Comments & Social

Beautiful Hugo supports five comment systems, social sharing buttons, GitHub repository buttons, and 42 social icon links in the footer.

Comment Systems

All comment systems are enabled per-page with comments: true in front matter. Only one comment system can be active at a time.

Disqus

The classic comment system, integrated via Hugo’s built-in Disqus support:

[Services]
  [Services.Disqus]
    Shortname = "your-disqus-shortname"

[Params]
  delayDisqus = true

delayDisqus = true defers loading until the user clicks a “Show comments” button, improving page load performance.

Giscus

Giscus uses GitHub Discussions as a comment backend. It’s privacy-friendly and requires no external service:

[Params.giscus]
  repo = "owner/repo"
  repoId = "R_kgDO..."
  category = "Announcements"
  categoryId = "DIC_kwDO..."
  mapping = "pathname"
  strict = "0"
  reactionsEnabled = "1"
  emitMetadata = "0"
  inputPosition = "top"
  theme = "preferred_color_scheme"
  lang = "en"
  lazyLoading = true

Get your configuration values from giscus.app.

Utterances

Utterances uses GitHub Issues as a comment backend — a lighter alternative to Giscus:

[Params.utterances]
  repo = "owner/repo"
  issueTerm = "pathname"
  theme = "preferred-color-scheme"
  label = "comment"

Get your configuration from utteranc.es.

Cusdis

Cusdis is a lightweight, privacy-friendly comment system:

[Params]
  cusdisID = "your-app-id"

Get your App ID from cusdis.com.

Staticman

Staticman adds comments as static data files via Git pull requests, with optional reCAPTCHA spam protection:

[Params.staticman]
  api = "https://your-staticman-instance.herokuapp.com/v3/entry/github/owner/repo/main/comments"

  [Params.staticman.recaptcha]
    sitekey = "your-site-key"
    secret = "your-secret"

Enable social sharing buttons on posts with socialShare = true. The buttons appear at the bottom of each post:

[Params]
  socialShare = true

The following platforms are supported:

Platform	Icon
Twitter / X	X logo
Facebook	Facebook logo
Reddit	Reddit logo
LinkedIn	LinkedIn logo
StumbleUpon	StumbleUpon logo
Pinterest	Pinterest logo
Email	Envelope icon

Override per page:

---
title: My Post
socialShare: false
---

GitHub Buttons

Show GitHub repository buttons (star, watch, fork, follow) on any page using front matter:

---
title: My Project
ghRepo: "halogenica/beautifulhugo"
ghBadge: ["star", "watch", "fork"]
ghCount: true
---

Param	Type	Default	Description
`ghRepo`	string	—	GitHub repo in `owner/repo` format (per-page front matter only)
`ghBadge`	list	—	Which buttons to show: `star`, `watch`, `fork`, `follow`. Can be set per-page or site-wide via `Params.ghBadge`
`ghCount`	bool	`true`	Show count numbers on buttons. Can be set per-page or site-wide via `Params.ghCount`

The buttons are loaded from ghbtns.com via lightweight iframes.

You can also set ghBadge and ghCount site-wide so they apply to every page that has a ghRepo:

[Params]
  ghBadge = ["star", "fork"]
  ghCount = true

Add social links under [Params.author] and they appear as icons in the footer. Beautiful Hugo supports 42 platforms:

Key	Platform	URL Pattern
`email`	Email	`mailto:%s`
`facebook`	Facebook	`https://www.facebook.com/%s`
`github`	GitHub	`https://github.com/%s`
`gitlab`	GitLab	`https://gitlab.com/%s`
`git`	Git (custom URL)	`%s` (use full URL)
`bitbucket`	Bitbucket	`https://bitbucket.org/%s`
`twitter`	Twitter / X	`https://twitter.com/%s`
`slack`	Slack	`https://%s.slack.com/`
`reddit`	Reddit	`https://reddit.com/u/%s`
`linkedin`	LinkedIn	`https://linkedin.com/%s`
`xing`	Xing	`https://www.xing.com/profile/%s`
`stackoverflow`	Stack Overflow	`https://stackoverflow.com/%s`
`snapchat`	Snapchat	`https://www.snapchat.com/add/%s`
`instagram`	Instagram	`https://www.instagram.com/%s`
`youtube`	YouTube	`https://www.youtube.com/%s`
`soundcloud`	SoundCloud	`https://soundcloud.com/%s`
`spotify`	Spotify	`https://open.spotify.com/user/%s`
`bandcamp`	Bandcamp	`https://%s.bandcamp.com/`
`itchio`	itch.io	`https://itch.io/profile/%s`
`keybase`	Keybase	`https://keybase.io/%s`
`vk`	VK	`https://vk.com/%s`
`paypal`	PayPal	`https://paypal.me/%s`
`telegram`	Telegram	`https://telegram.me/%s`
`500px`	500px	`https://500px.com/%s`
`codepen`	CodePen	`https://codepen.io/%s`
`kaggle`	Kaggle	`https://www.kaggle.com/%s`
`mastodon`	Mastodon	`https://%s` (use full URL; `rel="me"` for verification)
`weibo`	Weibo	`https://weibo.com/%s`
`medium`	Medium	`https://medium.com/@%s`
`discord`	Discord	`https://discord.gg/%s`
`strava`	Strava	`https://www.strava.com/athletes/%s`
`steam`	Steam	`https://steamcommunity.com/id/%s`
`quora`	Quora	`https://www.quora.com/profile/%s`
`amazonwishlist`	Amazon Wishlist	`https://amzn.com/w/%s`
`slideshare`	SlideShare	`https://www.slideshare.net/%s`
`angellist`	AngelList	`https://www.angel.co/p/%s`
`about`	Custom link	`%s` (use full URL)
`lastfm`	Last.fm	`https://www.last.fm/user/%s`
`bluesky`	Bluesky	`https://bsky.app/profile/%s`
`orcid`	ORCID	`https://orcid.org/%s`
`googlescholar`	Google Scholar	`https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=%s`
`goodreads`	Goodreads	`https://goodreads.com/%s`

If a value starts with http:// or https://, it is used directly as the URL. Otherwise, it is interpolated into the default URL pattern.

For LinkedIn, the value should include the path prefix (e.g. in/username for a personal profile or company/username for a company page). If you provide a bare username with no /, the theme automatically prepends in/ for backward compatibility.

[Params.author]
  name = "Some Person"
  github = "username"
  linkedin = "in/username"
  mastodon = "https://mastodon.social/@username"