Here’s how we compare to the competition. If you see anything that needs to be added or corrections that need to be made, please leave a comment below and we’ll get to it.
Business Model Differences
| Belief | Realtidbits | Disqus | Livefyre | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns your data? | The publisher | Disqus | Livefyre | |
| Can the publisher create plugins to enhance the functionality? | Yes | No | No | No |
| Can you build new apps on the platform? | Yes | No | No | No |
Product Differences
| Products | Description | Realtidbits | Disqus | Livefyre | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comments | Users can leave comments on a page | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Forums | Users can create their own topics and polls | Yes | No | No | No |
| Galleries | Users and/or Editors can create image galleries | Yes | No | No | No |
| Pinboard | Users can bookmark content or stream photos, videos and comments. | Yes | No | No | No |
| SocialBridge | Addition of social media content to “streams” on-site | Yes | No | No | No |
| Analytics | Addition of events analytics to your in-house analytics system (i.e. Google Analytics, Coremetrics) | Yes | No | No | No |
Comments Features Differences
| Feature | Realtidbits | Disqus | Livefyre | Benefit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Comment Threading | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Users can reply to users and the comment will show up as a nested comment. |
| Reply By Email | Yes | No | No | No | Users can reply to a comment via email therefore turning their in-box into an additional channel for conducing the conversation. |
| Email notifications | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Users can subscribe to updates using their email address. |
| Social Profiles | Yes | No | No | No | The system creates a separately embedable user profile for the user’s activity for that domain. |
| Realtime Moderation dashboard | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Comments can be moderated. |
| Voting/Liking Comments | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Comments can be voted up with a like gesture. |
| Voting/Liking Page | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | The page itself can be liked from within the comments stream. |
| Separate Voting/Liking/Rating Object | Yes | Yes | No | No | Object that can be placed anywhere on the page that users can use to rate/like the content. Realtidbits also has 5-star rating. |
| Comment on Twitter | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Comment can be cross-posted to Twitter or can be pulled in from Twitter. |
| Comment on Facebook | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Comment can be cross-posted to Facebook or can be pulled in from Facebook. |
| Social Signon | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Users can sign in using their linkedin, google, facebook, twitter ID’s, or more. |
| Social Sharing | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Users can share the page or comment on any of: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or email. |
| RSS Feed | Yes | No | No | Yes | Users can subscribe to updates via RSS feed reader. |
| Avatars | Yes | No | No | No | Users can change their avatars. |
| Edit Post | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Comments can be edited by the user or moderator easily after posting. |
| Custom skinning | Yes | No | Limited | Limited | Comments can be skinned to look like my brand. |
| Includes Vendor’s Branding | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Does the system require publishers to display the vendor’s brand. I.e. can “Comment Powered by Livefyre” be removed? |
| User’s Data is 100% separate from other customer data? | Yes | No | No | No | Does the system create a userID that will work on other sites and does that vendor track the user’s comments from site to site? |
| Polls | Yes | No | No | No | Comments have polling mechanism included. Realtidbits and Intense Debate both have separate polls products that can be displayed elshere on the page, not just in the comments box. |
| Activity Feeds | Yes | Yes | No | No | Comments activity site-wide can be displayed in a global “buzz” feed. |
| Moderation Dashboard | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Have a central dashboard to manage users and user generated content. |
| Anonymity | Yes | No | No | No | Users can post anonymously. |
| Upload Images | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Users can upload images to posts if enabled by the admin. Realtidbits users can also add images from their social networks. |
| Record Video Comments | Yes | No | No | No | Users can record comments via webcam. |
| Open Graph Rich Media Embed Support | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Fetches links in comments and extracts images, audio, video, and site-owner dictated intents required for rich media embedded content. |
| WYSIWYG Editor | Textile | None | Markup | Markup | Users can format their posts with rich text. |
| Open Graph Rich Media Embed Support | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Fetches links in comments and extracts images, audio, video, and site-owner dictated intents required for rich media embedded content. |
| WYSIWYG Editor | Textile | None | Markup | Markup | Users can format their posts with rich text. |
| New Comment Bubbles | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | On-page notification that another user has left a comment (below the fold). |
| Live listener account | No | No | Yes | No | Displays how many people are viewing the page at this moment. |
| Ratings | Yes | No | No | No | 5-star ratings widget synced with comments stream and user profile. |
| Mobile UI | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Mobile-friendly version of product. Realtidbits version is reactive and therefore needs no modification. |
| Standards-based skinning engine | Yes | No | No | No | Publisher can “skin” the product using a populare UI platform such as Bootstrap or Foundation. Realtidbits uses Bootstrap. |
| API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Publishers can access data via API. |
| Follow | Yes | Yes – on Facebook | No | No | Ability to follow topics and users. |
| Site ticker | Yes | No | No | No | Ability to show all use generated actions (not just comments) across the site. |
| Gamification (points engine) | Yes | No | No | No | Ability to give users points and badges based on their contributions. |
| Trending content | Yes | No | No | No | Abilty to find and display which articles are currently getting the most commenting activity. |
| Polls and Rating | Yes | No | No | No | Ability to create your own polls and ratings objects and embed them anywhere on the page. Polls and ratings management system. |
| Platform as a Service API | Yes | No | No | No | Can you build your own apps? |



