Commento vs Mouthful
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted forums & community options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Commento
Privacy-friendly embeddable discussion widget
VS
Mouthful
Lightweight self-hosted commenting engine
| Feature | Commento | Mouthful |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 24 · At risk | 31 · At risk |
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,779 | ★ 775 |
| First released | 2017 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Disqus, Facebook Comments | Disqus |
What are Commento and Mouthful?
Commento
Commento is a privacy-friendly, embeddable discussion and comment widget that lets website owners add threaded conversations to any page. It supports moderation, voting, and avoids third-party trackers.
- Embeddable comment widget
- No tracking by default
- Voting and threading
- Moderation dashboard
Mouthful
Mouthful is a small, self-hosted commenting server with a tiny embeddable widget and support for multiple database backends. It is a privacy-respecting alternative to hosted comment services.
- Tiny embeddable widget
- Multiple database backends
- Admin moderation panel
- Privacy respecting
Commento vs Mouthful: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Mouthful is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Commento. Commento has the considerably larger community, at 3,779 GitHub stars versus 775.
Why pick each one
Choose Commento if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.8k GitHub stars)
Choose Mouthful if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Commento or Mouthful better?
Neither is universally better. Commento has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Commento and Mouthful free and open-source?
Yes. Commento is licensed under MIT and Mouthful under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Commento and Mouthful with Docker?
Commento: yes. Mouthful: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Commento or Mouthful?
Mouthful has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Commento. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.