Remark42 is a self-hosted, lightweight, and simple (yet functional) comment engine, which doesn't spy on users. It can be embedded into blogs, articles or any other place where readers add comments.

Social login via Google, Facebook and Github
Multi-level nested comments with both tree and plain presentations
Import from disqus
Moderator can remove comments and block users
Voting and pinning system
Sortable comments
Extractor for recent comments, cross-post
Export data to json with automatic backups
No external databases, everything embedded in a single data file
Fully dockerized and can be deployed in a single command
Clean, lightweight and fully customizable UI
Multi-site mode from a single instance
Integration with automatic ssl via nginx-le

Install

Backend

copy provided docker-compose.yml and customize for your needs
make sure you don't keep DEV=true for any non-development deployments
pull and start docker compose pull && docker compose up

Run modes

server activates regular, server mode
import performs import from external providers (disqus and internal json, see /api/v1/admin/export)

Register oauth2 providers

TBD

Frontend

TBD

API

Authorization

GET /auth/{provider}/login?from=http://url - perform "social" login with one of supported providers and redirect to url
GET /auth/{provider}/logout - logout

type User struct {
    Name    string `json:"name"`
    ID      string `json:"id"`
    Picture string `json:"picture"`
    Profile string `json:"profile"`
    Admin   bool   `json:"admin"`
}

currently supported providers are google, facebook and github

Commenting

POST /api/v1/comment - add a comment. auth required

type Comment struct {
    ID        string          `json:"id"`      // comment ID, read only
    ParentID  string          `json:"pid"`     // parent ID
    Text      string          `json:"text"`    // comment text
    User      User            `json:"user"`    // user info, read only
    Locator   Locator         `json:"locator"` // post locator
    Score     int             `json:"score"`   // comment score, read only
    Votes     map[string]bool `json:"votes"`   // comment votes, read only
    Timestamp time.Time       `json:"time"`    // time stamp, read only
    Pin       bool            `json:"pin"`     // pinned status, read only
}

type Locator struct {
    SiteID string `json:"site"`     // site id
    URL    string `json:"url"`      // post url
}

GET /api/v1/find?site=site-id&url=post-url&sort=fld&format=tree - find all comments for given post

This is the primary call used by UI to show comments for given post. It can return comments in two formats - plain and tree. In plain format result will be sorted list of Comment. In tree format this is going to be tree-like object with this structure:

type Tree struct {
    Nodes []Node `json:"comments"`
}

type Node struct {
    Comment store.Comment `json:"comment"`
    Replies []Node        `json:"replies,omitempty"`
}

Sort can be time or score. Supported sort order with prefix -/+, i.e. -time. For tree mode sort will be applied to top-level comments only and all replies always sorted by time.

GET /api/v1/last/{max}?site=site-id - get up to {max} last comments
GET /api/v1/id/{id}?site=site-id - get comment by id
GET /api/v1/comments?site=site-id&user=id - get comment by user id
GET /api/v1/count?site=site-id&url=post-url - get comment's count for {url}
GET /api/v1/user - get user info, auth required
PUT /api/v1/vote/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url&vote=1 - vote for comment. vote=1 will increase score, -1 decrease. auth required

Admin

DELETE /api/v1/admin/comment/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url - delete comment by id. auth and admin required
PUT /api/v1/admin/user/{userid}?site=site-id&block=1 - block or unblock user. auth and admin required
GET /api/v1/admin/export?site=side-id&mode=[stream|file] - export all comments to json stream or gz file. auth and admin required
POST /api/v1/admin/import?site=side-id - import comments from the backup. auth and admin required
PUT /api/v1/admin/pin/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url&pin=1 - pin or unpin comment. auth and admin required