Comparing Giscus to Waline

Compare Giscus with Waline for adding comments to your static site.

Giscus

A comments system powered by GitHub Discussions

Overview

Inspired by Utterances but uses GitHub Discussions instead of issues; self-hosting available

+ Pros

• No ads
• no tracking
• open source
• data in GitHub Discussions
• themes
• multiple languages
• reactions

− Cons

• Requires GitHub login
• no responses display widget
• ties to GitHub ecosystem
• still actively developed

Visit Giscus →

Waline

A simple and cute comment system with backend

Partial free

Overview

Fork of Valine with significant improvements; GDPR-compliant storage options

+ Pros

• Open source
• multiple deployment options
• email notifications
• spam protection
• Markdown support
• reactions
• page views

− Cons

• Moderate setup complexity
• requires Node.js knowledge for self-hosting
• free tier relies on Vercel

Visit Waline →