Oxygen Builder for WordPress allows you to insert the native comments functionality. It adds basic styling, and allows you to further customize the comments box and list, but in many cases this native comments functionality isn't enough for your website.

This article will look at the best comments solutions and plugins for Oxygen Builder. As a higher traffic blog that uses Oxygen to ensure that we meet core web vitals and performance metrics, finding a comments solution that works well with Oxygen was a struggle for us.

Oxygen Builder insert's comments using the standard PHP method in WordPress, the Comments Template.

As it disables the theme, many may think that most Commons add-ons and plugins won't work with the builder, though this isn't really the case. Many of these plugins simply override and make use of that standard comments.php template.

That's great because many comments solutions are now available to you to make use of on your Oxygen website. Let's take a look at some of the best solutions in this arena.

WPDisquz

In our opinion, this is the best common solution for WordPress, not just Oxygen. What's even better is that it completely replaces the comments system within WordPress, meaning that you can use the native element that comes with Oxygen Builder to insert it directly into your page.

We simply added the comments list element into our template for single blog posts, and it works perfectly.

WPDisquz Adds a ton of advanced features such as Ajax, formatting comments, responding to comments, managing subscriptions to comments, and easy styling via the back end. All of these features culminate in a great comment plugin for Oxygen Builder.

There was an issue with this tool that wasn't associated with Oxygen, but several JSON requests were being blocked by our hosting firewall, leading to a ton of server side errors and warnings. In some cases, users weren't able to publish their comments on our WordPress blog. This is something to keep in mind when installing, be sure to test that everything is working and there are no issues.

Something that's great about this comments plugin is that it can be seriously extended via free and paid addons. For example, you can set up a social subscription an login, Google recaptcha, integration with buddypress, GIF replies, and more. If you're looking for a complete comment solution for your WordPress blog using Oxygen Builder, this is by far your best bet if you want for a self hosted solution.

ReplyBox

ReplyBox is a different approach to the commenting system in Word press. Instead of using the built in commenting system, this is a third party integration to a platform that offers a few benefits over WordPress’ approach.

We were introduced to this solution via the DeliciousBrains (well know plugin developer) blog, as they’re using it on their platforms. It's a very clean solution, and integrates perfectly with WordPress via a third party JavaScript insert OR a WordPress plugin (which does the insert for you).

This is a tool worth checking out if you are focused on a lightweight and privacy focused commenting system. It weighs under 25 KB, and bills itself as a Disqus alternative.

Disqus is a well known and free commenting platform that many websites use, but you'll never find it on this list as it's incredibly heavy, decreases website performance, and sells user data. We really don't like that solution, so having a premium third party privacy oriented tool is a nice breath of fresh air.

We've used it on client websites that use Oxygen Builder, and it works perfectly by inserting a third party script into the header, and a container where you want the comments to show up.

It's worth noting, that one compared to self hosted solutions that use the WordPress commenting system, this tool does not, and because it's hosted elsewhere it costs money. there's no free plan, and the cheapest one starts at $6 a month for 20,000 monthly pageviews. For 250,000 monthly pageviews it costs you $26 a month.

Conclusion

While there are additional common solutions out there for WordPress, these two solutions cover pretty much all of the bases. If you don't need much, then you may be best just styling the existing comments form that comes with Oxygen Builder in the editor, and calling it a day. If you want additional features and are fine self hosting, WPDisquz is a great option. and for a third party commenting platform that is incredibly privacy focused and modern looking, ReplyBox is worth checking out.

If you have any additional suggestions on commenting plugins to use with the Oxygen Builder, be sure to let us know in the comments section below.