schnack

schnack.js

Schnack is a simple Disqus-like drop-in commenting system written in JavaScript.

• Documentation
• Say hello to Schnack.js
• Follow @schnackjs on Twitter

What the schnack?

Features:

• Tiny! It takes only ~8 KB!!! to embed Schnack.
• Open source and self-hosted.
• Ad-free and Tracking-free. Schnack will not disturb your users.
• It's simpy to moderate, with a minimal and slick UI to allow/reject comments or trust/block users.
• webpush protocol to notify the site owner about new comments awaiting for moderation.
• Third party providers for authentication like Github, Twitter, Google and Facebook. Users are not required to register a new account on your system and you don't need to manage a user management system.

Quickstart

Note: If you are updating Schnack from a 0.x version check out the separate upgrade instructions.

This is the fastest way to setup schnack.

Requirements:

• Node.js (>= v8)
• npm (>= v6)

Create a new folder for schnack and change into it:

mkdir schnack
cd schnack
npm init schnack

if there is no schnack.json in this folder, the init script copied over the default config and ask you if you want to configure your server interactively.

alternatively you can just edit the config file according to configuration section:

vim schnack.json                 # or open with any editor of your choice

Finally, run npm init schnack again to finish installation:

npm init schnack

Run the server:

npm start

If you want to try out Schnack on localhost (without authentication), run

npm start -- --dev

Embed in your HTML page:

<div class="comments-go-here"></div>
<script
    src="https://comments.example.com/embed.js"
    data-schnack-slug="post-slug"
    data-schnack-target=".comments-go-here"
></script>

or initialize schnack programmatically:

<div class="comments-go-here"></div>

<script src="http://comments.example.com/client.js"></script>
<script>
    new Schnack({
        target: '.comments-go-here',
        slug: 'post-slug',
        host: 'http://comments.example.com'
    });
</script>

You will find further information on the schnack page.

Plugins

Authentication and notification providers can be added via plugins.

npm install @schnack/plugin-auth-github  @schnack/plugin-auth-google @schnack/plugin-notify-slack

To enable the plugins you need to add them to the plugins section of your schnack.json:

{
    // ...
    "plugins": {
        "auth-github": {
            "client_id": "xxxxx",
            "client_secret": "xxxxx"
        },
        "auth-google": {
            "client_id": "xxxxx",
            "client_secret": "xxxxx"
        },
        "notify-slack": {
            "webhook_url": "xxxxx"
        }
    }
}

if you want to write your own plugins you need to install them and specify their package name in the schnack.json. Otherwise Schnack would try to load as from @schnack/plugin-my-plugin.

{
    // ...
    "plugins": {
        "my-plugin": {
            "pkg": "my-schnack-plugin",
            // ...
        }
    }
}

Feel free to open a PR on schnack-plugins with your plugin if you want to add it to the "official" repository.

Who is behind Schnack?

Schnack is yet another happy collaboration between Webkid and Gregor Aisch, with amazing contributions from:

• Jerram Digital
• Levi Wheatcroft

Who is using Schnack?

Schnack will never track who is using it, so we don't know! If you are a Schnack user, let us know and we'll add your website here. So far Schnack is being used on:

• https://schnack.cool (scroll all the day down)
• https://vis4.net/blog
• https://blog.datawrapper.de
• https://blog.webkid.io

Related projects

This is not a new idea, so there are a few projects that are doing almost the same thing:

• CoralProject Talk - Node + MongoDB + Redis
• Discourse - Ruby on Rails + PostgreSQL + Redis
• Commento - Go + Node
• Isso - Python + SQLite3
• Mouthful – Go + Preact

Developer notes

If you want to run your Schnack server on https on localhost, add the following section to your schnack.json:

{
    "ssl": {
        "certificate_path": "./certs/local.crt",
        "certificate_key": "./certs/local.key"
    }
}

To test changes on the embed.js and client.js templates you can open a local test server with minimal styles and by-passed authentication using

npm run dev

We're veIf you want to contribute additional plugins, check out the source code for the existing plugins first. We happily accept pull requests on schnack-plugins.

This project used Conventional Commits.

Changelog

1.2.0 (2021-01-16)

Features

• simplified local development with npm run dev (c0414f5)