Leaving WordPress means leaving behind its native, database-driven comment system (and consequently, 99% of comment spam). However, community engagement is still vital for many blogs.
How do you add comments to a site that has no database to store them? You use client-side services. In this guide, we break down the two main options ZeroPress integrates with: Disqus and Giscus.
Option A: Disqus (The Traditional Choice)
Disqus has been the standard for third-party comment systems for years. It’s an external service you embed into your post.html layout using a JavaScript snippet.
Pros:
- Excellent moderation tools and automatic spam detection.
- Users can log in with Google, Facebook, or Twitter.
- Threaded replies and rich media support.
Cons:
- Performance Impact: The JavaScript is heavy and can slightly lower your Core Web Vitals if not lazy-loaded correctly.
- Privacy: Disqus tracks user data to target advertisements (unless you pay for a premium plan).
- Ads: The free tier injects ads around the comment section.
Option B: Giscus (The ZeroPress Recommendation)
Giscus is an open-source comment system powered by GitHub Discussions. Every comment left on your site is technically a reply to a discussion thread in your public GitHub repository.
Pros:
- Incredibly Lightweight: The script is tiny and practically has zero impact on page load speed.
- Zero Ads and Tracking: Complete privacy for your users. No injected advertisements.
- Developer Friendly: Perfect for technical blogs. Users log in with GitHub and can format comments using Markdown.
- Data Ownership: You own all the comments—they live alongside your source code in GitHub.
Cons:
- Users must have a GitHub account to comment. (This makes it ideal for tech blogs, but less ideal for a general lifestyle blog).
Implementation in ZeroPress
Adding Giscus to your ZeroPress site takes less than two minutes.
- Ensure the GitHub repository hosting your site is public and has “Discussions” enabled in its settings.
- Go to the Giscus App and authorize it for your repository.
- The site will generate a
<script>tag. - Open your
_layouts/post.htmlfile and paste the specific configuration block provided by Giscus at the bottom of the article section.
<script src="https://giscus.app/client.js"
data-repo="yourname/your-repo"
data-repo-id="R_kgDOXXXXXX"
data-category="Announcements"
data-category-id="DIC_kwDOXXX"
data-mapping="pathname"
data-strict="0"
data-reactions-enabled="1"
data-emit-metadata="0"
data-input-position="bottom"
data-theme="preferred_color_scheme"
data-lang="en"
crossorigin="anonymous"
async>
</script>
Your static site now has a fully functional, lightning-fast comment system. Zero database required.