Genial Comments lets you add Disqus-powered discussions or use your WordPress
theme’s built-in commenting system. Choose your preferred provider, configure
comment loading, and optionally customize the appearance of native WordPress
comments.

Disqus supports privacy-aware loading options, including click-to-load,
viewport-based loading, and immediate loading. WordPress Native Comments uses your
theme’s existing comment area and WordPress’s built-in moderation and Discussion
settings.

Legacy Facebook Comments settings are preserved for compatibility. Meta
discontinued the Facebook Comments Plugin in February 2026, so Facebook commenting
is no longer functional.

Features

Disqus

Add Disqus-powered discussions using your Disqus shortname.
Choose click-to-load, viewport-based, or immediate loading.
Disqus is an external service and may receive page and visitor information when comments are loaded. Disqus Basic may display advertising; see External services below.

WordPress Native Comments

Use WordPress’s existing comments without an external account.
Comment placement remains controlled by your active theme or template.
WordPress continues to manage moderation and Discussion settings.
Existing replies and threaded comments remain part of WordPress’s comment system.
The plugin does not insert a second native comments area.

Optional Native Appearance

Styling is disabled by default; Default preserves your theme’s existing styling.
Modern and Minimal presets provide optional visual styling.
Choose Blue, Green, Purple, or Neutral accent colors with an appearance preset.
Results depend on the active theme and its comment markup; universal theme compatibility is not claimed.

Compatibility

Existing Facebook settings and provider settings are preserved when switching providers.
The existing [gs-fb-comments] shortcode remains available for external providers.
Switching providers does not delete or migrate WordPress comments.

External services

The legacy Facebook provider may request Meta’s Facebook JavaScript SDK at
connect.facebook.net and, when its optional cache-refresh setting is enabled,
send the public post URL to Meta’s developer debugger endpoint. Meta’s service
may receive the visitor’s IP address, browser information, page URL, referrer,
cookies, account state, locale, and optional App ID. Meta discontinued the
Facebook Comments Plugin in February 2026, so this legacy integration no longer
provides functional Facebook comments. Review Meta’s policies:

When Disqus is selected, this plugin loads the Disqus Universal Embed script
from the configured HTTPS Disqus shortname when comments are activated by the
selected loading mode. Disqus may receive information about the page and
visitor, and Disqus Basic may display advertising. Review the Disqus policies:

WordPress Native Comments uses the site’s own WordPress installation and does
not connect to an external commenting service.