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Commenting solutions overview


Disqus integration

Disqus is one of the most popular third-party commenting platforms, offering robust moderation tools and social features.

Setup

  1. Create a Disqus account and register your site
  2. Get your Disqus shortname from your site settings
  3. Add the Disqus embed code to your blog post template

Creating a Disqus Component

Add a Component to your Page Type for Disqus configuration:

Utterances (GitHub-based comments)

Utterances uses GitHub Issues as a comment backend, making it ideal for developer-focused blogs and open-source projects.

Setup

  1. Install the Utterances GitHub App on your repository
  2. Create a Component with the configuration fields
  3. Add the embed script to your template

Building custom comments with Collections

For full control over your comments system, you can build a custom solution using ButterCMS Collections and the Write API.
This approach requires a backend server to handle comment submissions and moderation. The ButterCMS Write API requires authentication with a Write API token (not the Read API token) and should never be called directly from the client—always use a backend server.

Comment Collection schema

Create a Collection called Comments with these fields:

Community features

Beyond comments, you can use ButterCMS Collections to build various community features:

User testimonials Collection

Allow users to submit testimonials that can be moderated and displayed:

Q&A / FAQ section

Build a community-driven FAQ: Showcase user submissions:

Best practices

Moderation

  1. Pre-moderation - Review comments before publishing
  2. Spam filtering - Use services like Akismet
  3. Community guidelines - Publish clear commenting rules
  4. Report system - Allow users to flag inappropriate content

Performance

  1. Lazy loading - Load comments after main content
  2. Pagination - Don’t load all comments at once
  3. Caching - Cache approved comments

Privacy & compliance

  1. Data collection notice - Inform users what data is collected
  2. Email privacy - Don’t display emails publicly
  3. Right to deletion - Allow users to request comment removal
  4. GDPR compliance - Include consent checkboxes

Integrating in your app

Disqus integration (React)

Usage with ButterCMS Blog Posts

Utterances (GitHub-based comments)

Custom comments with Collections

Use the ButterCMS Write API from a backend server only. Never expose Write API tokens in client code.

Backend API (Node.js/Express)

Frontend component