Building My Blog: Why I Chose Giscus for Comments

Lately, I’ve been working on a new version of my personal blog website. For me, it’s always exciting to explore different tech stacks when building something like a blog or portfolio site. There’s a certain thrill in trying out new tools and frameworks even if it’s just for personal projects.

That said, I also realize there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Today, there are countless blogging platforms and tools that come packed with essential features like likes, comments, notifications, and powerful search. If your goal is just to write and publish, you’ll rarely need to build anything from scratch.

But having a personal blog gives you something these platforms often can’t: full control.

You can design and shape the experience exactly how you want. Want to write your blog posts directly in HTML and CSS? You can. Want every article to have its own unique look and feel? Go for it. Your blog becomes an extension of your personality and your creativity. Each post can tell a story not just in content, but in how it’s presented.

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The Comment Dilemma

Every time I work on my blog, I run into the same challenge: how should I handle comments?

It’s not just about where to store them. It’s also about the experience around them how should notifications be sent? Should users be able to reply? What if someone replies to someone else?

Most importantly: do I really want users to create yet another account just to leave a comment?

Personally, I don’t like forcing account creation for such a small interaction. My blog isn’t a multi-author publication with thousands of posts it’s just me, posting once a week (if that). Adding a full user system feels excessive and creates friction that turns readers away.

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The Ideal Solution

So, what would the ideal comment system look like for my blog?

• No account creation required (or at least, no new accounts)
• Easy to integrate
• No need to manage my own database
• Built-in notifications and reply support

That’s when I discovered Giscus.

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Why I Chose Giscus

Giscus is an open-source tool that connects GitHub Discussions directly to your blog. Since I’m a software developer and my content revolves around development topics, most of my audience already has a GitHub account. That made Giscus the perfect fit.

With just a few lines of configuration, I was able to embed a fully functional, GitHub-powered comment section under each post. No need to build my own backend. No need to handle notifications or replies. GitHub takes care of it all.

It’s lightweight, privacy-friendly, and leverages a platform that developers already use daily. For a dev-focused blog, I can’t think of a better option.

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Why Giscus Earns My Trust

The more I explored Giscus, the more confident I became in integrating it into my blog. It’s not just a convenient solution it’s one that’s built with trust, privacy, and transparency at its core.

Giscus is an open-source commenting system that uses GitHub Discussions as the backend for storing comments. That alone gives it a significant edge in credibility and reliability. You’re not relying on a third-party service that mines data or displays ads. Everything lives in your own GitHub repository, under your control.

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What Makes Giscus Stand Out

Here are a few reasons why I chose Giscus and why I’d recommend it to any developer building a blog:

✅ Open Source & Free

Giscus is completely free and open source. You can inspect the code, contribute to it, or fork it if needed. There are no hidden fees or locked features behind a paywall.

✅ Privacy-First

No tracking cookies. No ads. No third-party analytics. That’s rare in the world of comment systems. Giscus takes user privacy seriously, which aligns well with modern web standards and user expectations.

✅ Seamless GitHub Integration

Comments and replies are stored as GitHub Discussions in a repository of your choosing. It feels native to the developer workflow and is incredibly transparent. You can moderate, respond, or review comments directly from GitHub if needed.

✅ Easy Setup

Adding Giscus to my blog was as simple as dropping in a snippet. It works with static site generators, frameworks like Next.js, or even plain HTML. Within minutes, I had a fully functioning comment section live on my posts.

✅ Secure and Auditable

The permissions Giscus requests are limited to what’s necessary. When users log in via GitHub to leave a comment, the authorization screen might mention “Act on your behalf” but in practice, this only means Giscus can post to the linked repo’s Discussions as that user. It doesn’t have access to anything beyond that. There was even a discussion on this topic where the maintainer explained the situation: What kind of authorization does giscus have when it can “Act on your behalf”?

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A Known Tradeoff: GitHub Login Required

One potential drawback is that users need a GitHub account to comment. For blogs aimed at general audiences, this could be a barrier. But for me writing primarily for other developers it’s not an issue. Most of my readers already use GitHub regularly, so it feels natural.

If anything, the GitHub integration helps keep the discussion high-quality and reduces spam since every commenter is a real, authenticated user.

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Developer-First, Community-Supported

Giscus has a strong developer community behind it. It’s actively maintained, well-documented, and constantly evolving through open discussions on its GitHub repo. That kind of transparency is what gives me long-term confidence in using it.

And unlike closed-source platforms that can change their business model at any time, Giscus gives me peace of mind. I know exactly how it works and what to expect because I can read the source code myself.

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Final Thoughts

If you’re a developer looking to add a privacy-respecting, no-maintenance comment system to your blog, Giscus is one of the best options out there. It’s lightweight, secure, open-source, and deeply integrates with the developer ecosystem.

For my blog, it checked every box: no signup friction, no need to manage a database, and full control over my content. Plus, it naturally encourages thoughtful discussion from people who actually care about the topic other devs.

You can try the comment feature below this post. I would love to hear what you think about Giscus?

Main Website: Giscus.app