I stick with what WordPress provides by default—with a few modifications to increase privacy.
The ideal comment system for me would use the mailing list feature from SourceHut[1], with each post on a blog having their own list and using the In-Reply-To and Message-Id headers. SourceHut already exposes forms that sends emails to mailing lists and is open source, so I guess someone could probably look into their implementation to make this happen.
Honestly, I would pay a good amount of money to licence something simple like this on a per-website basis, as long as the code is open source and the back-end is self-hostable—extra points if the developer includes a well-written WordPress plugin.
I might look into writing a WordPress plugin that implements this idea. However, because I really like the idea and working with email in general—in no small part because of aerc[2]—, I am obviously biased towards it, so my opinion my not be the best one. Heck, maybe there is no market for this at all.
The biggest reason why this idea will forever live in a drawer in my mental desk, however, are the privacy and potential GDPR issues; after all, anyone who leaves a comment will now have their email address exposed. I am not sure how to resolve that one.
[1] https://sourcehut.org/
[2] https://aerc-mail.org/
The ideal comment system for me would use the mailing list feature from SourceHut[1], with each post on a blog having their own list and using the In-Reply-To and Message-Id headers. SourceHut already exposes forms that sends emails to mailing lists and is open source, so I guess someone could probably look into their implementation to make this happen.
Honestly, I would pay a good amount of money to licence something simple like this on a per-website basis, as long as the code is open source and the back-end is self-hostable—extra points if the developer includes a well-written WordPress plugin.
I might look into writing a WordPress plugin that implements this idea. However, because I really like the idea and working with email in general—in no small part because of aerc[2]—, I am obviously biased towards it, so my opinion my not be the best one. Heck, maybe there is no market for this at all.
The biggest reason why this idea will forever live in a drawer in my mental desk, however, are the privacy and potential GDPR issues; after all, anyone who leaves a comment will now have their email address exposed. I am not sure how to resolve that one.
[1] https://sourcehut.org/
[2] https://aerc-mail.org/
My head was spinning until you got to the "mail to: link". I honestly thought you meant physical paper mail.
Oh, I'm sorry about that. French wording sometimes slips trough my keyboard (mail can only mean e-mail here, though there is the new recommended "courriel" that I quite like). Glad you figured it out x)
Discourse supports commenting (not only) by email, but that's about it. I don't think there is anything like that suitable for static blog.
Great! Read here why it is needed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26033052
Disqus.. the dark commenting system.
Disqus.. the dark commenting system.
There are a lot of efforts to topple Disqus for precisely those reasons. I released my Disqus competitor 2 years ago and its userbase has continued to grow like clockwork every day. It may seem like a saturated market on the low end, but there's a real need for projects like these!
I did some back end work and intense moderation for a large scale commenting/discussion site. I would like to chat with you about the spam /moderation 'con' you have listed in the documentation. I have a hefty set of semipolished ideas in that space that I would be happy to give to someone who can actually use them. I couldn't find a way to send you an email or message. If you are interested, feel free to reach out security at myusername .net.
Hi, creator here. I've sent you an email.
I tried out Disqus about 3 years ago, and found the API horrible... see SOF thread here. Might be worth doing a React wrapper to make it easy to understand how to integrate with frontend. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48653016/does-the-disqus...
I'm a huge fan of the lightweight nature of Cusdis.
I made this walk-through video of the project inclusive the deployment to Vercel and Railway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHr0oBIA2xA
I made this walk-through video of the project inclusive the deployment to Vercel and Railway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHr0oBIA2xA
Looking over the source code, it pains me to see how complicated web app development has become.
Agreed; here’s a project harkening back to simpler times:
BabbleWeb:
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/babbleweb.html
BabbleWeb:
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/babbleweb.html
I created a paid version here at https://blogstreak.com but I don't think it's taking off. I am planning to add marketing blogs but let's see in a month.
Honest question: What separates your tool from the rather established Disqus premium alternatives? Remarkbox, JustComments, CommentBox, HyperComments, GraphComments, FastComments, Hyvor Talk and ReplyBox? Some of those have been around for a few years now.
The self-host documentation returns a 404: https://cusdis.com/doc#/self-host/installation
URL changed to https://cusdis.com/doc#/self-host/vercel
imho the most important part of comment systems is the formula to appeal bans. False positives are going to happen and you cant just randomly remove people from communities out of convenience.
I have been tinkering about the idea of building open source disqus alternative for few months now. I guess I missed the train already:D Do you have any plans to monetise this?
That's a train with a busy time table. Every software engineer who ever wrote a comment on the web, got an idea how to make our better at some point. And it isn't a problem with a high barrier to entry.
The interesting, for me, part is the antispam. It is also silly hard, for obvious reasons. A big part of why Disqus is hard to replace is that they're doing a great job with it. Only once you clear that bar, you can think of successful monetisation.
The interesting, for me, part is the antispam. It is also silly hard, for obvious reasons. A big part of why Disqus is hard to replace is that they're doing a great job with it. Only once you clear that bar, you can think of successful monetisation.
Monetization can also be a problem if you don't provide enough tiers for users (same as any hosted web analytics alternative to google analytics).
I.e: my blog has like... 200 visits per month? I don't have comments right now - only link to twitter/reddit - but I expect I would have a dozen comments per month, tops. At this point I don't even care about anti-spam, but if a tool asks me $10 a month, I can't justify paying it. Make it $1 and I'm in.
I.e: my blog has like... 200 visits per month? I don't have comments right now - only link to twitter/reddit - but I expect I would have a dozen comments per month, tops. At this point I don't even care about anti-spam, but if a tool asks me $10 a month, I can't justify paying it. Make it $1 and I'm in.
Glosa, with its Disqus importer, has been around for a long time.
https://github.com/glosa
Just to clarify what "a long time" means for Glosa: It's been available for around 1 year now.
I love this project and I'd love it more if there was a discription on landing page about WHY it is privacy-friendly (as it seems to be one of the greatest benefits).
Integrate it with ghost. There aren’t many options for us building communities on Ghost for commenting. Cove.chat but the experience is less than premium IMO.
Cool! I would like to try this out in my blog, can this be integrated with statically generated pages using jekyll?
Nice project but you should probably change the name of the service IMO.
What's the license? I didn't see it on the repo.
MIT - it says on the repo
Nice! Congrats, looks amazing
self hosting + open source. kudos, good man
Very interesting, I've been looking for this.
How can I use it on the posts in my blog hosted at GitHub pages? I use Jekyll to build my blog.
Do you have a tutorial for that?
Do you have a tutorial for that?
This looks interesting.
I browse the WWW without JavaScript and this bricks many comment systems. Are you planning to make a widget without reliance on JavaScript?
I browse the WWW without JavaScript and this bricks many comment systems. Are you planning to make a widget without reliance on JavaScript?
Why do you browse the web without javascript? It is just a programming language.
I browse with JavaScript disabled because A) I don’t see any ads and B) pages load fast on my weak devices (first gen. iPad Air, ~2009 desktop).
I only turn on JavaScript to be able to use the website of my bank.
I only turn on JavaScript to be able to use the website of my bank.
You can enable JavaScript in Chrome the following way:
1) On your computer, open Chrome. 2) At the top right, click More. Settings. 3) Click Privacy and security. Site settings. 4) Click JavaScript. 5) Turn on Allowed (recommended).
Other browsers might have similar instructions.
1) On your computer, open Chrome. 2) At the top right, click More. Settings. 3) Click Privacy and security. Site settings. 4) Click JavaScript. 5) Turn on Allowed (recommended).
Other browsers might have similar instructions.
Not to put you down, but I think you should differentiate yourself well from Discourse (https://github.com/discourse/discourse), as it is pretty popular with the open source communities.
Hi. Discourse is a discussion platform (forum), while Disqus and Cusdis are comment widget that embed to existed website (like embed in blogs). I think they are not the same.
Discourse is heavier as a forum, certainly, but it supports embedding in sites as a comment section, and will generally do useful things like "automatically create a new topic of discussion from the post."
I agree that it's exceedingly heavy for comment only use (and generally requires user accounts), but if you're trying to build a community that also has blog posts, the two do integrate very nicely.
I agree that it's exceedingly heavy for comment only use (and generally requires user accounts), but if you're trying to build a community that also has blog posts, the two do integrate very nicely.
Discourse can be used to power embedded comment sections too.
Disqus is "commenting as a service" for pages.
Discourse is a "forum". Not the same thing.
Discourse is a "forum". Not the same thing.
yes, this is true! We try to avoid the whole "comments on pages" model as it has not been sustainable, except in rare circumstances under heavy human moderation. https://blog.codinghorror.com/please-read-the-comments/