Talking to customers · Edition No. 5 · 30 Aug 2026

umputun/remark42

Self-hosted comment engine with no external database and no third-party tracking — the reply box under the Starlight docs.

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5.6k stars · MIT · v1.16.4 (2026-07-10)

Self-hosted comment engine with no external database and no third-party tracking — the reply box under the Starlight docs.

Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install

What it is

A small self-hosted comment engine that you embed on any page with a script tag. It handles nested threads, Markdown, moderation, image uploads and notifications, signs people in through Google, GitHub, Telegram, email or anonymously, and needs no separate database — it ships as one binary with its own embedded store.

Why it matters

You have committed to Astro and Starlight, which means you are about to publish a stack of static pages that nobody can respond to. That is a waste twice over: a page with three real questions underneath it reads as a product with users, and those questions are free content — each one is a page you should write next, in the exact words a buyer typed. For Grasppy specifically, comments under a "how do I make sense of a 400-message thread" page are the closest thing you will get to a support forum before you have earned one. The alternative everyone reaches for is Disqus, which loads a tracker farm onto a site whose whole pitch is that your text never leaves your server — that would be an unforced own goal.

Stars5.6k
LicenceMIT
Latestv1.16.4 (2026-07-10)checked 7 Sep 2026
Written inGo
Setup effort
2 / 5
Payoff
3 / 5
Good
  • MIT, one Go binary, no external database, no third party reading your visitors
  • Anonymous commenting is supported, which matters enormously when your audience is small — nobody creates an account to ask one question
  • Telegram and email notifications, so a new comment reaches you without another dashboard to check
Watch for
  • Comment sections attract spam from the first week. The moderation tools are good but somebody has to actually moderate, and that somebody is you
  • The default styling is plain; making it look like it belongs to your site is an hour of CSS
  • An empty comment section under every page looks worse than none at all — turn it on for the docs and the blog, not the landing page
How to get it

Docker container on the VPS behind your reverse proxy at something like comments.yourdomain.com , plus a small script tag in the Starlight page template.

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