Why We Built CommentBy: The Disqus Privacy Problem

I still remember the exact moment I decided to build CommentBy.

It was 2 AM on a Tuesday. I'd just finished binge-reading this incredible manga—one of those stories that hits you right in the feels and leaves you buzzing with thoughts you need to share with someone, anyone who gets it.

I scrolled down to the comment section, fingers ready to type out my theory about what would happen next, excited to see what other fans were saying.

Then I saw it. Right there, in small text under the comment box:

"By commenting you give Disqus permission to..."

I paused. Wait, permission to what?

The Wake-Up Call

I read the fine print. Then I read it again, because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

By leaving a comment about a manga chapter—just sharing my genuine excitement about a story I loved—I was giving Disqus permission to:

Track my behavior across every website that used their widget
Collect my IP address, location, and device information
Share my data with "advertising partners" (read: sell it)
Follow me around the internet with targeted ads
Essentially turn me into a product

All of this. Just because I wanted to talk about a manga chapter.

I closed the tab without commenting.

That feeling—that mix of frustration and betrayal—stuck with me. Here I was, genuinely excited about something, wanting to engage with a community of people who felt the same way, and the price of admission was giving up my privacy.

It felt wrong. Really wrong.

The Real Cost of "Free" Comments

I couldn't sleep after that. I started thinking about all the times I'd commented on blogs, articles, forums. Every cooking recipe I'd left feedback on. Every tech tutorial where I'd asked a question. Every travel blog where I'd shared my own experiences.

All of that data—my genuine human interactions—was being harvested, packaged, and sold.

And I'm a developer. I knew this stuff happened in theory. But knowing abstractly that "companies track you" is different from realizing that your excited comment about a fictional character you love is being used to build an advertising profile about you.

The worst part? The manga site owner probably had no idea. They just wanted to give their readers a place to discuss the story. They added Disqus because it was easy, because everyone uses it, because it was "free."

Except it's not free. Your readers pay with their privacy. And most site owners don't realize they're making that deal on behalf of their audience.

But Everyone Uses Disqus, Right?

That's what I thought too. So I started asking around in developer communities, posted in some forums, talked to friends who ran blogs and content sites.

Turns out, I wasn't alone. Not even close.

One friend told me he'd removed Disqus from his blog and saw his page load time drop from 4.2 seconds to 1.1 seconds. Another showed me how Disqus was eating up 60% of his mobile data usage on a single article.

But the responses that really got me were the ones about privacy.

"I removed Disqus because I couldn't look my readers in the eye knowing what I was doing to their privacy."

"I'm based in Europe. The GDPR compliance headache with Disqus isn't worth it."

"My site is about digital privacy. Using Disqus made me a hypocrite."

"A reader emailed asking why my food blog was tracking them. I didn't even know it was happening."

These were real people, with real sites, genuinely struggling with the same problem. They wanted to engage with their audience, but not at the cost of betraying their trust.

And on the flip side, there were readers like me—people who just wanted to share their thoughts about content they loved, without becoming a data point in some advertiser's database.

The Problem With Disqus (and Why It Got Worse)

Look, I get it. Disqus started with good intentions. Back in 2007, they solved a real problem—blog comments sucked, and they made them better. For years, it was a genuinely good service.

But somewhere along the way, things changed.

Disqus shifted from being a tool for website owners to being an advertising platform that happens to host comments. Their business model now relies on collecting massive amounts of user data and selling it to advertisers. According to their own data collection disclosure, they track:

Your IP address and precise location
Your browsing behavior across every site using Disqus
What you click on, how long you stay, what you read
Your device information and browser fingerprint
And they share all of this with "advertising partners" (aka: they sell it)

When you add Disqus to your site, you're not just adding a comment section. You're adding a surveillance system that follows your readers around the internet, building profiles on them, monetizing their genuine human interactions.

All because someone wanted to say "great article" or ask a question or share their excitement about a manga chapter.

The Alternatives Weren't Much Better

After that sleepless night, I started researching alternatives. There were some decent options—Commento, Hyvor Talk, a few others. But they all had issues:

Most required expensive monthly fees starting at $10-15/month minimum
Some were open-source but required serious technical chops to self-host
Others claimed to be privacy-focused but still had tracking in the fine print
Several had shut down or gone into maintenance mode, leaving their users stranded
The "affordable" ones often nickeled and dimed you with per-site fees or pageview limits that didn't make sense

What I really wanted was simple:

Privacy-first. No tracking. No data selling. No surveillance. Period.
Fast and reliable. Comments shouldn't slow down your site.
Actually affordable. Real pricing for real people, not just big publishers.
Easy to implement. One line of code, works everywhere.
Actually works. Real-time updates, spam protection, the basics done right.

That product didn't exist.

So I decided to build it.

Building CommentBy

I'll be honest—I thought this would take a couple of weekends. Famous last words, right?

Eight months later, after countless late nights, three complete rewrites, and more coffee than is probably healthy, CommentBy was ready.

The core principles I stuck to:

No tracking. We don't use cookies for anything except keeping you logged in when you moderate comments. We don't track users across the web. We don't sell data because we don't collect it in the first place. Your comments are yours, your data is yours, full stop.

Built for performance. Comments load fast and won't bog down your site. We're constantly optimizing to make sure your readers get a smooth experience without eating up their mobile data.

Honest pricing. This was important to me. I didn't want to build another tool that only big sites could afford. CommentBy starts at just $3/month for 50K pageviews. That's less than a coffee. And if you need more, our Growth plan is $5/month for 250K pageviews and 3 sites. For serious publishers, our Pro plan is $9/month with unlimited sites and 1M pageviews. Pay annually and save up to 20%.

One line of code. Seriously. Copy, paste, done. Works with WordPress, static site generators, custom CMSs, whatever. If it runs HTML, it runs CommentBy.

Most importantly: Your readers can just comment. No surveillance. No profiles. No following them around the internet. They can share their excitement about a manga chapter, ask a question about a recipe, or debate a point in an article—without becoming a product.

Who I Think This Is For

When I think about who needs CommentBy, I imagine a few groups of people:

Developers and tech bloggers who care about performance and privacy. They get it immediately—no tracking, lightweight, affordable.

But I'm also building this for people beyond the tech crowd:

Teachers running educational blogs who don't want to expose their students to tracking.

Food bloggers who feel uncomfortable with the idea of monetizing their readers' data just so people can share recipe tips.

Journalists covering privacy issues who need their actions to match their words.

Small business owners who just want a comment section without feeling like they're selling out their customers.

Manga and webcomic sites where communities just want to geek out together without being surveilled.

Parents with family blogs who would be horrified if they realized what Disqus was doing.

Hobbyists and indie creators who can't justify spending $15+/month on comments when they're just starting out.

I think when you explain what's actually happening with their data, most people care deeply about privacy. They just don't know they have a choice. And they definitely don't know they could have that choice for $3/month.

If you're one of these people, I'd love to hear from you. Tell me if I'm right about what you need. Or tell me I'm completely off base. Either way, it'll help me build something actually useful.

What We Got Wrong (So Far)

Building a product is humbling. We've made mistakes.

Our initial spam detection was too aggressive and caught legitimate comments. We missed some edge cases with mobile rendering. Our dashboard UI was confusing for non-technical users at first.

We've fixed most of these issues, but I'm sure there are more we haven't found yet. If you're reading this and thinking "this sounds great, but what about X?"—please tell us. Seriously. We're not a huge company trying to protect our ego. We're trying to build something that lets people have genuine conversations online without being exploited.

Why This Matters

Here's the thing: comments on the internet are broken.

Most sites have either removed comments entirely (because moderation is hard and Disqus is creepy) or kept Disqus despite knowing it's problematic (because the alternatives seemed expensive or complicated).

This sucks for everyone.

Website owners lose a direct connection with their audience. Readers lose a place to ask questions, share insights, build community, or just geek out about something they love. The internet becomes a little more one-directional, a little less conversational.

And we lose those spontaneous moments of connection—like finding someone in the comments who had the same theory about what happens next in the story, or getting a helpful answer to a question, or just feeling less alone in your enthusiasm about something.

I don't think comments are dead. I think they've just been trapped in a bad business model for too long.

The internet should have spaces where people can just... talk. Share ideas. Be excited together. Without that excitement being turned into an advertising profile.

What's Next

CommentBy is live. Right now, the main site using it is... this one. You're literally looking at it in action below.

I'm using my own product because I believe in it. But I'll be honest—I'm hoping you'll be one of the first to join me. I want to wake up to notifications about conversations happening on sites around the world. People asking questions. Sharing theories. Offering advice. Geeking out together. And none of them being tracked for it.

That would be incredibly cool.

If you're reading this and thinking "I want that for my site," you'd be getting in early. You'd help shape where this goes. And frankly, I'd love to hear what you think—what works, what's broken, what's missing.

Here's what's already built:

✓ Core commenting features (rich text, reactions, voting)
✓ Real-time updates without page refresh
✓ Spam filtering and moderation tools
✓ Mobile responsive design
✓ One-line integration
✓ Three affordable pricing tiers ($3, $5, $9/month)

Here's what's on the roadmap as we grow:

Better moderation tools (IP blocking and advanced spam detection in Pro, but making it even easier)
More customization options (your comment section should feel like your site)
Community features (let regular commenters build reputation, highlight great discussions)
Advanced analytics (understand what drives engagement, without invading privacy)
Better integration guides (for every major platform)
Disqus import tool (so switching is painless)
An actually good mobile app (for moderating on the go)
Continued performance optimizations (because speed matters)

Most importantly, I'm committed to never becoming what we set out to replace. No tracking. No data selling. No surveillance capitalism disguised as a commenting platform.

That's a promise.

Try It (Or Don't)

Look, I built CommentBy because I needed it to exist. If you're happy with Disqus or another solution, that's totally fine. I'm not trying to evangelize here.

But if you've ever felt that same uneasy feeling I did—that moment when you realized the price of genuine human interaction online was your privacy—maybe give us a shot.

We offer a 7-day free trial. No credit card required. One line of code to add it to your site. If it sucks, remove the line of code and we'll part as friends. And if you like it, it starts at just $3/month—less than a coffee, no surveillance included.

If you decide to try it, I'd love to hear what you think—good or bad. You can drop a comment below (yes, we use If you decide to try it, I'd love to hear what you think—good or bad. You can drop a comment below (yes, we use CommentBy for our own blog), email me at support@commentby.com, or find me on Twitter/X.

And if you're reading this and thinking "I could build something better"—please do. The internet needs more privacy-respecting tools, not fewer. I'll be your first customer.

Ready to try CommentBy? Start Your Free 7-Day Trial

The Bottom Line

We built CommentBy because wanting to comment on a manga chapter shouldn't cost you your privacy.

Because asking a question about a recipe shouldn't turn you into a data point.

Because sharing your excitement about an article shouldn't mean being followed around the internet with ads.

Your readers trust you with their attention and their thoughts. The least we can do is not betray that trust by surveilling them.

Is CommentBy perfect? No. Will it ever be as feature-rich as Disqus? Maybe not—because some of those features require the privacy violations we're trying to avoid.

But it's honest. It's fast. It respects your users. And it lets people just... comment. Share their thoughts. Be excited together. Without becoming products.

It's what I wish existed that night at 2 AM when all I wanted was to talk about a manga chapter I loved.

That's why we built CommentBy.

Thanks for reading this far. If you have thoughts, questions, or just want to tell me I'm wrong about something, the comment section below is all yours. No tracking included. I promise.