You have the option of enabling public commenting functionality to various pages of the website. The commenting system is powered by either Disqus, a popular and free comment management plugin, or FastComments, a feature-rich and privacy/performance-focused paid comments tool (though the pricing is very reasonable). In order to utilize this feature, you must first set up a free account with either of those comment platforms. Here are instructions on how to do so:
Disqus
- Go to Disqus.com
- Click the "Get Started" link at the top right to create a new account. Enter login details.
- Click the "I want to install Disqus on my site" option.
- Enter a "shortname" for your site. You cannot change this later, so make sure you pick a name that is relevant to your website. Remember this shortname; you will need it again soon.
- Don't worry about the installation instructions; the website will handle this part.
- Click the "Configure Disqus" link (or from the navigation menu go to Settings > General). Here you can enter a longer/more-legible website name and enter your website address. Also, you can choose a light or dark color scheme (or just leave it on "auto"), and you can choose if you want the comments to display in a serif or sans-serif font (or leave it on "auto").
- Click "Configure Community Settings" or go to Settings > Community. I suggest to select "Allow guests to comment".
- Go to Settings > Advanced. I suggest to disable/uncheck both Tracking and Affiliate Links, for privacy purposes.
- Go back to Settings > Comments in your website admin panel, select Disqus as the commenting system, then paste your Disqus site shortname in the field there (the shortname from step 4 above).
FastComments
- Go to FastComments.com
- Click "Get Started" and fill in your details to create your account. Choose the "Flex Pricing" package, which is the most economical in most cases, probably only about $1 or so per month. You'll get a free 30-day trial but you'll need to enter your payment details before the trial ends.
- Once you're signed up and logged in, go to "My Account".
- Find your "tenantId" number and copy that.
- In the WideRange admin, go to Settings > Comments, select FastComments as the commenting system, then paste the Tenant ID number into the field there, and Save.
Once you have completed these steps, you will be able to easily activate commenting on whichever page, gallery, or product you'd like!
Disqus vs. FastComments
The advantages of Disqus are that it's free and widely used, so many people are used to seeing it and using it to post comments. Many people might already have Disqus accounts so it's easy for them to log in and comment on your site. The drawbacks of Disqus are it that it loads a lot of heavy scripts in the background (so it could potentially slow down your page performance, particularly on slower internet connections), and also they do a lot of user tracking in the background and may even serve ads on your site if you don't configure it correctly.
FastComments, on the other hand, has a strong emphasis on privacy and performance. They don't do any user tracking so it's totally GDPR compliant. Also, their code is very streamlined and fast loading, so there's no potential of bogging down your page speed. Although it's not nearly as widely used as Disqus, it's still very simple and easy for new users to post comments. Finally, the FastComments control panel offers a wide variety of powerful tools to import and/or migrate comments from place to place, which offers assurance that you will always be able to do what you want to do with your comments. FastComments is a paid service, but the good news is that their pricing is very reasonable, usually only $1/month depending on your usage.
Although Disqus is kind of the "standard" commenting system, I heartily recommend FastComments and that's what I use on my own photography blog. I think it's well worth the modest monthly subscription. If you currently use Disqus it's easy to export and import all your comments to FastComments.
What about Commento?
Commento was an early privacy-focused commenting system alternative to Disqus. I used to use it myself and a few clients still use it; however, it's no longer a new option for clients. The reasons I no longer use or recommend Commento are because it offers very limited management tools, support is lacking, and the subscriptions are overpriced for what you get. Basically FastComments is vastly superior in every aspect.
If you are currently using Commento, I'd highly recommend to switch to FastComments. The good news is that you can easily export and import your existing comments from Commento into FastComments. You'll save a bunch of money and have more powerful and reliable comment management tools too.