# IntenseDebate Reviews **Vendor:** Automattic Inc. **Category:** [Commenting Systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/commenting-systems) **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 10 ## About IntenseDebate IntenseDebate is a feature-rich comment system for WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and many other blogging/CMS platforms. ## IntenseDebate Reviews ### 1. An old comment system for WordPress **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** katty h. | Gerente superior de marketing, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 11, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** The overall ease of use and simple implementation is nice. Intense Debate is easy to register, easy to install on your WordPress site, and overall, it's easy to get started. The fact that it leaves your WordPress comments in your local database, allowing you to migrate to another comment system in the future or disable Intense Debate completely without losing your previous comments, is also a great feature that was one of the deciding factors in using Intense Debate. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** It is no longer worked on much. There have been some patches, but it is not updated regularly and there are no new features on the horizon. The spam filtering is not too good either, even with Akismet, spam comments are sent regularly, especially from registered IntenseDebate users. There are some limitations regarding moderation and they only allow users to comment. We have experienced problems and heard complaints about issues with users trying to comment on mobile devices as well. **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** Look at all your options. IntenseDebate checks some of the boxes and is a suitable solution in some situations, but there doesn't seem to be a planned future, whereas WordPress and other comment system options, both in the form of external providers and full plugins, continue to grow. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** Managing comments on any blog is a challenge. IntenseDebate provides suitable tools for both moderators and commenters alike. From a business perspective, it is useful to be able to delegate moderation to volunteer users and take advantage of the existing user authentication and management system. Like most WordPress plugins, the greatest benefit is the saving of time and money to achieve the functionality that the plugin provides. ### 2. An old comment system for WordPress. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David Z. | Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** The overall ease of use and simple implementation is nice. Intense Debate is easy to sign up for, easy to install in your WordPress site, and generally easy to get going. The fact that it leaves your WordPress comments in your local database, allowing you to migrate to another comment system in the future or disable Intense Debate entirely without losing your past comments, is also a great feature that was one of the deciding factors in using Intense Debate. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** It's not actively worked on that much anymore. There have been a few patches, but it's not regularly updated and there's no new features on the horizon. The spam filtering isn't too great either, even with Akismet, spam comments regularly get through, especially from registered IntenseDebate users. There are some limitations as far as moderation and only allowing users to comment. We have experienced issues and heard complaints about problems with users trying to comment on mobile devices as well. **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** Look at all of your options. IntenseDebate checks some of the boxes and is an adequate solution in some situations, but there does not appear to be a planned future, while WordPress itself and other comment system options, both in the form of 3rd party providers & fully contained plugins, continue to grow. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** Managing comments on any blog is a challenge. IntenseDebate provides adequate tools for the moderators and commenters alike. From a business perspective, being able to offload moderation to volunteer users and tapping into existing user management & authentication system is helpful. Like most WordPress plugins, the biggest benefit is in the savings of time and money to achieve the functionality that the plugin provides. ### 3. Excellent for managing comments on my blogs and web pages **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David C. | Especialista en ventas y marketing, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 13, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** Intense Debate is very easy and free to install on any blog or static website. It also allows you to customize the design of your comments using basic CSS knowledge. Intense Debate is also very fast and does not take much loading time. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** The intense debate has no import function. The technical team sometimes does not respond, which means it takes a long time to answer your inquiries. Sometimes it can be spam when linked with social accounts. **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** Perfect for blogs and web pages, it doesn't require much knowledge, is easy to use, and very comprehensive. I recommend it to everyone. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** The intense debate also allows you to use various types of plugins. It has amazing widgets like displaying the most popular posts. I would say that IntenseDebate solves the problem of lack of communication from website visitors. Before, I didn't have a comment system and had no idea what my site's visitors thought or what they wanted to tell me because I had no way for them to comment on my posts. Now I understand better who my visitors are and what they want! ### 4. IntenseDebate is like a dream come true, I've never seen an alternative **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Igbo C. | Content Coordinator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 11, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** I use the IntenseDebate comment system for my blogspot website, and it has never disappointed me. I get good comments, because it is very easy to use and my users don't have to solve any recaptcher. They also help me to check my spam comments, moving them to a folder where I would approve manually. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** IntenseDebate has been serving me very well, I don't dislike anything about them **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** IntenseDebate is very easy to set up, but if you need help, you can get it online **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** IntenseDebate is a perfect alternative to the normal Blogger comment system, and it makes commenting very easier for my blog readers ### 5. Great tool for viewing and managing comments **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fideymar l. | Especialista en ventas y marketing, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 06, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** IntenseDebate offers a bunch of great ways to liven up your commenting system. It brings plugins, widgets, badges. I love that every comment submitted through IntenseDebate is automatically synchronized with your database and WordPress comments. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** For now, I don't see anything I don't like; it works for what is needed. **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** If you use WordPress, try it, the comments will automatically duplicate in the WordPress database and you can easily switch to another system if you don't like it. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ability to make comments to add more valuable articles, and make the articles more attractive, therefore increasing the time spent on our website. ### 6. IntenseDebate For the Win! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** I have a WordPress site and I spent a few days searching for a commenting system that I felt was top notch and provided my website viewers with a great commenting experience. I came across IntenseDebate and after installing I tested it out and felt like it was exactly what I was looking for. What I love about it is it has so many awesome feautures beyond the basic commenting. One of my favorite features is the ability to have comment voting! I also love that I can respond to comments through my email. I previously used another commenting system that made me login every time to respond to a comment and it drove me insane. Overall, I feel like IntenseDebate is a great commenting system and I am going to suggest it to my friends who are also using WordPress. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** The only thing I would say that I dislike about IntenseDebate is that I think they should change the name of it. When I first saw the name I was not sure exactly what the purpose of the system was. The name does not give people the idea that it is a commenting system. Also, it takes a little bit of time to learn how to set up everything. **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** Take the time to learn how to set up the system, once you have it set up it is going to be a very beneficial system to have on your website. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** I would say that IntenseDebate solves the problem of lack of communication from website visitors. I did not have a commenting system before and I had no idea what my site visitors were thinking or what they wanted to say to me because I had no way for them to comment on my posts. Now I have a better understanding of who my visitors are and what they want! ### 7. IntenseDebate Review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 17, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** Software makes it easy to see what users think. On my website it allows for the open participation of our clients in real time so we can be in dialogue with them. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** Limited features. I would have liked to see more included in the software, but you have to pay much more for added features that I think should be included initially. **Recommendations to others considering IntenseDebate:** Get it, overall it’s a good product. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** Customer feedback. Helps us engage their opinions on a variety of matters. ### 8. easy to install, fast and reliable. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** britney c. | mean stack developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 12, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** Intense debate is very easy and free to install to any blog or static website. It also allows you to customize the layout of your comments by using the basic knowledge of CSS. Intense debate is also really fast and does not take long loading times. **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** Intense debate has no import feature. The technical team is unresponsive at times thus it takes long to answer your queries. It may sometimes spam when linked with social accounts. **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** Intense debate also allows you to use various kinds of plugins. It has amazing widgets such as showing most popular posts. ### 9. Great messaging system **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Banking | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 20, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** I liked that it was easy to implement on my blog so people could comment to one another on the blog **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** I didnt like how long it took to implement on the page **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allowing users to interact with eachother and share their insight ### 10. Easy for different softwares **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 19, 2019 **What do you like best about IntenseDebate?** I'm an avid blogger and like having comments enables easily on multiple platforms **What do you dislike about IntenseDebate?** I wish there were easier ways of regulating and filtering out abusive language **What problems is IntenseDebate solving and how is that benefiting you?** I don't have to use multiple different comment enablers for the multiple platforms that I blog on. ## IntenseDebate Discussions - [What is IntenseDebate used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-intensedebate-used-for) - [View IntenseDebate pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/intensedebate/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-13+22%3A41%3A15+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=0729c71c-3ece-4261-bc62-4f832eb60f61&secure%5Btoken%5D=74e296ec549dee02617a212db3a9508dd5fa4f56ea54c1c8d0e00d344bb25a83&format=llm_user) ## IntenseDebate Features **Moderation** - AI Moderation - Moderation Tools - Comment Screening **Commenting Methods** - Text Commenting - Emotional Reactions **Comment Analytics** - Emotion Analytics - User Analytics **Comment Features** - Location Tracking - Tagging - Emojis ## Top IntenseDebate Alternatives - [Disqus](https://www.g2.com/products/disqus/reviews) - 4.0/5.0 (23 reviews) - [Viafoura](https://www.g2.com/products/viafoura/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (132 reviews) - [Thrive Comments](https://www.g2.com/products/thrive-comments/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (18 reviews)