IntenseDebate or Disqus?
This blog is, by no means, a heavy traffic blog that receives hundreds of comments. So managing comments is not one of my headaches! Akismet does a good job of filtering spam, and that is pretty much what I need for this blog.
I’ve been learning PHP lately (sounds off topic, but stay with me here). The project I’ve started, as a tool for learning PHP, is a blogging platform. Being just a study project, it is as simple as it can get. Posts are saved in text files – a la blosxom. PHP merely displays the posts in a readable/navigable manner.
In order to keep the project simple, I had no plans of implementing comments in the blogging platform. No database. I called it OnlyBlog.
I soon figured that a blog has no soul without comments. So I decided to support hosted comment services like Disqus and IntenseDebate.
As I became more and more familiar with these comment systems, I thought this WordPress blog could use enhanced comment system too. Immediately, the question was, IntenseDebate or Disqus? Since IntenseDebate is owned by Automattic, who also owns WordPress, I figured that IntenseDebate should be the best choice. Since then, comments on this blog are managed by IntenseDebate.
However, like many I came across the internet, I still haven’t found a good answer to the question IntenseDebate or Disqus? So I decided to read a little about both and do a fair comparison. Here’s what I found (note – this is in no way a comprehensive review or comparison of the comment systems):
I’ll start with the point of view of a blogger who uses one of the popular blogging platforms. Next, I’ll deal with the point of view of a developer who wants to integrate these comment systems into an unsupported blogging platform.
Blogger/Commenter point of view
Installation
Both Disqus and IntenseDebate have plug-ins for most of the popular blogging platforms – Disqus supports WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, MovableType, while IntenseDebate supports WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and Tumblr . This makes installation and management of the comment system very easy.
I tried both on my WordPress blog. Both Disqus and IntenseDebate add elaborate configuration panels to the WordPress Dashboard, where you can customize their behavior in great detail. Both Disqus and IntenseDebate also imported the existing native WordPress comments into their own systems. In my case, IntenseDebate imported the comments flawlessly. Disqus, however, had some (unspecified) error during import and could import only a handful of comments – but that may just be the case with my blog. I’ll give Disqus another shot sometime soon, hopefully with better results.
Features
Features of both comment systems are listed on their respective websites – Disqus / IntenseDebate. As you will find out, the features are comparable for all practical purposes. Both systems support threading of comments, notification when someone comments on your thread, the ability to reply by email, even moderate by email.
Authentication
One of the things I like about both Disqus and IntenseDebate is that they provide a variety of ways to authenticate a commenter. A Disqus/IntenseDebate account is great, but not required – being registered on your blog is definitely required. Visitor can use OpenID, Twitter or Facebook to authenticate. I do prefer some kind of authentication, to a guest comment.
Here’s a couple of screenshots that show how the comment entry interface in the two comment systems looks when you are not logged in.
Pretty similar, isn’t it!
Spam
Even a not-so-busy blog like mine accumulates thousands of spam comments over period. Both Disqus and IntenseDebate have effective spam filters. I was happy to know that Akismet can be used on both the systems – since I was already using it before I switched to enhanced comments, and was loving it.
Moderation
Again Disqus and IntenseDebate sport a similar comment moderation functionality. Comments can be edited, deleted, marked as spam, etc. They both support having multiple blogs under one account. This is very convenient if you manage multiple blogs. Like I mentioned before, comments can be moderated by replying to notification email with appropriate moderation command also.
Social
For visitors who have a wide social presence, both systems allow cross posting to different social networks – a comment can be sent to Twitter, a comment can be put on your Facebook wall, etc.
From my experience, IntenseDebate only allows you to tweet your comment if you used Twitter to sign in. Disqus always provides you with this option, no matter how you signed in – I like that!
Instead of posting more screenshots, I’ll encourage you to experience Disqus and IntenseDebate on their respective blogs.
Documentation
Both these comment systems are extremely feature rich, to the extent of being complicated. However, the documentation on both websites does not scale up to the level of complexity of the features. All features are listed with very few details. Specifics are left for you to figure out. It would be nice if the Twitter connection and the Facebook connection was documented in a little more detail – for the not-so-Web-2.0-savvy folks!
Support
Like I said, documentation on Disqus and IntenseDebate leaves a bit to be desired. However, both @disqus and @intensedebate are active and very responsive on Twitter.
Developer point of view
I am not a hardcore developer, merely a PHP newbie trying to get my hands wet in the web-tech. So the developer point of view I present is specific to the little project I described above.
There are two aspects of commenting that I want to incorporate into the project – how the visitor enters comments and display of comment count on the index page.
Comment entry
In both Disqus and IntenseDebate, adding a comment entry text box at the bottom of a blog post is as easy as including a short JavaScript snippet in the HTML. This small stub brings in all the goodness of rich comment system. You can adjust appearance and functionality of comment input from your Disqus Comments settings or IntenseDebate Dashboard. Comment systems know how to associate comments made on a page to the blog post based on the URL of the page (permalink).
Comment count
It is neat to have a little comment count next to the blog post title on the index page. Both Disqus and IntenseDebate have ways to do this. This is one place I think a little more detailed documentation would greatly help. I could somehow get Disqus to do what I want. But I am still struggling with IntenseDebate. Both sites don’t make it clear on how to achieve this – what happened to good-old examples??
Conclusion
Asking IntenseDebate or Disqus? is like asking Coke or Pepsi?. People have their reasons to pick one over the other (although I don’t get why people drink Pepsi when there’s Coke!… well, see? 
).
It is a matter of personal choice. What may seem like a minor feature missing may be a deal breaker for someone else. I use IntenseDebate on this WordPress blog, just because it worked out best. I don’t know how long it will stay – as new versions come out from Disqus and IntenseDebate.
If you are trying to decide between the two, it behooves you to at least try both. They are both free and easily available on most blogging platforms. And they are both awesome!
Incidentally, is there a third (or a fourth) hosted comment system out there waiting to be discovered?
Mahesh, excellent review. Thanks for going with IntenseDebate. I myself drink Coke, so I’m glad to see that IntenseDebate is the Coca-Cola of comment systems!
I’d like to point out that you can configure your IntenseDebate account to tweet your comments. Please check out your profile page at http://intensedebate.com/edit-user-services and select Twitter Options. This is actually a feature we’ve offered since June, 2008!
By the way, you might notice our shiny new Edit Profile page when you’re checking out your Twitter options. That update was pushed live 15 minutes ago.
Also, check out our Plugins at <a href="http://intensedebate.com/plugins” target=”_blank”>http://intensedebate.com/plugins . There’s a ton of awesome additions for your comment section. We also feature a Plugins API, and full Customization Options. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks again for going with IntenseDebate!
Michael, thanks for pointing out the Twitter Options. I am surprised I missed that, since I was explicitly looking for it!
New Edit Profile page looks good!
Thanks! I'll pass that along to Isaac our designer – he'll be happy to hear it. Give me a shout with any questions.
I think that I will like ID. I installed it on 4 of my sites today and it appears to be working ok. I still have some learning curve to overcome. I didn't see the FB/Twitter/ID/OpenID sign on options. How did you get that to come up? Is it theme-related?
you need to set them up on intense debate admin panel. You need to create a facebook app for that too.
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If you are already signed in using IntenseDebate credentials, the other sign on options will not show up. Try signing out of IntenseDebate.
If you have connected your IntenseDebate profile to your blog account, you might also want to log out of your blog account.
I did not have to do anything to get those to appear. All I did was installed the plugin in WordPress.
I used a totally separate machine that was not logged in to anything. I have the config set for both twitter & facebook but neither shows up on any of the 4 sites (using three different themes). I get nothing but the simple little blue login button. When I click on that, it opens a black windows that does allow OpenID and ID login but nothing else. That is worse than I had before ID. If I can figure it out, I will like the plugin but if not, it will have to go.
From what I remember, all I did to enable Twitter and Facebook login was to enable that in the Blog Setting on my IntenseDebate dashboard. And you mentioned you already did that. So I am out of suggestions!
I would contact Michael Koenig at support@intensedebate.com (or @mkoenig if you use twitter). He's pretty quick on support.
Thanks for the great in-depth article. After reading this, I think I'm going to go with IntenseDebate on my blog.
Thanks for the help. I sent Michael an email earlier about something else but he has not responded. I will try twitter.
Thanks for the detailed review. You helped answer several of my questions. I think I'm going to give Disqus a try and see how that goes.
Just a note: I use Ubuntu Linux and your comments box (when activated) overlays the existing blog text. It is almost impossible to read or to post into. You may wish to change to the STANDARD style instead of the "pop-out" version. I am not sure if I left any typos since I can barely read anything after the box popped out.
Ray, thanks for pointing out. I was experimenting with the comments location last night. For some reason, the Location would not go back to Normal. As of now, it looks like this is fixed.
I wrote to IntenseDebate support when the Location setting change was not taking effect. Looks like it takes a while for the Location setting to take effect – unless someone at IntenseDebate changed it for me!
No problem. It is working fine now. Gotta help each other out, huh?
Remember to VOTE for the comments that help you.
Well, I tried ID and I finally switched to Disqus. It has all of the features that I want when ID is still trying to implement them. I understand that Disqus is more widely used and therefore more people who are already signed up.
Isn't it nice to have alternatives! I would agree that Disqus seems to be more widely used. Although, with the variety of ways both ID and Disqus provide to sign in and comment, I am hoping that not having ID/Disqus account will not keep visitors from participating in the conversation.
This came in really handy! Thanks!
I am going to go with Intense Debate because, like someone else said, it seems to be the Coca Cola of the two!
I am glad you found this helpful. You have lovely blog, by the way. I spent a lot of time reading it, and I intend on spending more in the future!
Nice to know but still don't know which one to use in my blog :-S
Ahh, though I see some of the older comments lauding your choice of Intense Debate – the Coca Cola of commenting systems, I see I am commenting using a Pepsi product. Guess you switched.
Yup! For the time being anyway. It never hurts to check out alternatives every once a while, right?
And to clarify, I did not say one or the other was Coke or Pepsi. I just said that the choice between the two is like choosing between Coke and Pepsi – it's a personal choice.
I do like Coke. And since I was using IntenseDebate then, I guess association just happened.
I am still split on IntenseDebate v/s Disqus. I hope it stays that way, cause competition is always good.
Thanks for your reply – I understand that coke vs. pepsi was simply a metaphor in this instance. Personally we've run into some reliability issues with Disqus trackbacks and reactions showing consistently on our blog so we've been looking at Intense Debate and wondering if we should take the leap. Given the research on blogs like yours…we are going to stick with Disqus a little while longer. Thanks again!
For a WordPress blog, I've seen that switching between the two is painless. I have both the plugins installed. I just de-activate one and activate the other.
There is a short window of time, when the activated plugin is sync'ing comments, that the blog looks 'confused'. Then again, I don't get too many comments – mine is a pretty low-traffic blog. So this window is pretty short and I guess doesn't hurt many readers.
Thanks for your reply – I understand that coke vs. pepsi was simply a metaphor in this instance. Personally we've run into some reliability issues with Disqus trackbacks and reactions showing consistently on our blog so we've been looking at Intense Debate and wondering if we should take the leap. Given the research on blogs like yours…we are going to stick with Disqus a little while longer. Thanks again!
For a WordPress blog, I've seen that switching between the two is painless. I have both the plugins installed. I just de-activate one and activate the other.
There is a short window of time, when the activated plugin is sync'ing comments, that the blog looks 'confused'. Then again, I don't get too many comments – mine is a pretty low-traffic blog. So this window is pretty short and I guess doesn't hurt many readers.
I enjoyed this, because I've just recently decided to try them out as well. I sided with ID after trying both. Seemed to work great, but I was using Firefox forgot to try it in IE. Some reason from the main blog page, clicking the Comments link in FF works perfectly and goes to the post page and the comment section. In IE just to the post page and you have to scroll down for the comment section. Might just be my blog coding not compatible, I don't know, I've been recoding everything to my liking, but ID support is checking into it, got quick response. I think I'll stick with ID, Disqus seems more clunky somehow.
Also just noticed tho, that with ID ticking the “tweet this” box didn't tweet anything. Of course, after reading your post here apparently you have to be signed in to comment with your Twitter account, which is stupid since by default I'm signed with my ID id.
Mahesh, excellent review. Thanks for going with IntenseDebate. I myself drink Coke, so I'm glad to see that IntenseDebate is the Coca-Cola of comment systems!
i vote for disqus its pretty to use
you might also want to log out of your blog account.
Just trying out Disqus here.
i am using disqus now ,very perfect
Its good to see the comparison over here. Personally I favour IntenseDebate for the features that automatic community always adds to their projects.
One thing missing from your review, and I think it is an important point to note, Intense Debate is owned by the parent organization of Worpdress (Automattic – http://automattic.com/).
You've also failed to describe (and this may be due to the date of your review) all the great plugins that Intense Debate provides with a single click in the admin interface. Polls, Video, Translate and more. You'll have to excuse my ignorance here, but the last time I tried DIsqus they were lacking in the plugins area.
So it might not be a choice betwee Coke vs. Pepsi. There are some little advantages to ID, if they matter to you.
Indeed, IntenseDebate has come a long way in terms of plug-ins, since I wrote this.
I am currently using Disqus because I had a hard time handling spam in IntenseDebate comments. I must say I haven't seen a lot of spam since then. I used Akismet in both, so I wonder what made the difference.
The last post I wrote on this blog, I wanted to add a poll. I checked IntenseDebate, it has a plug-in for PollDaddy, Disqus doesn't! I almost switched back to IntenseDebate. But I thought I'd give Disqus another couple months.
After I wrote this review, I started using IntenseDebate for just the reason you mentioned – it is owned by the same organization that owns WordPress. I am sure I'll go back to IntenseDebate, one of these days.
However I love the fact that there is choice. It has been fairly easy to switch between the two too.
I do think that Disqus has a larger user base as compared to IntenseDebate – at least among the kind of blogs I read. That sometimes helps.
I agree that there are little advantages – but that is subjective, like you said, to what matters to you.
I like Disqus much more and I used Disqus .I think Disqus is going to be the next best thing in commenting. It's great at stopping spam !
I used the Disqus commenting plug-in and I think that Disqus is more useful than Intense Debate because Disqus great work with social community site.
Good review. I have been using Disqus on one of my blogs and have been contemplating using ID on another. I just listened to a WordPress Weekly podcast this past weekend where they interviewed Michael Koeing from ID. ID has recently linked their users profiles with WordPress.com which gives them 12+ million users. I'm not sure how that compares to Disqus, but it as to be a big boost.
Also, ID synchronizes the comments stored on their servers with your WordPress blog, so that the comments are stored in both places so that if the ID servers are down, the comments load from the local WordPress database. If you ever leave ID for some reason, there is nothing to do but deactivate the plugin. Plus, there are a lot more plugins and customization features. ID still does not have the Twitter reactions feature that Disqus has, but I think it might be starting to edge out Disqus in features.
Excellent post! It helped a lot in my indecisiveness between the two.. plus I like the way your comment section looks. I have a firm belief that if the comment section looks good and is easy to use, then they will comment!
Disqus is a very easy to use tool for any blogger out there. It easily indexes all your comments. Neat !.Disqus is awesome.
Just wondering if IntenseDebate has the auto-login using OpenID or FB or Twitter account.
IntenseDebate allows you to use, Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, WordPress.com or IntenseDebate credentials to comment. I haven't used them all myself, but the ability is there.
Disqus now brings us the ability to comment using your Twitter account. You don’t have to give up your actual Twitter credentials since Disqus takes advantage of Twitter’s support..
Good review!
This is the the first time I've commented on a blog with the new CommentLuv / IntenseDebate pairing activated so here goes. CommentLuv is a great plugin and Andy is certainly doing a great job.
It's stupid how none of these sophisticated commenting system allow registered blog users to login and comment.
how do you link the commenters name to his website and not to the id profile?
It looks like you went with Intense Debate. I tried Disqus a few months ago and it worked for awhile before completely crashing my website.
just wanting to see how it works
I tried both recently and decided to go with IntenseDebate. Disqus wasn't working properly with my mobile site, while ID worked perfectly. I also like how the comments are backed up both to ID and the WordPress database.
Excellent write up. I am a disqus user and has been seriously considering switching to IntenseDebate. I was wondering would there be any issue porting all comments at disqus to IntenseDebate?
In my experience, the switch between Disqus and ID has been easy, if you use WordPress. Since both the services also keep all comments in the native WordPress system, you should not lose any comments. Only problem I have come across is that, if you have threaded conversations in your comments, threads may not stay intact when you switch.
I ran into that a while back, and I don't remember if it was ID->Disqus or Disqus->ID switch. There are good chances that it has been fixed since.
If you have worries, I would contact ID support to get the latest status/facts.
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is used intense for one jear. now i use disqua. Why? ITS BETTER
IntenseDebate makes it easier to stay logged in and quickly post comments. But CommentLuv seems to be better for getting two links on the comment page at once. I continue to use ComLuv on my San Diego real estate blog.
Excellent and thorough examination of both of these comment services. I actually use IntenseDebate right now, but I'm thinking of trying out Disqus (more out of curiosity than anything else).
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