Why I Deleted Disqus and Why You Should Too

The Disqus commenting system platform was never one of my favourite website tools. Admittedly, I stuck with it because everyone else was using it and it looked to be the ‘way forward’. Ashamed to say I blindly followed the crowd but I guess I succumbed to the cult of new technology with a groundswell of followers.

Many of us eagerly get on board a shiny new product trend. Disqus looks great and has a fast-growing fan base so why not get on board? The slick commenting system is perfect for webmasters that want an upgrade from WordPress's comments system. I thought Disqus was a great addition to my websites at first. But then I began to find the flaws.

And I didn’t fully understand what the long-term effects would be.

First, there's the incomprehensible admin system. I couldn't easily navigate it to change commenting and moderation preferences for sites.

The default settings force potential commenters to sign up for a Disqus account. It's hard to imagine many casual commenters taking the time to create an account just to write a quick message on a website. And what about commenting using different personas or multiple identities? Imagine, you have a tech blog and a lifestyle blog, for example, and want to comment on related websites using a different identity for each.

With Disqus, I must log out, log back in, write the comments, and so on each time I wish to comment.

But I stuck with Disqus for several years. Until now.

Disqus Problems

Recently, I noticed that pages on some of my websites were performing badly. According to GTmetrix (the gold standard for website performance testing) some of my pages loaded abysmally slow. I hadn’t noticed before because 90% of the time I test the front page of a website for speed. Blog ‘homepages', in most cases, don't display full posts with comments so Disqus doesn't load.

That taught me a lesson: test your individual pages for speed, not just the homepage.

gtmetrix redirects problems from disqus ads
Just some of the redirects from ad networks on the blog

Pingdom is another excellent tool for finding bottlenecks in your sites speed. I ran Pingdom's performance tool and it found the same problems as GTmetrix. Spammy redirected links to ad networks infected all of my blog pages thanks to Disqus.

pingdom performance insights results
Pingdom's results – Very similar to GTmetrix

Note: Both GTmetrix and Pingdom are free, unlimited usage tools. If you’re not testing your websites for speed then you’re not serious about SEO. Read this post from the Google Webmasters Blog. The post is a few years old now but the message is still valid. In fact, it’s even more important now that Mobile indexing takes precedence.

Use Google's mobile testing tool to find out how fast your site is on phones.

I will do my best to help others understand that removing this train-wreck of a plugin will improve the user experience.

Disqus Ads

Back in March 2017, Disqus introduced ads for everyone. Thanks, Disqus. Without making too much of an effort to inform us, this new feature crept into the platform. According to the company “The basic version of Disqus is supported by advertising”.

Enough is enough. Here are the results of the GTmetrix performance test with the Disqus WordPress plugin still installed.

gtmetrix speed core with disqus insalled
Gtmetrix speed score with Disqus installed

Here are the results after deactivating the plugin

gtmetrix speed report after removing disqus
gtmetrix speed report after removing disqu

The speed gains from dumping Disqus were impressive.

Even without testing for performance I can see that the plugin is causing problems for Chrome. This is a screenshot of the browser console

disqus css file loading issues in chrome console
disqus css file loading issues in chrome console

And without Disqus

chrome browser console without disqus

Nothing there.

Reasons to remove Disqus from WordPress

Apart from making your website run like a dog with three legs, Disqus hampers your marketing efforts in other ways. Removing Disqus will improve your blog in the following ways

1. Increase the number of comments

I imagined that the shiny Disqus interface would encourage people to comment on my website. But the opposite was true. Most people don’t have the time to create an account or switch between their Disqus profiles just to comment on a blog post. We’re loving in the time of hyper-distraction and inattentiveness. People ignore things that hinder progress. Spend five seconds logging into an account just to comment? No thanks.

2. Speed up the loading of your blog posts

I’ve already discussed how the Disqus ads injected into your blog posts kill your website’s speed. But even without the ads, your pages load slower thanks to the heavy plugin overhead.

3. Your visitors and you will not be tracked

You’re being tracked in the name of advertising every step of the way on the Internet. Google and Facebook are advertising companies, despite their claims to being technology companies. Tracking for advertising is part and parcel of living online. Disqus tracks you, and by allowing the plugin full access to your website you’re handing over a lot of good advertising stats.

I’m wondering if, by having Disqus on your site, you should also display a privacy policy and disclosure about tracking your users. In effect, Disqus is using the plugin to profile your visitors to later target them with ads. Maybe you didn’t know that but Google and the FCC might.

4. Better moderation

I'm not a fan of the Disqus moderation system. Too complicated. Too many moving parts. Try it yourself and you'll see what I mean. Despite its resources, the company failed to make the product user-friendly. Use a simpler commenting system and save time.

Disqus Alternatives

There are alternatives to Disqus and the bare-bones WordPress comments system. Personally, I find the WordPress commenting system and Akismet (see below) to be fine for most purposes.

Hyvor Talk is a new Disqus alternative that looks great and has a small footprint. The company does not place any ads, affiliate links, or any third-party code on client websites. You can see it in action at the bottom of this article.

Thrive Comments is available as a standalone WordPress plugin or as part of the Thrive Themes suite. This plugin creates a more interactive and social approach to blog commenting. Readers can ‘like' comments, up-vote comments, and get rewards. These are all ways to naturally encourage commenting and they turn the comments area into a conversation area.
The standout features are the “post comment” features that let you show related posts, redirect to an URL, or prompt commenters to share on social media. Lots of possibilities there.

CommentLuv is popular with WordPress users. The pro version, which is by all accounts, the only version you should consider, costs $100. No thanks. That would be a big investment across multiple sites.

The Facebook Comments plugin is used on many sites but limits commenting to Facebook users only. But it also comes with its own overhead and tracking.

CleanTalk is a trusted cloud spam protection tool for websites and forums that's easy to install and maintain.

JetPack's commenting system is fully featured and was created by the makers of WordPress. So you can be sure that the feature set will improve and that the plugin isn't going away anytime soon.

Another worthy alternative to Disqus is wpDiscuz. It's fast, easy to install, and offers features like the ability to share comments on social media and allow voting on comments.

Akismet is a free spam blocker from Automattic, the developer of WordPress. It does a great job of blocking unwanted comments and it doesn’t track me or display ads. Akismet installs by default with WordPress but you will have to activate and configure the plugin before it blocks spam.

Delete Disqus

To be rid of Disqus on your WordPress blog simply deactivate the plugin from the plugin admin panel.

That's all you need to do to fix the problems mentioned above. To delete your account and any personal or website details stored with Disqus process as follows

  1. Go to disqus.com and login
  2. Click the gear icon beside your image avatar and choose Settings
  3. Under Account, scroll to the Delete button and click it
  4. Confirm

Goodbye Disqus.

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47 thoughts on “Why I Deleted Disqus and Why You Should Too”

    1. unable to delete disqus account. when i press delete it asks for reason, i press radio button it then asks for password, i type in password then press delete, get message “invalid password” HELP.

  1. Absolutely correct.
    When I first installed disqus I had no problems, but today I checked and found an endless chain of advertizing redirects.
    I deactivated the disqus wordpress plugin and my page speed was cut in half, and my grades went from a D and an E to an A and a B.

    Don’t know what I’ll put in it’s place, but it’s gone for now.
    I’m thinking of a chat solution.
    Anyone have any ideas?

      1. Disqus will also interfere with your article if one of their mods is of a different opinion than yours.

  2. Thanks for the informative article. There’s a discussion of Disqus on a blog where I participate, which uses the bare bones WP comment system, and the Disqus fans seem very devoted, but none of them use Disqus on a blog of their own.

    I have been unable to comment on any site that uses Disqus for several years, so I would rather the blog I mentioned didn’t switch to Disqus. The site owner says he isn’t interested in adding Disqus, so there’s that positive in the discussion.

  3. It is important that everybody can be a part of the diskussion also people without a social media account. Those is a threat to democracy.

  4. Hi there,
    Thank you for the article and some alternatives to Disqus. My particular concern is GDPR at Disqus. If I were to delete the account and replace their commenting system with built-in Wordpress or JetPack, do you know how can I keep comments previously given be readers of the blog using Disqus?
    Shall I just deactivate that plugin (without removal) and delete the account with Disqus and then use JetPack for example? I would like to avoid the mess. Your help would be appreciated.

    1. You can sync Disqus comments with WordPress and then delete the plugin. You can also export the comments. So you won’t lose them and I recommend keeping all of your comments for SEO reasons.

  5. Thanks for sharing the details about disqus. I was looking for such a informative article and finally got. Thank you so much. I am going to delete disqus.

  6. Thanks for the insightful review. Thank God I haven’t found time to install it.

    Also, I never knew yoast have a comment plugin. Thanks also for that cool info.

    Lastly, from a commenter’s perspective, disqus deprives me of leaving my footprint (link) leave behind when I comment. Instead my comments link to my disqus profile- which adds nothing to me.

    Once again, thanks.

  7. Timothy D Naegele

    Well said, Keith. This is a fine article.

    But there is another reason to delete and/or ban Disqus: like Facebook, Google and other Web stalwarts, it is discriminatory.

    If one posts links with comments, they are immediately flagged as spam and disappear. Also, some commenters are banned by Disqus because of their political views.

    More and more Web sites, blogs and other portals need to ban and/or boycott Disqus completely.

    You have done a real service by pointing out many of the “technical” issues that bolster the decision to delete, ban and/or boycott Disqus. Again, well done.

    Lastly, I have a WordPress blog, which will be 10 years old this coming December; and a law firm Web site that needs to be updated, which will probably happen later this year. It is hosted by Yahoo! and I am debating whether to switch it to WordPress too.

    I have been on the Web since late 1992, but I am by no means a “techie,” which is why I appreciate articles like yours, Keith, which lots of us can understand. 🙂

    1. Hi Timothy,
      Thanks very much. Glad you like the article.
      This article is a few years old now, but I updated a few points recently. But it’s still 100% valid.
      Before I published it, I contacted Disqus for comment and to give the company the opportunity to answer my points. They completed ignored me. Once the article started to get traction, they got back to me. I see that every now and again, someone from Disqus visits this post.

      You should definitely considering switching over to WordPress! It has its issues, but so does every platform. And it’s getting easier to use every year.

      Best of luck!

      1. Timothy D Naegele

        Thank you, Keith.

        Again, I use WordPress for the blog, and like it. As you may recall, Yahoo! got hacked, which caused lots of problems for users like me.

        Your article is excellent. Keep up the good work. ?

      2. Rebecka Brooks

        I’m not computer savvy by far, I would like to ask what is WordPress used for? Can WordPress be used on a Android phone if I find the information on the first question I asked helpful. Thank you for your time greatly and saving me from Disqus!

          1. Hi, can i just correct you that actually you can create a site through wordpress on your mobile, although I dont recommend it as it is very fiddly. I’ll add that im unsure if this is the case with iOS, but for android you can, maybe it has changed since your comment

          2. Totally agree, kind of like hopping a sprint instead of running, great article by the way, I actually came here to confirm a question I had about disqus before deciding for a site, glad I checked first

    2. If one posts links with comments, they are immediately flagged as spam and disappear. Also, some commenters are banned by Disqus because of their political views.

      The bot problem on Disqus is a serious one but generally it clears up after time. The algorithm is tuned to hit new users harder.

      As for people being banned by Disqus for their political views… as far as I can tell actual disqus staff can barely be bothered to actually address Terms of Service violations. That’s why they’re shutting down independent channels 9/1.
      The people you’re referring to were probably banned by the site/channel owner. They have absolute power over their own comment section.
      And that part at least is generally the same with every commenting plug in.

  8. Not that big of a deal. Use it if you want or need it and when it gets useless stop using it.

  9. I personally prefer to host resources locally. It helps browser to load everything in a single lookup. I have their account for commenting only.

  10. I’m not banned, but Disqus deletes my posts immediately (“Removed”) for no apparent reason. How does this happen?

  11. Timothy D. Naegele

    They are effectively banning you, which is discriminatory.

    They must be boycotted and put out of business. Nothing less will suffice.

  12. I deleted my account because all of a sudden my comments were being marked as spam, this keeping them from being shown. Pointless product as far as I’m concerned!

  13. Disqus is absolute crap. It labeled all my comments as spam, simply because I copied and pasted some of my comments to different places where the same topic was being discussed.

    There was no way to contact anybody at Disqus to fix the problem…they’re walled off. You not only can’t find a human being, you can’t find a way to send an email or contact them in any way, shape or form. And I’m convinced they use the “spam” label to go after people whose comments are conservative, using the excuse that something is “spam” because maybe you repeated the same three-word phrase a couple times in five minutes.

    Disqus seems to track you and remember your computer, so to create another account and actually be able to comment, you have to find another computer…but THAT works, by the way.

    I’m surprised Brietbart, a very conservative site, uses Disqus as its comment platform. Disqus should be facing the same anti-trust action as other big tech entities who have been finding ways to thwart and block conservative speech.

    1. I’m sorry, I find it hard to believe they’re removing your comments because you’re conservative. It’s more likely they did it because you’re spamming multiple articles with nearly identical posts. You even admit to doing so.

      1. I had the same experience. I did not post the same information across different articles. I was not even hostile and did not use foul language. My account was marked as SPAM, and all the sites that use the service automatically ban those accounts. They are definitely suppressing conservative comments.

  14. If I were to delete the account and replace their commenting system with built-in WordPress or JetPack, do you know how can I keep comments previously given be readers of the blog using Disqus?
    Shall I just deactivate that plugin (without removal) and delete the account with Disqus and then use JetPack for example? I would like to avoid the mess. Your help would be appreciated.

    1. Yes, you can export comments in the Disqus web administration. (under tools > export, I believe). Then import into WordPress in the comments section of the WP administration panel.

  15. I have problems with disqus and it won’t leave my comments on their site on topics or the website itself anymore. Guess it’s gonna go bye bye before you know it just google+.

  16. I found disqus on my google account while doing some routine checking and maintainable. I don’t recall ever installing it so I don’t know how it got there. Google seems to make it easy to remove but since I didn’t know what it was for or how it got there I left it untill I could get some information. If it was one of those things that comes with the phone I wondered if removing it would cause other programs to misbehave. I also get a lot of telemarketers calls and wondered if disqus might be a contributing factor. I use email and play games on my Android phone as well as contribute to one discussion site from time to time that I have been a member of for many years. Can you address my concerns so I can decide if disqus is causing me problems and if I should remove it from my Google account? Right now I am inclined to remove it but I’ve run into problems deleting or disabling other prepopulated apps. Thank you for your help.

  17. I was searching for a good reason to remove Disqus from my blog, and you helped me a lot, so thank you! In GTMetrix I can obviously see an increase in my blog’s speed, and more people are now commenting on blog.

    Just wondering, if you had to choose another comment plugin to use in your WordPress site, which one would you choose?

  18. I receive about 100 reply emails in my spam box about every hour all at once. emails I comment on don’t show up in my inbox, have to go to sign up site to comment or read reply’s. get no help from Disqus . all the spam emails are disqus reply’s from every one that commented in the hour.

  19. While it is indeed true that Disqus has several issues on both admin panels and user interface and also the moderator team constantly keeps trying to cover those big issues, not bothering to actually at least inform users about them, there is another reason people keep using Disqus. As a user, I actually like that it allows commentors to view and control their comments on several sites all in a single account. It makes things a lot easier for users to view the replies to their comments and participate in discussions. While your reasoning makes sense, the kind of commenting system WordPress uses is way out of date already and being unable to edit and control your comments on contents is a huge con.

    1. What you say is true, but nobody is arguing that point. Yes, Disqus is convenient. This article is about the other problems that you get when you sign up. Use it to manage all your sites if you don’t mind having a bloated, slow site, with adware tracking. Again, this is not a comparison based on features.

  20. Awesome analysis and details.
    Thanks for sharing rest of the community.
    I just landed to your page, because I was trying to comment on one the websites that apparently is using Disqus, and I did not want to sign-up just to be able to make a comment.
    You are spot on.

    Well wisher.

  21. My Disqus account was recently hacked and whoever did it got my email and password.

    Then they sent me an email with my Disqus password in the subject line, telling me that they had all of my contacts and asking for $1900 to keep them from sending spam to all of my contacts. I reported it as a phishing scam and blocked the email address. That was the end of it….hopefully.

    Needless to say, I immediately deleted the account, and will never use Disqus again. Best of luck getting anyone with customer service by phone or email. Nothing but a black hole.

  22. Thanks for an insightful article just when I was considering Disqus for my blog. So is this the built-in WordPress commenting system that you’re running here?

    1. Yes, plain old WordPress commenting system. It does take a bit of management. This post, in particular, gets a ton of spam but Titan Anti-spam & Security plugin catches them all so nothing gets onto the actual page unless I verify it.

  23. Thanks for this helpful article. I hated Disqus for multiple reasons, not the least of which was that even though I was paying $10/month there was no access to any support of any kind. I stupidly pre-paid for a year and there’s no way to get a refund even though I stopped using it after a few days. No way to contact anyone in that entire company!

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