I just shipped comments for Tinypost. Here's how they work.
If you're the blog owner and you're logged in, you just type and post. Your name shows up with an "author" badge next to it.
If you're a reader, you enter your name, email, and comment. Tinypost sends you a verification code. Enter it and your comment goes live. No account needed.
That's the whole system. No CAPTCHA, no OAuth, no "sign in with Google." Just verify your email and say what you want to say.
Blog owners can delete any comment. Readers can see the conversation. The comment box stays out of the way until you click on it.
I went back and forth on whether to add comments at all. Plenty of people have made good arguments for keeping blogs comment-free and letting the conversation happen on social media instead. But I think there's something valuable about the response living next to the writing. Not every reader has a Mastodon account or wants to join a discussion somewhere else.
The goal was the simplest possible comment system that still prevents spam. Email verification does that without making anyone create yet another account.