DISQUS vs IntenseDebate – Which Is The Better Comment System
When you’re operating a blog you want to make the most of the commenting features. Many years ago when I built some of my first websites, I’d search for solutions which would allow ways for people who visit my pages to interact with me. Back then, one of the best options was to use a program called Matt’s WWWBoard. When I first found this script I felt like I had landed on a goldmine. And as it had turned out, Matt had many other scripts that I started using at the time as well. FormMail, GuestBook and the Free for all Links were some of my favorites. The crazy thing is that many of these scripts is that are still used today!
A lot has changed since then. Today, we have blogs… mainly WordPress. These broadcast and publishing platforms are much more powerful, automatic, and economical compared to the methods of the 90′s (aka. NotePad.exe). Out of the box, WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr provide a commenting system that offers more ease in interacting with site visitors. But, things have stepped up even higher. Today we have systems that enhance things even further. The question remains, which system is the best for your blog?
Two of the more popular ones that I have tested are called DISQUS and IntenseDebate. Both have the same goals in mind, but both also have their own unique flavors. I’ll point out a few of their features, but in the end, it’s up to you to decide which one is best for your blog. To rest your mind, I’ll tell you up front that I prefer IntenseDebate. The reason why is because in my experience, DISQUS simply didn’t perform well with fighting spam. That might not be the case with your blog, so if you decide you like the features offer by DISQUS better than the ones offered by IntenseDebate, you should give it a shot.
I’ll start by mentioning some of the things I like about DISQUS. For starters, I really enjoy how they split their system into DISQUS Comments and DISQUS Profile. This is clever because not everyone has a blog of their own and yet these people comment on an array of others. The DISQUS Profile system keeps track of comments made on multiple blogs and the discussions within. The DISQUS Comments system is for blog owners. Inside here, you’re able to moderate comments (something I found myself doing a lot), reply directly to comments made on your blog, and a few other tasks. All in all, I am impressed with DISQUS; however, their lack of support with preventing spam caused me to eventually switch to IntenseDebate.
IntenseDebate offers some very promising features unlike DISQUS. For starters, IntenseDebate offers a quick and simple way for readers to subscribe the the RSS feed and comments. Something else worth mentioning is the fact that IntenseDebate is practically native to WordPress. The Automattic team (creators of WordPress) had a hand in developing IntenseDebate. As it turns out, it works very nicely in WordPress. Secondly, it fights spam hard! When I removed DISQUS from my blog, it literally took me hours to review existing comments and remove spam comments.
IntenseDebate, in many ways, might be too strong. Meaning, I spend a little more time approving comments that I would like. But in my opinion, I would rather approve comments rather than remove comments. I feel like once a spam comment is approved, slight damage is done. While it’s obvious that I like IntenseDebate more than DISQUS, don’t let that influence your decision. I recommend that you try both and see which one is best. To level the playing field, IntenseDebate doesn’t offer the Comment / Profile system like DISQUS. Give both a try, and then drop a comment and let everyone know which one you like the best.
December 9th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
You made me re-think, Garry! I am using disqus comment system right now.. but I assume it's very much popular and has some seo benefits it seems (that's what I read as I was perplexed whether to go with Disqus or Intense debate)..
So far, it's been 2 months of easy commenting solution provided by disqus and I really like the system as well as the twitter support.. as you have tried both of 'em can you tell me the significant traffic changes observed from your side?
Take care..
December 9th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Thanks for the post Garry, we appreciate it! We're currently working with our colleagues at Automattic to improve our Akismet integration and spam protection (and to reduce false hits).
I'd like to point out that we do offer commenter accounts. Commenters can create an account at right here from the comment section or at http://intensedebate.com/signup . Screenshot at http://bit.ly/6rmlJC .
Just like our blog admin accounts, commenter accounts keep track of your entire comment history; Gravatar, Twitter, FriendFeed integrations; along with other profile goodness. You can check out my profile by either hovering over my avatar and selecting "View Profile," or at http://intensedebate.com/people/michael .
One other thing you might interested in are our Plugins and Plugins API – http://intensedebate.com/plugins – in particular our After the Deadline spelling and grammar checker plugin (the latest Automattic acquisition). Details at http://wp.me/plsX6-tz . Thanks again, and sorry for all of the links!
December 9th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Thanks for the post Garry, we appreciate it! We're currently working with our colleagues at Automattic to improve our Akismet integration and spam protection (and to reduce false hits).
I'd like to point out that we do offer commenter accounts. Commenters can create an account at right here from the comment section or at http://intensedebate.com/signup . Screenshot at http://bit.ly/6rmlJC . Just like our blog admin accounts, commenter accounts keep track of your entire comment history; Gravatar, Twitter, FriendFeed integrations; along with other profile goodness. You can check out my profile by either hovering over my avatar and selecting "View Profile," or at http://intensedebate.com/people/michael .
One other thing you might interested in are our Plugins and Plugins API – http://intensedebate.com/plugins – in particular our After the Deadline spelling and grammar checker plugin (the latest Automattic acquisition). Details at http://wp.me/plsX6-tz . Thanks again, and sorry for all of the links!
December 10th, 2009 at 2:13 am
Hi Michael. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and write this up. A lot of great info in your comment and I'll be sure to check it all out, as I am sure everyone else reading will do the same. I like the grammEr Cheaker (hehe) I know for a fact that one will come to use for me.
December 10th, 2009 at 2:17 am
Off hand, I didn't see any increases in traffic from using DISQUS… not to say that it doesn't happen. My main issue on this blog, my personal blog, and a few of my own client's blogs was uncontrollable spam. I understand the benefits of using DISQUS or IntenseDebate, but my interest immediately goes away if spam becomes an issue. I can say that I am very pleased with IntenseDebate… I wanted DISQUS to work, but I couldn't invest any more time into trying to make it work.
December 11th, 2009 at 1:41 am
It's my pleasure Garry. Thanks again for the post. Feel free to give me a shout at support@intensedebate.com with any questions.
December 13th, 2009 at 3:34 am
As someone who used both, Intense Debate and Disqus I decided to go with Disqus. Part of the reason are my two complaints are really minor issues I'm sure they will fix in the future. One being lack of an ability to subscribe to a full rss comment feed, and secondly the problem of easier moderation control. The moderation control is easy for a blog like mine. I might get 2-3 comments a day if lucky… so I just need to check daily… but the RSS comment feed issue does bother me.
January 19th, 2010 at 4:08 am
IntenseDebate seems to be giving me weird snippets on my search results, most notably the infamous %3A54%3A14. If you google “%3A54%3A14″ it’ll give you a list of blogs that use intensedebate. See how it screws up their search result snippets. IntenseDebate is in my opinion extremely BAD for SEO and should be avoided like the plague.
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:00 am
I started with Disqus and set up dozens of clients with it. Then, I tried IntenseDebate and fell in love with its ease of managing CSS, embedding images, embedding YouTube video, and the overall GUI and user-environment. Disqus is a good product, but IntenseDebate seems to understand what the heck it is that I, and my clients, truly need. What's worse, though, is that the guys of Disqus told their users in 2008 that "we" would have the ability to embed images and video by summer 2009. That never happened, and we were all disappointed.
Another little thing about Disqus that I just couldn't stand is the fact that links opened in the same window. I iframe a lot of my threads for clients as part of a managed content service. It is frustrating as hell to have destination links open inside of the iframe. Intense Debate developers were smart enough to think ahead and make sure that all user-embedded URIs and URLs opened with _blank by default. Very smart.
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January 26th, 2010 at 6:41 am
Has anyone encountered the same problem as me… Intensedebate sometimes stops working and there is nothing you can do unless you create a new account? It won't work in both IE and Firefox…
February 8th, 2010 at 12:59 am
I started using JS-Kit… and I have been using Disqus until now. So I would not speak about IntenseDebate vs. Disqus with prejudice… But talking about spam, I feel like Disqus had already worked it out, and still working on improvement. So far, I'm comfortable now with Disqus…
March 20th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
i like intensedebate it has really good community features and allows for great interaction.
May 25th, 2010 at 6:36 am
Thanks for writing a review comparing IntenseDebate and Disqus. I like to read what other peoples opinions are on the topic.
Personally, I love running IntenseDebate with CommentLove.
June 21st, 2010 at 10:51 am
Blogs and websites that have installed IntenseDebate have experienced a noticeable increase in reader engagement around their content.
June 29th, 2010 at 1:54 am
I started with Disqus and set up dozens of clients with it. Then, I tried IntenseDebate and fell in love with its ease of managing CSS, embedding images, embedding YouTube video, and the overall GUI and user-environment. Disqus is a good product, but IntenseDebate seems to understand what the heck it is that I, and my clients, truly need. What's worse, though, is that the guys of Disqus told their users in 2008 that "we" would have the ability to embed images and video by summer 2009. That never happened, and we were all disappointed.
Another little thing about Disqus that I just couldn't stand is the fact that links opened in the same window. I iframe a lot of my threads for clients as part of a managed content service. It is frustrating as hell to have destination links open inside of the iframe. Intense Debate developers were smart enough to think ahead and make sure that all user-embedded URIs and URLs opened with _blank by default. Very smart.
July 16th, 2010 at 7:36 am
I would have to say, I set up loads of blogs for people and disqus works first time every time, intense debate is a hassle to get to work. Seems the people saying readership increases with intense debate lol all I'm going to say is… it is probably just your own hits whilst trying to get it to work lol!
August 4th, 2010 at 8:19 am
I am using intensedebate and the only question is how to keep comments if I change article URL ^_^'
August 19th, 2010 at 3:59 am
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