7 Best WordPress Comment Plugins (Free & Paid)

Comments are a great way to build community, increase user engagement, and get valuable feedback from visitors. Whether people are questioning the topic, asking for troubleshooting, or simply appreciating/criticizing the post, they will boost your site’s reach and are vital for site progression and development.

Though there’s a default system for creating comment sections on web pages, it will be time-consuming. What’s the alternative? Comment plugins will help you manage comments and provide features to enhance user engagement. From anti-spam protection to social media integration, comment plugins will make the user experience smoother and more refined. 

But which plugin to choose? Which one will perform the best? Are there any good free comment plugins? Which one will be the bang for the buck? 

To answer your questions, today we’ve brought you the 7 Best WordPress Comment Plugins (Free & Paid). These plugins are used by thousands of users, and trusted by experienced testers, so there are no worries about their reliability. 

Let’s begin, shall we? 

1. wpDiscuz

wpDiscuz is a free and easy-to-use comments plugin that allows you to add a modern, interactive comment section to your WordPress website. With this plugin, you can transform your static comments section into a dynamic, real-time discussion forum, all while keeping your site fast and responsive. It offers a modern commenting system with many customizable options and features that enhance the user experience. With 90,000+ active installations and 450+ five-star ratings, wpDiscuz is one of the best comment plugins for sure. 

The in-line commenting and feedback system is a new addition to this plugin. Articles can be read in an interactive format, with questions posed by the author and responses from readers (comments). Authors can now insert questions for readers at any point in the text and get answers from site visitors as they read. This encourages readers’ comments and makes for a more engaging reading experience overall.

There is a wide variety of configuration settings in wpDiscuz that you can use to fine-tune the plugin to your requirements. You can add custom fields to gather additional data from your commenters, and select from a wide range of themes and styles, to make your comments fit nicely with the overall design of your site. To top it all off, you can enable comment moderation and subscribe to email alerts whenever someone leaves a new comment.

Another amazing feature of this plugin is the comment statistics. You can now view statistics about your comments and the users who left them. Visual statistics for both standard and inline replies are available at wpDiscuz 7. A time range and filter by comment type can be selected for more organized viewing. This will make gathering information about users easier. In addition, sortable tables display the number of active users and the number of subscribers. Users can be categorized based on many criteria, such as subscriptions, comments, followers, etc.

Also Read: 7 Best Questions & Answers WordPress Plugins

Key Features

Built-in spam protection, reCAPTCHA, and integration with Antispam plugins.
Social commenting through many options of social login and share.
Template API allows to customization of almost everything in an update-safe way.
Easy content indexing for SE crawlers.
AJAX-powered, super fast, and modern comment form with custom fields.
Real-time update based on REST API.
Modern comment layouts and responsive design with a smooth user experience.
Real-time notifications with comment bubbles and live commenting.
Post and Comment Subscription.

Price 

Free | Premium add-ons start at $15.

2. Thrive Comments

Some of you may have the budget for spending, so let’s jump to the premium ones early on. Thrive Comments is a fully premium comment plugin, with which you can create a comment area that users can’t wait to connect with, by taking advantage of its extensive features and personalization possibilities. With Thrive Comments, your WordPress comments will have all the best features from popular social network platforms and discussion boards/forums, giving your audience a new, compelling means of connecting with your content.

One of the best features of this plugin is user badge assigning. It dons a gamification system that rewards users for leaving comments on your website. Users can earn badges for making a certain number of comments or for being the first to comment on a post. This will encourage users to interact with your content and helps build a sense of community around your website.

Another key feature of Thrive Comments is its moderation tools. With the help of this feature, you can moderate comments on your website, and choose which comments will be displayed and which will not. This feature ensures that spam and offensive comments are filtered out before they appear on your website. It also allows you to highlight the best comments, giving your audience a clear idea of what type of comments are encouraged on your site.

The audience insight feature is another big advantage of this plugin. It offers comprehensive analytics that allows content creators to track the performance of their comments section. This includes metrics such as the number of comments, engagement rate, the most active commenters, the most popular posts, and more. This will help you understand the engagement rate, and you can set posts according to visitors’ preferences. 

Key Features

Comment boosting design.
Auto-generate visitor information.
Different C.T.A. for first-time commenters.
Lazy load for speed optimization.
Audience insights with helpful analytics.
No click comment sorting.
Auto-link keywords.
User badge assigning.
Social sharing with posts from social accounts feature.

Price

Thrive Comments is set at $49/year. 

3. GraphComment

For our third pick of the list, we’ve got another feature-packed comment plugin for you. GraphComment is a cloud-based comment management system enabling users to reply to comments, upvote, and downvote, and interact in real-time. The platform offers several features that make it easy to manage and moderate comments, including the ability to filter and block comments, track user activity, and customize the look and feel of the comment section.

One of the unique features of this plugin is Bubble Flow. It’s a user interface with graphics (widgets), a one-of-a-kind solution, that simplifies widespread communication while also improving clarity and readability. Each comment can be liked, reacted to, and replied to, and the user can move up and down the discussion tree at will. This sophisticated moderating tool is an excellent asset to any discussion forum, and is designed to monitor and present conversations in the comments section in real-time.

Media embedding and discussion sharing are 2 other valuable features of GraphComment. With this plugin, you can easily embed movies, GIFs, and photos into your comments. It is compatible with several media hosting platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, and more. Sharing a whole discussion from the discussion tree is possible using discussion-sharing functionality. You can either post via a custom URL (using a service like Yak.li) or post them on various social media sites.

Another essential feature of this plugin is old comments importing. You can import all your old comments with one click in GraphComment, or ask the support team to do that manually. Vice versa, this plugin offers seamless integration with the WordPress CMS, so if you want to quit using GraphComment and switch back to the default WordPress commenting, you can do it without losing any data. 

Key Features

Optimized for great performances on mobile, lightweight JS, and progressive download
Bubble Flow and Bubble Rank for better discussion and displaying top comments.
Automatic registration from a variety of different social media platforms. 
Allows live notification in real-time. 
WordPress full integration.
Smart Moderation with advanced banning tools.
Auto-sync and backup of comments from GraphComment to the WP database.
SSO connection (via your user base) WP compatible.
Live PUSH discussions mode and keyword alerts.

Price

Free | Starter plan starts at $7/month. 

4. Super Socialize

We’ve already mentioned a fully premium comment plugin for more well-off users. But if you can’t spare any money, we’ve got you covered there too. With 40,000+ active installations and almost 600 five-star ratings, Super Socializer is an entirely free comment plugin, that will deliver just like any other powerful tool for the job, or even better! If you want to integrate social share and comments into your site for free, this plugin will be one of the best tools you can get. 

Social login is one of the best features of this plugin.  With Super Socializer, you can allow users to log in to your website using their social media profiles. This makes the login process quicker and easier for your users, as they don’t need to remember another set of login credentials. The plugin supports social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and others. 

Super Socializer also includes a range of social sharing options. With this, you can easily add social sharing buttons to your website, allowing visitors to share your content on their own social media accounts. This will not only increase your reach, but also helps to drive traffic back to your website.

If you are a block-type editor user or prefer using Gutenberg editor for building webpages, this plugin will be super helpful. This plugin is fully compatible with Gutenberg Editor, so you can add a comment section and manage and customize the elements more easily than ever. 

Key Features

GDPR compliant & compatible with PHP 8. 
Social share from around 100 social networks.
Free icon customization options.
Share counts are supported for Twitter, Buffer, Reddit, Pinterest, etc.
Features URL shortening to use in sharing. 
Share count cache with an option to control cache refresh time-frame
Mobile responsive sharing interface.
Compatible with BuddyPress, bbPress, WooCommerce, etc.
Widgets and shortcodes for Social Share, Social Login, Social Comments, and Like buttons.

Price

Free. Premium add-ons start at $6.99. 

5. Social comments 

Facebook is a massive social media platform, as billions of people use it daily. So, it’d be safe to assume almost all your site visitors are likely to comment on Facebook first, rather than on your site itself. To help you with that issue, we’ve brought you Social Comments by WpDevArt, a fantastic comment plugin for showcasing Facebook comments on your website. Not only that, it’ll help you with growing traffics from Facebook too. 

One of the best things about Social Comments is the ease of use it’ll provide to visitors. When visitors are prompted to log into a site for commenting, they will often skip commenting altogether, as they find that inconvenient. However, with this plugin, you can directly show the comments made on Facebook, on your site page. This will motivate the visitors to comment more on Facebook, ultimately boosting your site engagement. 

Another amazing functionality of this plugin is its customization. You can choose the box title; customize text color, font size, font family, and position; set the width, ordering, number to display, and language. You can also tweak the settings for customizing color schemes with the pro version. Besides all that, there are 39 animation effects, for a more attractive comment section to showcase. 

Key Features

User-friendly and easy to use.
Tested with other popular plugins. 
Heavy customization options. 
Easy to configure and navigate. 
Features set ordering and number to display.
39 awesome animation effects.
Premium Support team. 
Features comment insertion via shortcodes. 
Users can choose the language of the working plugin. 

Price 

Free | Pro version costs $10, for a single site use. 

6. Jetpack Comments

Getting a whole plugin for commenting might be overkill, or you simply want a plugin for multi-functionality. For those who want a total package covering all fronts of your site, Jetpack Comments can be an excellent pick for you. With fantastic compatibility with major social media platforms, this module ensures that your site is safe from spam and bot attacks via comments, and gives visitors the perfect discussion experience in the comment section. 

User-friendliness is one of the features that make this plugin special. The whole layout of the plugin is built for utmost comfort. You can get to work right after installing it; no need to code or make any complex changes in settings is needed. For example, you only need to toggle the ‘Let readers use WordPress.com, Twitter, or Facebook accounts to comment’ option to use Jetpack Comments as the primary comment manager. Once done, the plugin will take over, and the work will be done in seconds! 

Another reason for getting this plugin is its amazing compatibility with WooCommerce. If you are running an online store, WooCommerce is a must-have tool for your site. As both of these are developed by Automattic, you won’t have to worry even a bit about your comment plugin’s performance while running WooCommerce. Jetpack Comments is smoothly integrated with this and works perfectly. 

Comment spam is a common problem for websites, and it can negatively impact your website’s SEO by cluttering your comments section and reducing the overall quality of user-generated content. On top of that, manually cleaning up spam is a hectic and time-consuming job.  But if you get Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam plan with the comment plugin, it’ll take care of the problem automatically, clearing spam from comment sections. You won’t have to do a thing by yourself!

Key Features

Multi-functional module with several different types of features for various tasks.
Works seamlessly with most of the major WordPress themes. 
Efficient layout for more straightforward navigation.
One-click plugin activation.
Offers notification via email. 
WooCommerce compatible.
Several customization options, such as like button toggling, and setting up color schemes.  
Splendid support team, and regular updates.
Supports gravatar.

Price

Free | Premium version starts at $20/month. 

7. ReplyBox 

Privacy is important to everyone, especially now, more than ever. Both site owners and visitors are always worried about their privacy being breached, and their data being siphoned off. With that in mind, ReplyBox is the last pick of today’s list. It is a privacy-focused comment plugin while keeping its simplicity, which makes it super speedy and convenient for both you and site visitors. 

Privacy is the biggest concern of this plugin, and they prove it. ReplyBox promises to deliver a comment system, where user data will never fall into the wrong hands. They never monetize user information, track visitors (or site owners), or take over links. This ensures the utmost secrecy a person needs. And if you are still skeptical about using the information they take (which is necessary to run the system), you can just ask, and they’ll show you what they do with that data. 

Another subtle, yet important feature of this plugin is its weight. As plugin size affects loading time, a heavyweight plugin can slow your site. That’s where ReplyBox really shines, as it is only 17KB in size, making it very lightweight compared to most other regular comment plugins. With this plugin, comments will be loaded and displayed faster on your site, keeping visitors’ attention and giving them a better experience.

The integration and customization ReplyBox offers are also the strong sides of the plugin. It integrates with WordPress effortlessly, and you can import your old comments in an instant, without any effort. On top of that, you can change the looks of the plugin as your choice. You can even add custom CSS for the purpose, and make it look like a brand of its own.

Key Features

Strong spam protection.
Instant moderation for quicker comment management.
Features comment important and syncing. 
Custom CSS is allowed. 
Lightweight and blazing fast. 
Features markdown formatting.
Nested comment system for better natural discussion.
Provides webhooks. 
Comment pinning feature available. 

Price

Free | Pro version of ReplyBox starts at $5/month (annually billed) for up to 20K page views. 

Conclusion

So, now we’re at the end of today’s article. Remember, comment plugins are crucial in enhancing user engagement and interaction. Whether you’re a business owner, blogger, or content creator, with the right tool, you can effectively manage comments, prevent spam, customize the looks, and smoothen the overall commenting experience for your visitors.

In this article, we’ve highlighted the 7 best WordPress comment plugins (Free & Paid) that are widely popular and trusted by users and experts. However, if you want suggestions, here are our two cents: If you have budget issues, go for wpDiscuz & Super Socializer, as they got the best features in free versions, and cost less for the premium plans. Thrive Comment should be a good option if budget is not an issue. If you want a multipurpose plugin pack, go for Jetpack Comments. For a niche approach, we’d suggest Super Socializer & ReplyBox, as these are Facebook and privacy-focused, respectively. 

So, that’s it. Do share this article if you’ve liked it. Feel free to ask questions about these plugins; we’ll get back to you soon.

Good Luck!