Base
Hardened build
minimal ports, security patches applied at build time
Isso on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Azure
Applications
Isso, the lightweight self hosted commenting server, ready to embed in any page with a per instance admin password.
Overview
Isso is an open source, self hosted commenting server you embed in any page with a single script tag. It gives readers threaded discussions, replies, markdown, voting and email notifications about replies, and it gives you a moderation dashboard to edit, approve and remove comments, with an optional moderation queue that holds every new comment until you release it. The whole data tier is one embedded database file on the instance itself, so there is no separate database server to run and no third party service holding your readers' conversations or profiling them for advertising.
It is deliberately small, and that is the point: it adds a discussion layer to a site without adding an infrastructure tier. It suits blogs, documentation sites, news and publishing platforms, and anyone who wants to replace a hosted comment widget with a private discussion layer they fully own and control.
Why the cloudimg image
cloudimg delivers Isso fully installed behind an nginx reverse proxy, so a working commenting server answers the moment the instance boots, and the instance's own front page serves a live demo of the widget alongside the snippet you paste into your site. The image is secure by default and carries no usable credential at all, which matters here because upstream ships a published default administrator password: cloudimg never ships it. On the first boot of every instance a one shot service generates an administrator password and an email hash salt unique to that instance, writing the password to a file only the root user can read, and Isso is wired to refuse to start until they exist. The image also ships no database, and that is deliberate: Isso keeps the key that signs administrator sessions inside its database, so an image carrying one would hand every instance the same key and let anyone forge an administrator session on all of them. Isso is bound to the loopback address so the reverse proxy is the only way in, the base is fully patched with unattended security upgrades enabled, and every deployment is paired with a step by step deploy guide and backed by 24/7 cloudimg support.
Common uses
- A private self hosted comment section for a blog or documentation site
- Replacing a hosted comment widget that tracks and profiles your readers
- Adding threaded discussion and moderation to a static site
See it running
Real screenshots taken while testing this image against its deployment guide.
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