Disqus vs Livefyre, who has the better commenting system? I’m going to help you figure out which commenting system is best for you by comparing nearly every feature provided in both systems. We’ll look at the following functionality:
- Notifications
- Real-time Commenting
- Media Embedding
- Mobile Commenting
- Mobile Administration
- Community and User Profiles
- 3rd Party Account Sign-in
- Social Posting
- Other Social Features
- Analytics
- Moderation
- And More…
[Edited] When I originally published this post I left out a very important LiveFyre feature that I had originally planned to include. However, in my rush to get this post up at 2:00am I not only forgot to mention the feature, but I forgot that the feature was an important factor in my original decision to install LiveFyre on this site. Every publisher has different needs. What works for me may not work for you. I’ve decided to stay with LiveFyre, here’s why…
Notification and Reply System
Both Disqus and Livefyre provide notifications via email, but let’s take a closer look.
LiveFyre
In LiveFyre notifications can be sent via email, but there is no functionality for responding to the comment via email.
Notification options include:
| Enable or disable notifications |
| Notify when people reply to your comments. |
| Notify when people comment on a thread you’re moderating. |
| Notify when people mention you in a comment. |
| Automatically subscribe to comment threads you comment on. |
| Notify when people “like” your comment. |
| Notify immediately, or send an hourly digest |
Notifications via social networks: While it’s not a notificaiton “option” in LiveFyre you can, and will, receive notifications via Twitter replies when someone mentions your twitter account in a comment. The replies show as being sent from the Twitter account of the LiveFyre user. The following is also not an “option”, but you can notify yourself via social networks by using an @ mention in your comment. You can also receive notifications in facebook when a friend mentions your facebook account. Obviously, if you choose not to connect facebook and twitter accounts you won’t receive any notifications through those services.
Disqus
In Disqus notifications are sent via email, and replies can also be sent via email simply by replying.
Notification options include:
| Enable or disable notifications |
| Notify when people reply to your comments. |
| Notify when people comment on a thread you’re moderating. |
| Notify when people mention you in a comment. |
| Automatically subscribe to comment threads you comment on. |
| Notify immediately, or send an hourly digest |
Notifications via social networks: While it’s not a notificaiton “option” in disqus you can, and will, receive notifications via Twitter replies when someone mentions your twitter account in a comment. The replies show as being sent from a Disqus twitter account. The following is also not an “option”, but you can notify yourself via social networks by choosing to do so when you post. There may be other social notifications I’m unaware of.
Comments: For the most part both services offer the same functionality, except that LiveFyre let’s you send your notifications as hourly digests and Twitter notifications on Disqus are sent from the Disqus twitter account rather than the Twitter account of the commenter. I should mention that I did not receive updates from Disqus via email when my posts were liked, or when people mentioned my twitter account. I also didn’t receive email when I my twitter account was mentioned.
Real-Time Commenting
Again, both LiveFyre and Disqus provide real-time commenting which means you don’t have to refresh the page to view your new comment. At this point any commenting system worth it’s weight in bytes provides real-time commenting so this isn’t a big differentiator. However, let’s compare them a little closer.
LiveFyre
| Extends it’s real-time commenting to mobile platforms. Tested and working on iPhone’s Safari and Atomic Web. |
| Provides real-time “new comment” pop-ups to let you know when someone has posted a new comment. |
| Provides a real-time counter of users currently on the page. |
| Provides a real-time comments counter. |
Here’s an image of LiveFyre in the AtomicWeb browser on the iPhone. Real-time posting works just fine.
Disqus
| Real-time notification of new comments. |
Disqus doesn’t provide real time counters for the number of comments or readers currently on the page, nor does it extend it’s real-time commenting functionality to mobile devices at this time.
Comments: LiveFyre certainly provides more real-time functionality than Disqus. Real-time commenting on mobile devices sure is nice, and I like the real-time counter that shows the number of current readers.
Media Embedding
LiveFyre
| Turns URLs into links |
| Turns Youtube video URLs into video attachements |
| Turns Flickr photo URLs into photo attachements |
| Probably with other media services as well, but I’m not about to try them all. |
I was hoping that I could embed mp3 files, but wasn’t able to. However, you may be able to embed mp3 files from supported sites (I don’t know).
Disqus
| Turns URLs into links |
| Turns Youtube video URLs into video attachements |
| Turns Flickr photo URLs into photo attachements |
| “Attach” photo and video |
| Probably with other media services as well, but I’m not about to try them all. |
Disqus let’s you “attach” photos and videos, not just link to them.
Comments: While both systems allow embedding media, Disqus appears to provide a little more functionality by letting you attach photos and video to your comments rather than just link to them. Pretty cool!
Mobile Commenting
LiveFyre
Disqus
Comments: I’ve already made mention of the fact that both services allow for mobile commenting. Livefyre allows real-time commenting, while Disqus does not. There’s no need for further comparison on this point.
Mobile Administration
LiveFyre
LiveFyre doesn’t have any mobile apps so you’re stuck administrating your account via a mobile browser. I’m sure they’re working on an app (at least I hope so).
Disqus
Disqus has mobile apps for Android, iOS, and WebOS. However, as of today’s date the iPhone app is not available. You can participate, moderate and administrate via their mobile app. (Yes, I know that rhymed.) I’m sure you can administer your account and moderate your comments via a mobile browser, but I can’t remember if I’ve ever done it before.
Comment: Disqus is clearly ahead in the mobile game. The ability to administer your account and moderate comments via a mobile app is, for many, a major factor in deciding which system to go with.
Community & User Profiles
LiveFyre
| User profile pop-up |
| Click on pop-up to see full profile at LiveFyre website |
| Pop-up profile includes a user bio |
| Pop-up profile includes Twitter and Facebook account links |
| Pop-up profile also includes number of comments |
| Full profile includes an Activity Stream (previous comments), links to user’s Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ accounts, author bio and more. |
Disqus
| User profile pop-up |
| Pop-up includes full user profile |
| Pop-up profile includes user bio |
| Pop-up profile includes Twitter and Facebook account links |
| Pop-up profile includes number of comments, and number of likes |
| Pop-up profile includes a list of the communities associated with the user |
| Pop-up profile includes an Activity Stream (previous comments) |
| You can follow the user’s comments via Disqus by clicking “follow” |
Comments: Disqus provides the full user profile via a pop-up while LiveFyre contains only a few pieces of the user profile. Livefyre’s profile pop-up is much smaller.
3rd Party Account Sign-in
LiveFyre
You can log in via
| OpenID |
Disqus
You can log in via
| Yahoo! |
| OpenID |
Comments: Disqus just edges out LiveFyre in relation to 3rd party account sign-in. You can’t login to LiveFyre with Yahoo!.
Social Posting of Your Comments
LiveFyre
You can post to Facebook, Twitter, and LiveFyre. Posts follow this pattern: “I just left a comment in: [name of the post] [link to the post].”
Disqus
You can post to Facebook, Twitter, and Disqus. Posts follow this patter: “RE: @disqus [first part of your comment]…[link to comment]”
Comments: Depending on your needs you may prefer one posting convention over the other. Disqus posts part of your comment, but also mention Disqus in the twitter post. The LiveFyre peeps have left the comment out all-together and don’t make mention of LiveFyre at all.
Other Social Features
LiveFyre
LiveFyre let’s you share other people’s comments on Facebook and Twitter as well as your own.
| Like a comment |
| Share any comment – including other’s comments – on Twitter or Facebook |
| Edit the twitter, or Facebook, post before you send it |
| Flag comments as Spam, Offensive, Disagree, or Off Topic |
Disqus
Disqus let’s you share your own comments on Facebook and Twitter, and pages on Facebook and Twitter.
| Like a comment |
| Share a page on Twitter or Facebook |
| Flag comments |
| Every website, or “community” has a Community Box with information regard the community |
Comments: The major difference with regard to social features is that you can share any individual comment with LiveFyre via Twitter or Facebook. Otherwise both systems are essentially equal. Disqus does have a community box that displays Disqus comment metrics for the website you’re currently on. However, the usefulness of this feature is questionable. I prefer LiveFyre’s ability to share any individual post.
Analytics
LiveFyre
LiveFyre doesn’t provide real analytics, although you can search through posts by date.
Disqus
Disqus offers analytics via costly add-on starting at $299/month. However you can pass limited analytics data to Google Analytics.
Comments: Neither system offers solid analytics by default. However, both systems offer basic metrics in various places as mentioned before. Disqus’ Community Box, for example, contains metrics for the website you’re currently viewing. And LiveFyre keeps a live counter of comments, and other information on each page. Both services track the likes your comments have received. Unfortunately, however, these statistics are scattered about in different places and certainly don’t constitute helpful analytics. If I had to choose a winner here, I would pick Disqus for its Community Box.
Moderation
LiveFyre
LiveFyre’s unique moderation feature is the ability to search comments for any keyword.
Disqus
Disqus provides a few unique moderation features. Batch moderation, moderation by email, and powerful keyword filtering with wildcards. Disqus’ keyword filtering filters out comments before they’re posted if they contain certain words. Aside from these features Disqus provides all of the basics you would expect for moderating comments.
Comments: Disqus provides more powerful moderation features than LiveFyre. Batch moderation is a huge advantage, and the wildcard filter will probably save moderators a lot of time and headache.
Misc
LiveFyre
| Customizable CSS |
| Real-time spam protection |
| Team moderation |
| Tag other commenters (i.e., @adamsaverian) |
| Tag any of your friends on Facebook and Twitter and notify them of your comment |
Disqus
| Customizable CSS |
| Real-time Spam Protection |
| Team moderation |
| Tag other commenters in the conversation (i.e., @adamsaverian) |
Comments: LiveFyer’s ability to tag your friends on Facebook and Twitter is really cool! It’s highly unfortunate that Disqus doesn’t provide this feature.
The Deciding Factor (for me)…
At this point there’s no comparison to be made. I had originally forgotten all about this new feature by LiveFyre when I posted this article last night. Thanks to Jenna Langer (a.k.a DJ Langy Langs?) at LiveFyre for reminding me. The new feature is called SocialSync and I mentioned it on one of my early podcast episodes. Read more about SocialSync at the LiveFyre website. What makes SocialSync so cool is its ability to capture Facebook and Twitter posts referring to your content and return them to your comment thread.
On top of that, I also forgot to mention that LiveFyre puts a link to your most recent conversation in your comments. This is great for commenters as it increases traffic back to their sites, and as a result it encourages even more commenting.
Disqus Vs LiveFyre Review Conclusion
I admit that I’ve left out a lot of little details. Why? Because both of these systems contain dozens of little features that either aren’t important to a large segment of website owners, or were too difficult to categorize. More detailed information about Disqus can be found in their documentation. LiveFyre’s feature set can be explored on their feature page.
Which comment system is best for you? I don’t know. I love LiveFyre’s ability to tag your Facebook and Twitter friends in your comments. I also appreciate that LiveFyre let’s you customize your Twitter and Facebook posts when you share via one of those networks. It’s nearly impossible to overlook Disqus’ powerful moderation tools, and the fact that they have custom mobile apps for iOS, Android, and WebOS is a big advantage.
I’ve gone back and forth, but I’m sold on LiveFyre right now, thanks to SocialSync.
Poll
I removed the poll due to technical issues. LiveFyre won by a landslide.
[...] or LiveFyre? In today’s episode I give an overview of my recent in-depth review (Disqus vs LiveFyre Review) of these commenting [...]