The best commenting system for a blog is the one that makes it easy for your readers to comment.
How do you like that, in less than a minute I answered one of the most popular blogging questions floating around the blogosphere. Give me five more minutes and I will fill your heads with more answers and all sorts of practical information.
If you aren’t running a self hosted blog your choices are pretty limited. Blogger and WordPress.com both have native systems that you can use. Unless something has changed the WP native system is your only choice on that platform.
There are other options you can use with Blogger such as Intense Debate and DISQUS.
Self hosted blogs have many more options such as CommentLuv (affiliate link), DISQUS, Livefyre and the native system on WordPress.org which is different from the dotcom version.
Choices/Differences/Distinctions
I thought it might be useful to share some videos and content that will help illustrate some of features and services of each system.
DISQUS
Livefyre
CommentLuv
At the moment I am using CommentLuv here because in the past it has been very effective for me. It doesn’t require a login or any sort of sign up for people to use it and that is always a plus. With the added incentive of providing commenters with a link to one of their posts it offers quite a bit.
However it doesn’t offer the same community function as DISQUS and Livefyre. Nor does it provide real time commenting.
Why Do I Care About Real Time Commenting?
I care about real time commenting because it is a very effective tool for building community and that is what I want for this blog. Community makes a significant difference both personally and professionally so I have a vested interested in growing one.
The nice thing about blogging is that it is a medium that lends itself to experimentation and change. What you do today doesn’t have to be done tomorrow unless it makes sense to continue. All it takes to change are a couple of clicks of your mouse.
Remember the goal here is to build community and part of that is determining what best serves the needs of your community. We may learn that CommentLuv meets the needs of the community in which case we will just let it ride.
Do you have a preference in commenting systems? Please let us know in the comments. The floor is yours.
Hi Josh!
I’m a die-hard Livefyre fan! I was fortunate that my web guy knew about them when he set up my blog nearly two years ago. I can’t imagine having to refresh the page to see who else commented. This really is LIVE and as you say, you need that to build a community!
They are working on improving it all the time, too, making it easier for people to come in and set up a profile. I’m grateful that somebody thought of this! What would blogging be without a live exchange of ideas? I don’t want to know!
Lori
Hi Lori,
I think Livefyre is really solid and overall I have been impressed. I go back and forth about whether it is more useful in the early stages of building a blog than some of the other systems, such as CommentLuv.
DISQUS appears to have done an outstanding job on their newest iteration of their system too.
The nice thing about all this stuff is that it is really easy to make changes so what we see today isn’t necessarily what we will see a bit later one.