Comentario

What is Comentario?

Comentario is an open source comment server that adds threaded, Markdown-formatted discussions to any web page through a small embed script. Written in Go with an Angular dashboard, it is the actively maintained successor to Commento, and a self-hosted Disqus alternative that keeps every comment and reader detail on infrastructure you control.

What is Comentario best for?

Comentario is best for bloggers, static-site owners, and small teams who want reader comments without handing visitors to an ad-funded network. It suits people who run one or many sites from a single instance, care about privacy, and want lightweight embedding — the widget adds roughly 20 KB to a page — rather than a heavy third-party script.

What can Comentario do?

• Multi-domain from one instance — host comments for many sites, each with its own moderation, authentication, and settings.
• Flexible login — allow anonymous/unregistered comments, social login (OAuth providers like Google, GitHub, GitLab, Twitter/X), or Single Sign-On tied to your own users.
• Moderation controls — auto-approve trusted commenters, hold others for review, assign multiple moderators, and block or manage users by role.
• Spam and abuse filtering — integrate external services (such as Akismet and Perspective) to score incoming comments.
• Reader engagement features — threaded replies, Markdown, comment voting, sticky/featured comments, avatar uploads, and email notifications.
• Built-in statistics — track views and comment activity per domain from the dashboard.
• Easy migration — import existing comments and users from Disqus, WordPress, and Commento.

Where does Comentario fall short?

There is no official managed cloud yet — a hosted version is planned but not available, so running Comentario means operating the server yourself (unlike Disqus or Hyvor Talk, which are hosted for you).

Its SQLite backend is convenient for trying the tool but is explicitly not built to scale — the docs cap it at a few thousand comments and note it lacks the concurrency handling of the PostgreSQL backend, so any real site needs Postgres.

As a comment engine focused on doing one thing well, it is not a full community platform: if you want forums, sub-communities, or rich social features, a dedicated forum tool fits better than a page-level comment widget.

Is Comentario free?

Yes — Comentario is fully free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tiers, seat limits, or feature gates. You self-host it at no software cost; your only expense is the server and database you run it on. Because there is no hosted plan yet, there is no subscription to compare against.

What does Comentario replace?

Comentario stands in for hosted comment services like Disqus and Hyvor Talk. Where Disqus funds its free tier with ads and visitor tracking and Hyvor Talk charges a per-site monthly fee, Comentario gives you the same embeddable comment box — threading, moderation, notifications — on a server you own, with no ads and no data sold on.

FAQ

Is Comentario open source? Yes. Comentario is released under the permissive MIT license, with full source available on GitLab. It began as a fork of the abandoned Commento project and is now independently maintained.

Can I self-host Comentario for free? Yes. The software is free with no paid edition — you only pay for the server and database that host it. Official Docker images make deployment straightforward on a small Linux VPS.

Is Comentario a good Disqus alternative? For most blogs and static sites, yes. It offers threaded comments, moderation, social login, and Disqus import while removing the ads, tracking, and forced sign-ups Disqus is criticized for. The main trade-off is that you run and maintain the server yourself.

What do I need to run Comentario? A Linux host (x86_64 or ARM) running the Go binary or Docker image, plus a database — SQLite for testing or PostgreSQL 10+ for production. A reverse proxy such as Caddy or Nginx is typical for HTTPS.