How to Disable WordPress Comments and Use a Different Comment System

Are you satisfied with the default comment system used by WordPress? For many WordPress users the answer is no and luckily there are a variety of alternatives to using WordPress comments on your blog or business website. Whether you are looking for a complete replacement for allowing comments on your blog or simply want to disable comments all together, WordPress makes this process fairly simple. Below, you will find options for adding a new comment system and learn how to completely disable WordPress comments.

Disabling WordPress Comments

There are two separate methods you can use to disable WordPress comments. One involves unchecking a few boxes in your dashboard settings while the other requires you to insert a line of code in the comments.php file located in your theme directory. Both methods are simple enough to perform and will soon leave your WordPress site without any comments.

To remove comments through your dashboard settings, first visit the Discussions submenu under the Settings menu. Next to Article Settings you will see a number of checkboxes. Uncheck the options labeled – “Allow people to post comments on new articles”. After saving your changes, your new posts will no longer contain the default WordPress comments; though, your existing posts will still show any comments that were left. To remove these through your dashboard settings you will need to individually go through each post and unselect the Discussion and Comments checkboxes. This can take some time if you have many older posts, which brings us to the quick process of editing a single file to completely disable comments.

For a quicker method of removing comments, navigate to the comments.php file inside your current theme directory. At the top of this file you will see a set of documentation code explaining what the file does. Below this, you will enter the following line of code – . Save your changes and then the entire comment system will be bypassed. Your existing comments will still reside in your WordPress database, but will remain hidden on all future and existing posts.

Adding a New WordPress Comment System

If you still want to allow comments, there are a number of helpful WordPress plugins, and you will not have to go through the above steps to disable the default comment system. These plugins will override the default comment system for you.

The Comments Evolved for WordPress plugin and the Disqus Comment System plugin are a couple of the more popular alternatives to the default comment system. Comments Evolved for WordPress integrates the Google+ comment system with your WordPress site. Users that are signed into their Google account can leave comments, like other comments, and recommend the post through Google+. The Disqus Comment System plugin also completely overrides the default comment system and then replaces it with Disqus. With Disqus, visitors can sign into a Disqus account or sign up with Google+, Facebook, or Twitter. This universal comment system is more streamlined than the default system.

Whether you want to replace the WordPress comment system or completely remove comments all together, there are plenty of options available to you. Use the above steps to get rid of comments on a business site or use a plugin for a more user friendly comment system.