Hi everyone—I’m Billy, founder of Threadline, a privacy-first hosted comment system for independent publishers.
I’m looking to work directly with a few Ghost publication owners who want to improve their on-site discussions or are considering replacing their current comments.
Rather than asking you to sign up and figure everything out, I’ll help you evaluate Threadline on one article and work through setup personally.
The first 10 founding publishers get Publisher tier free forever in exchange for using it on a real publication and giving candid feedback. I don’t have external publisher customers yet, so this is genuinely an early collaboration—not a polished success story.
For Ghost publishers: what would make an alternative worth considering over your current comments setup? I’d particularly appreciate hearing about reader login, moderation, migration, and design requirements.
Full disclosure: I’m the founder. If Threadline isn’t a fit, that feedback is useful too.
I’d turn it around. Why do you think somebody would go to the length of abandoning Ghost’s native comment system, especially now that moderation tools improved?
Fair question. If Ghost’s native comments meet a publisher’s needs, I don’t think they should replace them just because I built another option.
My original focus was publishers looking to leave Disqus or add comments to sites without a suitable native system. I brought Threadline here to learn whether there’s a specific unmet need among Ghost publishers—not because I’ve established that Ghost’s comments need replacing.
Threadline’s longer-term direction is a reader identity that can work across participating independent websites. But that alone isn’t enough to justify switching today, and I need to prove the practical value rather than assume it.
So you’re right: I should make a clearer case before asking Ghost publishers to change their setup. Are there limitations you’ve encountered in practice, or would you say native comments already cover what most Ghost publishers need?
Unlisting since the primary focus of this product doesn’t really intersect with Ghost’s current offering, and the seemingly large use of AI for communication