Hi Michael,
wpDiscuz is FREE and it’ll always be FREE, if you see some paid addons available in our website shop it doesn’t mean wpDiscuz becomes not free. Those addons are separate plugins and don’t have direct relation to wpDiscuz free development.
We’re really sorry to hear that you feel that way. It seems you don’t know the history of this plugin and how many free addons it already includes. The first version of this plugin was released more than one year ago. And we were adding new free built-in addons every week. We’ve worked very hard and provided with premium support totally free for one year. We got just a few (about 10) donations. So don’t you think it’s fair to release some paid addons to be able continue free version development?
Here are the list of some important free addons which have been added for free during last year:
[Free] – AJAX Comment form with AJAX Validation
[Free] – Post type specific control to display wpDiscuz comments
[Free] – Comment like/dislike up/down voting system
[Free] – Comment share buttons with individual management
[Free] – Boosted Simple CAPTCHA with double protraction
[Free] – Anonymous Commenting
[Free] – Front-end comment editing function with time limit
[Free] – Auto-grow comment textarea
[Free] – Image and URL auto-conversion to Image and Link HTML
[Free] – Comment text character limitation with count-down control
[Free] – First comment redirection to any page (thank you page)
[Free] – Integration with many Social Login Plugins
[Free] – Integration with BuddyPress (avatar, profile)
[Free] – Integration with Ultimate Member (avatar, profile)
[Free] – Integration with UsersPro (avatar, profile, budges)
[Free] – Integration with Users Ultra (avatar, profile)
[Free] – Integration with Antispam plugins (Akismet, ZeroSpam… )
[Free] – 100% Responcive comment list, RTL full support
[Free] – Nested, threaded comment list with nesting dept control
[Free] – Individual comment referring and Link icon
[Free] – Comment Text breaking / AJAX Read More feature
[Free] – Thread hide/show buttons to easily go through all threads
[Free] – Smart avatar system works with most of plugins and Gravatar
[Free] – AJAX Pagination with [Load More] and [Load Rest Comments]
[Free] – Lazy Load comments on scrolling
[Free] – Smart Real Time comment system with management options
[Free] – Instant load and new comment notifier live time comments modes
[Free] – Styling and Coloring option for full Front-end customization
[Free] – Extended list of Hide/Show for each front-end component
[Free] – Front-end Phrase system to allow quick translation
[Free] – Set of functions for CDN and Cache full compatibility
[Free] – Booster for comment loading, supports unlimited comments per post.
[Free] – AJAX comment sorting system (newest, oldest, most voted)
[Free] – Extended comment Subscription, double opt-in/confirmation subscription system, subscription to all comments, to replies of your all comments, to certain comment replies.
And dozens of more functions will be available on future releases…
All essential and even dozens of extra-cool features are already available for free. There will never be any limits, any pro and paid versions for wpDiscuz. It’s already a premium level plugin and it’s free. We don’t want to limit wpDiscuz users for any essential commenting functions. And we have another dozens of awesome features in our to-do list which will also be added for free in future releases. So the free wpDiscuz development always stays on the first priority and wpDiscuz will be extended with new free functions and features even faster than before.
As per the paid addons, if for some reason the one of those is essential for your website and you can’t pay this price just contact us via support[at]gvectors.com email address. We’ll investigate your case and decide to send you discount coupon to get it with minimal price. We’re always open for that.
