ziscus vs giscus, Disqus, Isso, Remark42
How ziscus compares to other comment systems for static sites.
Feature comparison
| ziscus | giscus | Disqus | Isso | Remark42 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Client JavaScript | None | iframe + JS | Heavy JS | ~8 KB JS | ~40 KB JS |
| Account required | No | GitHub | Disqus / social | No | Optional |
| Data ownership | Your D1 database | GitHub Discussions | Disqus servers | Your SQLite file | Your server |
| Hosting | Cloudflare (edge) | GitHub | Disqus SaaS | Self-hosted server | Self-hosted server |
| AI spam filtering | Workers AI (free tier) | No | Yes (proprietary) | Akismet (paid) | Basic filters |
| Cost | Free (Cloudflare free tier) | Free | Free with ads / $12/mo | Free (+ server cost) | Free (+ server cost) |
| Server required | No (serverless) | No | No | Yes (Python) | Yes (Go/Docker) |
| Tracking / ads | None | None | Yes (free tier) | None | None |
| Moderation CLI | Yes (approve/reject/spam/ban) | GitHub UI | Disqus dashboard | Admin panel | Admin UI |
| Instant feedback | HTMLRewriter (no JS) | Client JS | Client JS | Client JS | Client JS |
| SSG support | Hugo, Astro, Eleventy, Jekyll, Next.js | Any (JS embed) | Any (JS embed) | Any (JS embed) | Any (JS embed) |
| Setup time | ~3 minutes (npx ziscus deploy) |
~5 minutes | ~2 minutes | ~30 minutes | ~30 minutes |
Why ziscus?
If you care about: zero JavaScript on your pages, anonymous commenting without accounts, owning your data, and not running a server, ziscus is the only option that checks all four boxes.
giscus is closest but requires GitHub accounts and loads JavaScript. Isso and Remark42 are great self-hosted options but need a running server. Disqus is easy but tracks your visitors and serves ads.
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