Schnack vs Utterances
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted forums & community options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Schnack | Utterances |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 16 · At risk | 29 · At risk |
| Category | Forums & Community | Forums & Community |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,811 | ★ 9,696 |
| First released | 2018 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Disqus, Facebook Comments | Disqus |
What are Schnack and Utterances?
Schnack
Schnack is a lightweight, self-hosted commenting system that website owners embed to host discussions without third-party trackers. It uses social login for moderation and stores comments in SQLite.
- Embeddable comment widget
- Social login moderation
- SQLite storage
- No tracking
Utterances
Utterances is a lightweight commenting widget that uses GitHub issues as the storage backend, embeddable in any static website. Visitors comment with their GitHub accounts and threads stay in the repository.
- Comments via GitHub issues
- No backend database
- Embeddable widget
- Lightweight
Schnack vs Utterances: key differences
Schnack is written in JavaScript, while Utterances is built with TypeScript. Utterances is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Schnack. Utterances has the considerably larger community, at 9,696 GitHub stars versus 1,811.
Why pick each one
Choose Schnack if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (1.8k GitHub stars)
- Written in JavaScript
Choose Utterances if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 9.7k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Schnack or Utterances better?
Neither is universally better. Utterances has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Schnack and Utterances free and open-source?
Yes. Schnack is licensed under MIT and Utterances under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Schnack and Utterances with Docker?
Schnack: check the project docs for container support. Utterances: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Schnack or Utterances?
Utterances has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Schnack. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.