> How do you handle comments in a "static blog"?

The comment form is implemented as a server-side program using Common Lisp and Hunchentoot. So this is the only part of the website that is not static. The server-side program accepts each comment and writes to a text file for manual review. Then I review the comments and add them to my blog.

In the end, the comments live like normal content files in my source code directory just like the other blog posts and HTML pages do. My static site generator renders the comment pages along with the rest of the website. So in effect, my static site generator also has a static comment pages generator within it.

Not the poster, but what I did was to have a CGI script which would receive incoming comments and write them to "/srv/data/blog/comments/XXX/TIMESTAMP.txt" or similar.

The next time I rebuilt the blogs the page "XXX" would render a loop of all the comments, ordered by timestamp, if anything were present.

The CGI would send a "thanks for your comment" reply to the submitter and an email to myself. If the comment were spam I'd just delete the static file.

You could have a _somewhat_ static blog and incorporate something like Webmentions[0] for comments or replies. For example, Molly White's microblog[1] shows the following text below the post:

  Have you responded to this post on your own site? Send a webmention[0]! Note: Webmentions are moderated for anti-spam purposes, so they will not appear immediately.

I find this method to be a sweet spot between generating content on your own pace, while allowing other people to "post" to your website, but not relying on a third-party service like Disqus.

[0] https://indieweb.org/Webmention

[1] https://www.mollywhite.net/micro/entry/202511101848

The way I’ve seen it done is that you render a script tag that embeds a third party comment system (like Disqus).

Third party options (Disqus, for example)

On mine, I don't. Any interactivity is too much hassle for me to worry about wrt moderation etc. I also don't particularly care what random people have to say. If my friends like what I wrote, they can tell me on Signal or comment on the Bluesky post when I share the link.