What is Remark42 used for?

Remark42 is a self-hosted, lightweight comment engine for blogs and articles that supports social login, threading, moderation and imports from Disqus. It is a good fit for adding comments to a static blog, moving off Disqus and privacy-respecting discussion widgets.

Is Remark42 open source?

Yes. Remark42 is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at umputun/remark42 and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Remark42 is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Remark42?

Yes. Remark42 can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Remark42 an alternative to?

Remark42 is an open-source alternative to Disqus, Hyvor Talk and FastComments. Other open-source alternatives to Disqus include Isso, Discourse and Talkyard.

Is Remark42 actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Remark42 was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.17.1, published on 14 September 2026. The project has 5.6k stars on GitHub.

Remark42: open-source alternative to Disqus, Hyvor Talk

About Remark42

Remark42 is a comment engine you run yourself and embed into blogs, articles or any page where readers leave comments. It is built to be lightweight and simple while staying functional, and it does not track its users, which makes it a privacy-friendly alternative to hosted commenting widgets. It is written in Go.

Readers can sign in through social providers such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, GitHub, Apple, Yandex, Patreon, Discord and Telegram, through custom OAuth2 providers, or by email, with optional anonymous access. Comments support multi-level nesting in tree or plain views, Markdown with a formatting toolbar, drag-and-drop image upload, voting, pinning and verification. Moderators can remove comments and block users, and administrators can import data from Disqus and WordPress and receive notifications.

Remark42 is MIT-licensed and typically deployed as a Docker container next to your site. It suits bloggers and small publications that want control over comment data without relying on a third-party service.

Key features

Social, email and anonymous login
Nested comments in tree or plain view
Markdown with formatting toolbar
Moderation, blocking and pinning tools
Import from Disqus and WordPress
RSS feeds and notification channels

Good fit for

→Adding comments to a static blog
→Moving off Disqus
→Privacy-respecting discussion widgets

Built with: Go
Tags: comments; comment-system; self-hosted; privacy; blogging; disqus-alternative; golang

Remark42: questions and answers

What is Remark42 used for?: Remark42 is a self-hosted, lightweight comment engine for blogs and articles that supports social login, threading, moderation and imports from Disqus. It is a good fit for adding comments to a static blog, moving off Disqus and privacy-respecting discussion widgets.
Is Remark42 open source?: Yes. Remark42 is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at umputun/remark42 and is written mainly in Go.
Is Remark42 free?: Yes. Remark42 is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Remark42?: Yes. Remark42 can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Remark42 an alternative to?: Remark42 is an open-source alternative to Disqus, Hyvor Talk and FastComments. Other open-source alternatives to Disqus include Isso, Discourse and Talkyard.
Is Remark42 actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Remark42 was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.17.1, published on 14 September 2026. The project has 5.6k stars on GitHub.