Remark42 is an open-source comment engine you host yourself, written in Go and shipped as a single lightweight binary with an embedded database. You add it to any site with one script tag. It loads no third-party trackers and shows no ads, and you decide how readers sign in, from an anonymous post or email link up to a full social login.
Reviewed by Marco Wollank
Rate Remark42: No account needed
Threat level
Covered
A covered pick. Anyone can use it as a private drop-in, with no setup or know-how. Enough for most people. Threat levels
Our take
This is the pick for a webmaster who wants a real comment section without making readers the product. Remark42 keeps the data on your server, runs on almost nothing, and ships no tracking of any sort, so the people who comment are not quietly profiled across the web the way a hosted widget does it. The honest catch is that there is no managed cloud: you run the container, point it at storage, and handle your own updates and backups. That rules it out for anyone who wants a paste-and-forget hosted service. But if you already run a server and care that your readers can reply in private, Remark42 is the strongest option on this page. Reach for a hosted pick like Cusdis only if you would rather not self-host at all.
Website at a glance
remark42.com
D score 35
Weak website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested today
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
Remark42 alternatives
giscus Comment widget that stores every thread as a GitHub Discussion, so there is no server to run and no ad scripts or tracking cookies loaded on your readers.
Cusdis A tiny open-source comment widget that uses no cookies and needs no reader sign-in, with a self-hosted option and a hosted one for sites that do not want to run a server.
Isso The classic self-hosted Disqus replacement: a small Python server on a SQLite file that adds comments with no tracking and no third-party scripts.
Frequently asked
- Is Remark42 free?
- Yes. It is open source under a permissive license and free to run on your own server. The only cost is the hosting you already pay for, since the whole engine is one small binary you point at a database file.
- Does Remark42 track my readers?
- No. It loads no third-party scripts, sets no advertising cookies, and shows no ads. It stores only what is needed to display a comment and notify the people in a thread, which is the opposite of how a hosted widget like Disqus behaves.
- Do my readers need an account to comment on Remark42?
- Not necessarily. You decide. It supports anonymous commenting and a private email link, alongside optional sign-in through providers like Google or GitHub, so you can let people reply without handing their identity to a third party.
- Is Remark42 hard to set up?
- It is more work than pasting a hosted script, but less than most self-hosted software. The backend ships as a single Docker image with an embedded database, so a typical install is one container and a script tag on your pages.
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