‘Blog in isolation’ published 25 reasons why we should use Disqus, the hot blog commenting community and management system of 20,000 blogs, which also isn’t short of funding. I, personally, don’t think it’s so ‘hot’ and I have a number of issues with the service.
Disqus looks nice, with threaded comments, shared profiles and email updates, but it hosts and manages your comments on an external site.
- It will slow my site down
Remotely hosting my commenting means that for them to be viewed, I have to download them from another website and call them from a remote database. This, surely, reduces performance and increases pageload time.
- I don’t want to entrust my comments with someone else. They could get lost.
If Disqus were to go bankrupt, what guarntees would I have that my comments would not be lost?
- Many things Disqus provide have already been provided elsewhere.
Shared profiles: TypeKey. Gravatars: Gravatars. Threaded comments: This plugin. Editable comments: This plugin.
- Data protection.
IANAL but surely it can’t be good to subject users to another privacy policy with servers in another jurisdiction. Who would be liable for any breaches in data protection?
- Disqus is not open source.
There is an API, but it isn’t open source. Is it ever wise to use a system of which you cannot see the technical basis?
- It isn’t easy to migrate to and from.
If I wanted to leave, I would have to find a way of transferring my comments. Disqus doesn’t complement your current comment system, like coComment does, but replaces it.
- Disqus is a company. They want to make money. They could serve ads on your sites.
Disqus have the technical capacity to serve adverts on your site, as they could put them in comments or send them along with the comments to be displayed. You’d have to trust them.
- It is a fad which will probably fade out, meaning more work for you as you migrate back.
Do you remember that fantastic coComment service we all used to use? Its Alexa rank says you don’t.
