The WordPress Comment section is one of the most essential things if viewer/reader engagement concerns you. But comments require good moderation and spam control, which is where WordPress comments plugins come in. This is why we at Wowmall have brought you our curated list of the Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments.
But first, let’s look at how the native WordPress comment system works and how you can manage your WordPress comments with it.
Native WordPress Comment System and its Features
Your WordPress Comments section is one of the most critical parts of your user engagement. By default, you can create and add WordPress comments to each page or post of your website, and you can enable/disable a few settings to manage your comments.
Let’s check the native WordPress comment system first. Open your WordPress comments settings by opening your WP Admin Dashboard and clicking on Settings > Discussion.
Here, you will find all the native WordPress comment settings. You can use the Default post settings section to add notifications and pingbacks to new posts or entirely disable comments on all your posts.
Now, if you scroll down below, you’ll also see the Other comments settings section, which lets you enable settings such as:
- Threaded/Nested comments section with customizable levels
- Options to require users to register/log in to leave comments
- Add cookies opt-in checkbox for comments
- Comment sorting/break pages and auto-closing comments older than a certain number of days.
You can also enable/disable moderation for your WordPress comments and require comments to be manually approved before being posted using the moderation section. You can also add blacklisted words, content, author name, IP addresses, and more.
Besides these settings, you also get an avatar display setting where you can set default avatars, enable maximum avatar ratings, and more.
How plugins improve WordPress comments?
Now while these native options might work for smaller blogs, as you build your website, you’ll notice that the default settings aren’t enough to help you enable a significant amount of engagement with your viewers while providing you with fair moderation features.
The native comments system lacks any form of social media integration or integration with any conversion tools. Your users also don’t have significant customization features for their comments; this includes media content, embeds, or even front-end moderation features for editors.
There’s also the lack of significant anti-spam and comment filtering features or even captchas for commenting. There’s only so much you can handle with manually approving comments and blocking certain keywords.
This is where dedicated plugins come in to improve WordPress comments. These plugins are loaded with just the features you need to improve your website’s engagement, contribute to your SEO score, and help you create a healthy, well-moderated community for your website.
You can also enjoy significant social media sharing features and added integrations/login features, making it easier for your customers to leave comments on your website without actually creating an account.
Considering all of these features and more, we’ve specifically curated our list of the Best WordPress plugins to improve your WordPress comments section.
Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments
When it comes to WordPress plugins, there are multiple options for each need. Therefore, you must carefully choose your pick amongst any of these plugins and decide which is the perfect one. Our list of the best WordPress comments plugins include:
- WP Discuz
- Antispam Bee
- Lazy Load for Comments
- Graph Comment
- Thrive Comments
- Super Socializer
So, without any further ado, let’s jump right into it.
1) Wp Discuz
Let’s start with one of the most popular WordPress comments plugins out there. WP Discuz is an ajax powered comments plugin that adds dedicated form fields, social media features, comments threads, and more to your website. Enjoy an easy-to-use plugin with a user-friendly UI and full integrations with popular social media services like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
With WP Discuz, you can rework the native WordPress comments system and add useful features for better user interaction. This includes inline commenting, live notifications with real-time updating comments, post ratings, anonymous commenting, and more.
You can also choose to enable/disable comments for specific posts/pages, enable attachments in comments, multi-level comment threads, and more.
As for more technical features, WPDiscuz also comes with anti-spam measures and a Google captcha for your comments too. You also get lazy loading for comments and automatic link conversions and embeds for any URLs in the comments.
Wp Discuz is the complete WordPress comments solution, and you can try it out for free. You can also extend its features using its add-ons which come with additional features like widgets, subscription manager, ads manager, comment searching, and more.
Key features
- Option to add dedicated form fields and nested comment threads.
- Better moderation features, along with frontend moderation, sticky comments, comment rating, and more.
- You can also enable live notifications for comments, anonymous comments, automatic URL conversions, etc.
- Social media login options for commenting and full social media integrations with Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Pricing
WP Discuz is a free-to-use plugin with additional paid add-ons. These add-ons range from $25 to $29 for each addon, with optional add-on bundles starting at $190.
2) Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is a completely free anti-spam measure for WordPress comments. You can easily block spam comments and allow only genuine comments on your website using this amazing plugin.
Use Antispam bee to enable the comments section with trust-approved commenters and captcha verification. You can choose to enable comments for a specific language only. The plugin also lets you consider comment time for spam protection measures.
Antispam bee also validates and checks your commenter IP addresses; you can even block/ allow comments from specific countries. The plugin also uses local spam databases to check for previously marked spammers.
As for other automatic moderation measures, you can also use regular expressions to block and filter specific content, phrases, or words. The plugin also builds and displays spam statistics and details such as spam detection rate and total blocked spam comments. Using these statistics, you can improve your spam protection as you build your content.
Key features
- Free to use, antispam and moderation plugin for WordPress comments.
- Comment filtering based on language, countries, IP addresses, and comment time.
- Options to treat BBCode as spam, use regular expressions to filter comments, as well as exclude trackbacks and pingbacks from spam protection.
- Dedicated spam statistics dashboard along with email notifications for incoming spam.
Pricing
Antispam Bee is a completely free-to-use plugin.
3) Lazy Load for comments
Lazy load for comments is a simple plugin that helps you improve your page speed by adding lazy loading to the WordPress comment system. If you’re running a huge blog or a popular website where you get many WordPress comments, this plugin is an absolute must.
With this plugin, you can quickly get rid of unwanted HTTP requests by adding lazy loading to any page or post. The plugin is simple to use, and you can also choose between different lazy load methods. The plugin also lets you lazy load comment gravatar and even adds support for translation and translation plugins.
To extend the plugin’s simple features, you’re also provided with developer-friendly hooks for customizing the plugin and dedicated documentation in case you want to manually change any lazy loading features. The plugin also comes with support for popular WordPress frameworks like Genesis and Divi.
Key features
- Simple to use plugin to enable lazy loading for comments.
- Multiple lazy load methods, so your viewers only load comments when required.
- Lazy-loads comment gravatars and reduce the number of HTTPS requests to improve page speed.
- Translation-ready and comes with hooks for further customization.
Pricing
Lazy Load for comments is also a free-to-use WordPress plugin.
4) GraphComment
GraphComment completely revamps your default WordPress comment system to give you something much more accessible to the modern internet user. You can create a background for a community that promotes healthy engagement and communication using this amazing plugin.
Moreover, you can enable engaging discussions using a Bubble-based widget which changes the default comments system to a much cleaner, minimal, and easy-to-use interface. The plugin lets users easily like, vote, reply, or answer specific comments and adds nifty features like live discussions, community profiles, profile theming, and more.
Furthermore, the plugin’s algorithm automatically sorts the most relevant discussions higher up to keep user engagement high. The plugin also enables smart anti-spam measures, community-centric options like social media integration, badges and awards for comments, media embedding, a dedicated notification center, and more.
Key features
- Bubble Flow-based interface with social media registration, media embedding, and text formatting.
- Smart bubble algorithm that automatically sorts the most relevant discussions.
- Easy administration measures, along with smart comment moderation and keyword alerts.
- Community profiles with full customization, theming, and dedicated badges/comments for profiles.
Pricing
GraphComment can be enabled for your website for free but also comes with additional pricing plans starting at $8 per month.
5) Thrive Comments
Thrive Comments is one of the best plugins to improve WordPress comments, and for a good reason. You can enjoy a premium plugin built with the right fundamentals to improve user engagement and conversions using Thrive’s improved comments system.
The neat thing about Thrive Comments is its Post Comment actions. Using the plugin, you can choose specific actions or events shown to the user once they leave comments. This includes URL redirects, thank you messages, discount coupon offers, email/newsletter subscription offers, and much more.
Besides, the plugin also reworks the default WordPress comments systems to have a much more approachable, easier-to-use design. You can also enable voting as well as badges for comments so users can easily upvote meaningful comments themselves or even award them.
Thrive comments also comes with dedicated analytics and moderations tool to help you handle and improve your WordPress comments. The plugin’s dashboard lets you moderate any comment you’d like, and you can even delegate comment moderation to staff members and other moderators. The statistics dashboard graphs show different comment statistics, such as comments made over time, spam, trashed comments, and much more.
Key features
- Dedicated WordPress comments system designed for maximum conversion.
- Better user engagement and comment flow system with upvote/downvote buttons, badges, and comment-sharing features.
- Post Comment actions let you add CTA events and redirects to help you capture and convert leads.
- Dedicated moderation and statistics dashboard with easy moderation and spam prevention features.
Pricing
Thrive Comments is a premium plugin available for $50 per year with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
6) Super Socializer
Super Socializer is the best pick for you if you want an easy way to integrate your WordPress comments with social media websites. It lets your customers log in and leave comments directly from their social media accounts from over 100 different websites. The integration is seamless; you can add social media follow and share buttons directly to your posts and comments.
Moreover, you can enjoy seamless integration with BuddyPress, bbPress, and WooCommerce with Super Socializer. You can also enjoy Multisite and AMP support and specific GDPR compliance option. The plugin also guarantees spam reduction for your comments since only authentic users can leave comments as social networks authenticate individual users.
The plugin also enables specific options for users who log in from their social media profiles. This includes auto-approving comments from social media registrations, customizable post-registration redirection, dedicated widgets and shortcodes for social login/share/comments, and more.
Key features
- Easy Comments registration/log-in using Social media integration.
- Custom Social sharing icons, follow icons, and comments/likes counters designed for maximum SEO.
- Auto-approve comments made by users that use Social login for easy moderation.
- Automatically syncs and builds website profiles based on Social media profile data.
Pricing
Super Socializer is a completely free plugin with optional add-ons ranging from $8 to $33.
Conclusion
So, that ends our list of the 6 Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments. A website with a well-functioning comments system with good moderation is key to creating an engaging community base. These plugins are perfect for this exact purpose, and we can wholeheartedly recommend them.
As for our recommendation, we’d recommend something free and easy to use, like WpDiscuz, to get the right idea about how you want to moderate and handle your WordPress comments.
However, a premium plugin like Thrive Comments is also a great option if you want more robust features.
We hope you find the right pick for your needs, and if you need any help regarding any of our plugin choices or any other plugins made to improve WordPress comments, let us know down below, and we’ll get right on top of it.
Additionally, if you want to learn more about setting other WordPress posts and page settings, why not check out some of our other articles below:
