Hi,
I’m considering different comment system. I found this really useful list of options, but it’s 5 years old so I don’t know if it’s still up to date. I would like another “integrated third party” system preferably. My main priority is to choose a service which is reliable and likely to stay open (I know, this is the one reason to choose Disqus normally !).
Any advice appreciated, thanks 
A comments system powered by GitHub Discussions. Let visitors leave comments and reactions on your website via GitHub! Heavily inspired by utterances.
This (but it needs to be updated)
I am using Isso for several years now. The commenting system is published under the MIT license and can be hosted on your own webspace / server.
Isso is the one I find optically most pleasing, I tried hard, but it was really, really difficult to install.
Are there other suggestion, easy to install, users do not need to register, free.
(I have graphcomments, but seems they sort of gave up)
https://www.barkdull.org/software/hashover
I use Hashover in version 2.0. It is a bit buggy in some places, the author himself writes that on his website. Version 1.0 has been around for 10 years. On the whole I am satisfied and it is free. The integration into the own design and the adaptations for a multilingual website works. Have written a blog article about it - https://tekki-tipps.de/en/integrate-hashover-2.0-comments-in-hugo-websites/
What problems did you have? The installation itself actually works pretty well with pip.
I few month back I tried for days. Installation typically failed somewhere, depends what guide I followed. After a week and hours of trying it was not running. It’s much deeper than what they write on the Isso site. I always tried on a brand new free VPS (I had this link to a service that one can use for 3 days for free)
Then after a while I manage to set up one in Docker. But there is no instruction how make it run with several websites, or how to get old comments into the DB.
This said, Hashover looks very good! @myFrank-wk, great guide! Will need to have a closer look. Looks easier to implement. The MySQL backend would make it very easy to feed in old comments.
Just adding to the list, another PHP based comment system that can be used with Hugo:
I did install it on a non-Hugo site and it seems to install just fine. I don’t know Docker, so no idea how that backend looks, but it should be very easy to write a PHP page for backend comments monitoring.
Webmention + IndieWeb?
It might be a little challenging to set up, but maybe it’s one that fits your needs. There is nothing to install other than to update your Hugo templates and sign-up for Bridgy. Or, since you have your own server, you can install something like Bridgy.
Basically what it does is to get all mentions of your article permalink in different SNS, and then display it in your site. If you don’t want Hugo to rebuild, you’ll have to use JavaScript (this is the one I use). But there are implementations from other Hugo users wherein it converts the data into Hugo /data/ and rebuilds the site if there’s something new.
See:
Bridgy (or something similar) can also auto post your latest article and then monitor that thread for replies.
Here are two examples from my own site (it’s above Disqus section):
In the second example, it’s showing replies from a different thread because I linked to my article, so it’s off-topic. There are implementations which can filter it, I haven’t taken a look into those.
Also, the layout is all up to you. There are implementations where it shows as a threaded reply, and in some, with pagination too.
I am using commentmax commenting system very cheap and beautiful
I Like this comment system as well, It’s beautiful and FREE : thecommenthub.com
URL: https://thecommenthub.com