Show HN: Commento: a fast, privacy-focused alternative to Disqus

by adtac • 7 years ago

271 85 7 years ago

adtac15• 7 years ago

Hiya, creator here. My original post from April 2017 [1] when I released Commento as a self-hosted software received fantastic feedback, but the single most requested feature was a hosted service because it's not always convenient to maintain a server. Plus, it'll never be a proper alternative to Disqus unless there's a hosted version.

So that's what I've been working on for the past year or so. I've received some great feedback from seasoned bloggers who are now using the service and this has helped the the project mature so much over this period. I'm really happy to finally announce the public release of the hosted version (it's been in private beta for a few months now)!

Anyway, AMA!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14202456

doesnt_know• 7 years ago

Product looks fantastic, well done. Always refreshing to see services actively attempt to keep payloads small.

If there is anything to criticize about the marketing part for me it would be the "privacy focused" bit. Personally I think in 2019 saying you're privacy focused and then only baking that up with a privacy policy is a bit much. You can change it at any time and "continued use of the service" is deemed to have accepted any changes. But even then, AFAIK privacy policies aren't legally binding right?

"Privacy focused" to me means that the business running the service has limited or no access to private information in some way. But that's just me, I am probably a minority.

adtac15• 7 years ago

Honestly, I always thought being privacy focused is simply not succumbing to third-party trackers, ads, and other shady stuff. Really, the barrier for entry to qualify as privacy-focused in the comments space is extremely low.

But you make a good point. I'll think about this to see if there are more concrete ways to offer privacy.

And thanks for the kind words!

jasonkester• 7 years ago

"Privacy" isn't the real issue for me. The reason I don't want all that tracking to happen with my comments plugin is speed.

Disqus is awful because it spins for 8 seconds before you can see any comments. All that time tracking my users and violating their privacy adds up to a terrible user experience for them.

If they could track my users and violate their privacy during the 100ms it aught to take to load comments from a database, that would be fine.

Everybody tracks and violates these days, so it's all just noise at this point. At least they don't pop up their own thing my users need to click on to accept it all.

The important thing is that comments work. And Disqus can't make that happen.

robbrown4512• 7 years ago

This is cool. Congrats on getting it out there.

The one thing I'm most concerned about when putting 3rd party comments on a web site is whether it is easy to comment. Like, do they have to sign up for something? Remember another password? Can they just automatically post if they already have an account elsewhere? (the big advantage of facebook comments)

How does that work at Commento? Do you have any thoughts on allowing sites that already have user accounts to somehow use those directly?

adtac15• 7 years ago

OAuth is supported, so you don't need a new account. If you have a Google/Github account, you're good. I'll be adding more providers soon too (Twitter/Gitlab).

Alternatively, you can choose to post anonymously, if you've enabled that in your website. All it requires is checking a checkbox before posting the comment to reduce friction to engagement.

anigbrowl• 7 years ago

Do you use text processing to identify spammers or can it spot things like forum slides (inflammatory comments designed to trigger a reply cascade and push other content aside)? Any API for researchers?

It looks like an excellent Disqus alternative and goodness knows we need more of those.

adtac15• 7 years ago

Right now, I'm relying on Akismet [1] to automatically filter spam, which is a really good service. It's built by Automattic and they've had years of spam data to work with.

I haven't thought about forum slides, but that's pretty interesting too. I don't think Akismet could detect something like that. Of course, you can do it with moderators (you can make it so that all comments must be approved; or you can auto-approve and delete the offtopic ones later), but an automated way to detect that would be cool.

This is the long-term research plan I have; maybe we can even do away with Akismet. Spam is one of the hardest problems to solve, so it'll be interesting. But for now, I'm relying on Akismet until there are fewer and fewer core features left to implement.

Thanks!

[1] https://akismet.com/

timbowhite• 7 years ago

Nice, looks polished. I remember it from 2017.

I still want to drop Disqus. But I'd need to get all of my exported comments from Disqus into Commento. Is this possible?

_coveredInBees• 7 years ago

From this page, it looks like importing comments from Disqus is supported: https://commento.io/pricing

adtac15• 7 years ago

Yep. So you'll need to start an export of your comments on Disqus. They'll send you a link to an archive. Paste that link in the dashboard and all comments will be downloaded and imported (preserving formatting, reply structure, etc.). More info in the dashboard.

augustocallejas• 7 years ago

Hi Adhityaa, in your Terms of Service (https://commento.io/terms), you reference your company as " Commento, Inc". What US state (or jurisdiction) is it incorporated in?

adtac15• 7 years ago

Commento, Inc. is incorporated in the state of Delaware, USA (file #6797473).

rcthompson• 7 years ago

This looks great, and the landing page does a fantastic job of summarizing the features and benefits. I know some of the web comic creators I follow are kind of dissatisfied with the current direction of Disqus, so I'll probably recommend this to them if and when it comes up.

davidw2• 7 years ago

Here's an angle you might consider pursuing. Disqus basically doesn't follow their terms of service:

https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1097690326477635584

Perhaps there's a niche there for someone who is a bit more stringent about keeping out the garbage.

adtac15• 7 years ago

It's not even just that lol, Disqus is still "working towards GDPR compliance" according to their privacy policy [1], almost a full year after GDPR came into effect.

[1] http://archive.is/is90r

fouc2• 7 years ago

having a terms of service doesn't magically give you super powers for policing content

byte1918• 7 years ago

Posting something like `<script type="text/javascript">alert('hello')</script>` creates a blank comment instead of safely HTML encoding the text.

cmroanirgo2• 7 years ago

Wow. This looks great. I loved Disqus when it first arrived as it gave static sites a way of having comments. Your product neatly fits the bill of giving us the ownership of the comments back.

I notice that the self hosting options use postgres only. Did you have any plans to expand upon that? (I use mysql mostly).

Keep up the great work!

tszyn• 7 years ago

Agreed – looks like a fantastic product! Seconding the question about MySQL support. I use MySQL for everything. I don't want to add extra gigs of RAM to my VPS just to run an instance of PostgreSQL for Commento. Postgres is much slower than MySQL in simple applications and uses a lot more memory per connection. MySQL is also more popular and more people know how to use it and tune it properly. Postgres is probably more stable, but I don't care about that in a commenting app.

adtac15• 7 years ago

Right now, the code is tightly coupled with Postgres and it uses some Postgres-specific SQL stuff. But that said, I'll think about some kind of database abstraction layer and maybe even support SQLite. No promises right away though, haha.

rishav_sharan• 7 years ago

Is it possible to style/customize the root comment, so that I essentially get a parent post and then all child comments?

I am currently making such a site but if Commento offers customization of specific/root comments then I really wouldnt need to do any work.

adtac15• 7 years ago

You can override the styling with your own CSS. See https://docs.commento.io/configuration/frontend/

Right now, there isn't any unique class for root level comments, but it should be trivial to add such a class so that you could style it easily. For example, if I added `.commento-root-comment` to all root comments, you could simply style it with the override in just a few lines.

pmoriarty5• 7 years ago

Does it require javascript?

If so, I'd be interested in finding yet another alternative that does not.

Allowing javascript to run in one's browser is itself a concern for both privacy and security.

FraaJad• 7 years ago

The major attraction of commenting systems like this is their compatibility with static websites, but on the downside, they require JS to post to a third party site.

Someone could build a commenting system purely based on a CGI model, but then you would have to host the CGI on your server, and forward the comments to a third party service and back.

pmoriarty5• 7 years ago

Why need a third party be involved at all?

Why can the comments just be hosted on one's own site and still not require javascript?

foxhop4• 7 years ago

I agree with you on this.

I wrote Remarkbox [0] to work without the need for Javascript. Remarkbox does "power up" [1] when Javascript is enabled. This means it works for completely static sites, with or without the _need_ for Javascript.

[0] Remarkbox: https://www.remarkbox.com

[1] Capability driven Presentation: https://russell.ballestrini.net/capability-driven-presentati...

chocolatkey2• 7 years ago

The issue I see with that is making it easy to embed on sites, I don't think an iframe works well for the purpose of embedding universally. I guess you could have each button for upvoting, staring, etc. be a link or POSTed form, but I think that would be more resource intensive and more difficult to cache if you had to render out each possible state the comments could be in (comment x expanded or not, comment y expanded or not, both together, starred, etc.) every time something is clicked. On the positive side, commento's JS payload is pretty small. I would be up for the challenge though, because it is probably doable with no JS. The non-HN crowd won't care though

pmoriarty5• 7 years ago

I don't think an iframe works well for the purpose of embedding universally."

Why does there need to be an iframe? Why couldn't there just be a "click here for comments" link which takes you to a separate page?

"I think that would be more resource intensive and more difficult to cache"

That might be a concern for sites that get lots of traffic, but probably for most blogs it will not be a concern at all, as the comments they will get a are few.

SquareWheel• 7 years ago

The whole idea is to use Javascript. That's what makes Disqus and co so easy to implement. You can even run it on completely static websites.

drcongo• 7 years ago

I personally don't have a use for this (yet) but it looks like a great project with some worthy goals. Hope it's a success.

hbcondo714• 7 years ago

Congrats on the launch of your hosted version of Commento! I didn't see this in either version but would you entertain the feature of adding annotations?

adtac15• 7 years ago

That's a great suggestion, thanks, I'll create an issue for this!

mdolon2• 7 years ago

Looks awesome, and something that I've been wanting myself for a while now. I'm curious about your pricing model (pay what you want). How has that been going so far, if you don't mind me asking? I have a couple of small projects that I've been considering that for but I'm curious as to how it actually plays out in the real world.

adtac15• 7 years ago

It's going pretty well actually. I originally had three different plans with feature-walls, but I hated doing that, so I just freed it all up under one umbrella. Stripe dashboard tells me the average subscription is around what Disqus charges ($9), so I think it's a good idea overall. I definitely recommend it. In my mind, if I see a product using a similar pricing, I feel more valued because I'm given a choice. But that's just me.

I do have a custom option for enterprises because their needs are always unique. I usually charge much higher for this (also comes with a much larger pageview count monthly).

mdolon2• 7 years ago

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

MockObject• 7 years ago

I'll adopt this over Disqus even just for the ability to vote down.

_salmon• 7 years ago

Not sure if it was intentional, but unauthenticated users can see the email addresses of all non-anonymous commenters on a page. Specifically, a POST is made to "https://commento.io/api/comment/list"

Might want to hide those since this is supposed to be privacy-focused.

adtac15• 7 years ago

Fixed! Thanks, I'll patch this upstream soon enough :)

I actually had the provision to omit the email in these requests [1], but I forgot to unset the email before responding.

[1] https://gitlab.com/commento/commento/blob/master/api/comment...

anchpop• 7 years ago

Cool! This is exactly what I was looking for.

lancesells• 7 years ago

I really like this. I've blocked Disqus for years so I'm hoping you see adoption and I can start participating in more discussions on sites I visit.

gidan2• 7 years ago

Shameless plug, there is also GraphComment — https://graphcomment.com/en/ — with similar features, and some different ones too. We respect privacy and don’t sell user data.

Disclaimer: I work for this company, as you might have already guessed.

RomanPushkin2• 7 years ago

Thanks, btw Adblocker uglifies design of your main page

RomanPushkin2• 7 years ago

Also, do you have SSO feature?

gidan2• 7 years ago

Yes we do! It's available on plans starting at 19$/month though.

type0• 7 years ago

You might consider removing the Facebook Pixel Code script from the webpage otherwise you respect my privacy as much as FB does, and they in fact do sell user data.

hombre_fatal• 7 years ago

That's a great looking landing page. Nice work.

foxhop4• 7 years ago

I'll drop my service in this thread too: https://www.remarkbox.com

I offer a free-forever plan and then monthly or yearly plans for customizing the look and behavior of the comments.

Great for static sites.

Semaphor2• 7 years ago

You might want to rethink using such a light font, this is how it looks on Firefox, Windows: https://i.imgur.com/D6QIth9.png

foxhop4• 7 years ago

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll work on that today.

aitchnyu2• 7 years ago

Nodes is a term for geeks.

If I have commented and then verified my email I want unverified nodes as a todo.

" Welcome to Remarkbox. You have unverified comments. Please check they belong to you and verify them. You will then be notified if somebody replies to them.

[x] I suggest something better / 1 days ago / foo.com/blog/a-good-choice

[x] I am stuck at X / 2 days ago / foo.docs.com/product/intro

[These are my comments, verify them] "

Login state should be represented in a consistent place. If I am not logged in, there is a email field at the bottom. If I am logged in, there is my username at top. A gravatar would have helped.

foxhop4• 7 years ago

Thank you for finding and documenting these usability issues!

I would like to discuss this further, could you please reach out to me? https://russell.ballestrini.net/contact/

ahallock• 7 years ago

Looks really good. One issue I've had with third-party services like this is authentication. I don't want my users to have multiple logins just to comment. Is there a way to use my main site's authentication?

adtac15• 7 years ago

SSO is a planed feature. It's still pending design, but basically here's how it'd work: you'd be required to make a request to the Commento API when someone logs into your website or creates a new account. You will be a given a session token that should be served to the user so that they're identified when they load a page. No ETA on when the feature would be available, sorry!

Semaphor2• 7 years ago

SSO or Facebook & Twitter OAuth would be a requirement for us.

I followed the OAuth Plugin issue [0]

I also wanted to create a new issue for SSO, but Gitlab thinks I'm a spammer, so they blocked me from creating one with the cancer that is ReCaptcha.

[0] https://gitlab.com/commento/commento/issues/80

speeq• 7 years ago

Does something like this exist for native Android / iOS apps?

shade2• 7 years ago

Cool project! I'm actually in the process of rebuilding my personal site as a static site and if I decide to add comments back in (I'm torn on this), this looks like it's going to be pretty high on my list.

As an aside, I was looking at your source on Gitlab, and if I'm reading your Dockerfile correctly, it's a really nice example of using multi-stage builds to build within Docker but produce a final image that doesn't have the full build system in it. This is something I'd been intending to look into for a personal project, so thanks for saving me a bunch of time. :)

MrSaints2• 7 years ago

Wow, never thought someone would pay attention to that! I was the original contributor (https://github.com/adtac/commento/pull/109) for that change, so happy to answer any questions.

adtac15• 7 years ago

Hey Ian! :)

shade2• 7 years ago

My day job involves a lot of Docker, Kubernetes, and microservices stuff, and the way we do builds and deployments is in flux... so every time I'm looking at a new project at work, almost the first thing I do every time is go hunting for the Docker artifacts to figure out what deployment looks like.

Apparently this habit is now rubbing off on open-source projects, too. :)

paul7986• 7 years ago

Just a design suggestion...

Make or have a bigger/bolder logo and center it vs. making your branding small and to the left.

_eigenfoo• 7 years ago

Just to throw in my two cents: there's also https://utteranc.es/. It takes a bit more effort to get up and running, but if you're comfortable with your comments being powered by GitHub issues, it's a great way to go!

tyingq• 7 years ago

"I'm very happy to offer free, perpetual Commento.io access in exchange for non-trivial patches."

That's very cool. I wonder if anyone else does that.

halfjoking• 7 years ago

This might have been useful 6 months ago. At work I actually made a Disqus replacement recently.

Oh that's right - I work for a media company so we want to hoard as much data as possible.

Fullname, email, zipcode, DOB... we ask for all of that if you sign up on our site.

pictur• 7 years ago

https://github.com/posativ/isso

pvorb• 7 years ago

It's self-hosted and gives your users true privacy.

adtac15• 7 years ago

You can self-host Commento too :) In fact, that was the only way until recently haha.

shoobm• 7 years ago

Disqus... Flashback 2011

aitchnyu2• 7 years ago

I checked your demo and the login workflow with email is kinda hostile. Remarkbox, whose founder commented here, allows me to leave a comment and log in later using magic links. Your product insists on providing details before allowing me to post my comment. And modals could clash with other sites.

miki123211• 7 years ago

I really like this and hope more people adopt it. Disqus's accessibility problems always drive me mad. It's usable but... This one's much better, though not perfect.

70122-_6• 7 years ago

someone should get-the community leaders from canonical to use this in their-stuff for 20 bucks.

Show HN: Commento: a fast, privacy-focused alternative to Disqus

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