Comments are heavy. A long thread can pull in dozens of avatars, gravatar lookups and reply scripts — all of which the browser downloads before the visitor has even reached them. Lazy Load for Comments defers all of that until the visitor either scrolls to the comments area or clicks a button.

The result: fewer HTTP requests, faster Largest Contentful Paint and a happier Lighthouse score, without changing how your comment template looks.

Version 2.0 is a complete rewrite. It uses the WordPress REST API to fetch the rendered comments on demand and works with both classic themes (comments_template()) and block themes (the core Comments block) out of the box.

Features

Lazy-load comments on scroll, on button click, or turn the plugin off without deactivating it.

Works with classic themes and block themes (the core Comments block).

Loads comments inline for search engine crawlers, so indexing and SEO are not affected.

Per-post cache of the rendered Comments block — REST renders stay fast.

Minimum-comment-count threshold so short threads still render inline.

Customisable load-button text, style and extra CSS classes.

Clean React settings page under Comments Lazy Load.

No jQuery dependency. Front-end script is vanilla JS and intentionally small.

Translation-ready. Hooks and filters available for further customisation.

Useful links