IntenseDebate vs. Disqus

Realize that a few months ago I gave Disqus a trial run based on something I had read about it pulling in comments from other sources. However, that particular function seemed to work sporadically at best and so after a few days of testing I rolled it back. However, without much brain power having been spent, it is clear the comments increased during that short-lived attempt. So, now I come back asking if I were to consider a return to such a community/comment building system – which is the better option – Disqus or the very popular IntenseDebate?

I hate to ask questions like that, as I know it sounds almost like a troll trying to get something started up, but I am just not sure which one to go with and thought I would seek out some opinions. First, I will say that both products fundamentally do the job of replace the comments system on WordPress (as well as other CMS platforms). They seem to both do a pretty good job of doing this and have a pretty good and seemingly about equal following based on the blogs I follow. They do this with the implementations you would expect, single sign on, ability to use Twitter and Facebook accounts, spam controls, and much more.

A couple of differences that I note between the two. IntenseDebate has a functional design that saves the comments both on the server running for IntenseDebate as well in my local database as would normally be done. That allows a quick change over if ever I should change my mind, which is not something Disqus offers, having instead export functions, but everything is really stored on their servers. I like having at least a copy of stuff on my servers, but that is the system admin in me preferring to be control, realizing that there is probably a small performance hit for that.

The seemingly other big plus for IntenseDebate is the reputation and points that can be used to build up a reputation.  I have not looked a lot to see how it works, but I think there are static versions as well as up vote versions, which is pretty cool.  Disqus has something like this, but it not available without upgrading a premium version of the software.  I can this not only bringing in comments, but definitely encouraging quality in the process of doing so.

Disqus however, offers the monitoring and gathering of comments from other parts of the web about the post when it can find them. I love this option – especially in regards to the awesome comments and full conversations that have taken place on Facebook regard some post. Of course, if only it worked as well as advertised. At the time I tested it, it was advertised specifically for Facebook and Twitter. Now, it does appear to advertise the function as working for Twitter and some other social media websites.

Lastly, the other big thing Disqus seems to bring to the table is the idea of communities – which probably does help in bringing in potential readers and comments to the blog. However, this blog being a bit of a hodgepodge mixing bowl of my thoughts – ranging from agriculture to technology with a good dose of politics along the way, well, it just does not fit into categories very well. So am not sure if this would be helpful or just annoying as a feature that I really can not utilize anywhere near its full potential.

** – Image is an IntenseDebate logo.