Complete Disabling of Commenting Functionality in WordPress

If your WordPress site does not use the commenting feature, disabling all related comment functionalities can help make the admin panel cleaner and improve site performance. In this article, we will discuss how to completely disable commenting in WordPress.

Suppose you have a WordPress site where commenting is not used. In this case:

The comments menu item is present in the admin panel.
There is a menu item in the toolbar (admin bar).
There are comment blocks in the blocks.
There is an option to submit comments to the site via POST/REST requests.
etc.

To completely disable (remove) the WordPress functionality related to comments, you can use this plugin:

Full version in the WP repository: https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments/
Version without settings for mu-plugins: https://github.com/WPDevelopers/disable-comments-mu

Disabling Comments via Code

Below is the code taken from the plugin https://github.com/WPDevelopers/disable-comments-mu and slightly adapted so that it can be used as a single file.

Create a file disable-comments.php in the wp-content/mu-plugins folder with the following content.

GitHub

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: Disable Comments (Must Use version)
 * Description: Disables all WordPress comment functionality on the entire network.
 * Version: 1.1.2 (changed)
 * Plugin Changed URI: https://gist.github.com/doiftrue/ab931c1d866cb113b4ff318a5faeb3b3
 * Plugin URI: https://github.com/WPDevelopers/disable-comments-mu
 * GitHub Plugin URI: https://github.com/WPDevelopers/disable-comments-mu
 * Author: WPDeveloper
 * Author URI: https://wpdeveloper.com
 * License: GPL2
 */

defined( 'ABSPATH' ) || exit;

new Disable_WP_Comments();

class Disable_WP_Comments {

	public function __construct() {
		// these need to happen now
		add_action( 'widgets_init', [ $this, 'disable_rc_widget' ] );
		add_filter( 'wp_headers', [ $this, 'filter_wp_headers' ] );
		add_action( 'template_redirect', [ $this, 'filter_query' ], 9 ); // before redirect_canonical

		// Admin bar filtering has to happen here since WP 3.6
		add_action( 'add_admin_bar_menus', [ $this, 'filter_admin_bar' ], 0 );
		add_action( 'admin_init', [ $this, 'filter_admin_bar' ] );

		// these can happen later
		add_action( 'wp_loaded', [ $this, 'setup_filters' ] );

		add_action( 'enqueue_block_editor_assets', [ $this, 'filter_gutenberg_blocks' ] );
		add_filter( 'rest_endpoints', [ $this, 'filter_rest_endpoints' ] );
		add_filter( 'xmlrpc_methods', [ $this, 'disable_xmlrc_comments' ] );
		add_filter( 'rest_pre_insert_comment', [ $this, 'disable_rest_api_comments' ], 10, 2 );
		add_filter( 'comments_array', '__return_empty_array', 20 );
	}

	public function setup_filters() {
		$types = array_keys( get_post_types( [ 'public' => true ], 'objects' ) );
		if ( ! empty( $types ) ) {
			foreach ( $types as $type ) {
				// we need to know what native support was for later
				if ( post_type_supports( $type, 'comments' ) ) {
					remove_post_type_support( $type, 'comments' );
					remove_post_type_support( $type, 'trackbacks' );
				}
			}
		}

		// Filters for the admin only
		if ( is_admin() ) {
			add_action( 'admin_menu', [ $this, 'filter_admin_menu' ], 9999 );    // do this as late as possible
			add_action( 'admin_print_styles-index.php', [ $this, 'admin_css' ] );
			add_action( 'admin_print_styles-profile.php', [ $this, 'admin_css' ] );
			add_action( 'wp_dashboard_setup', [ $this, 'filter_dashboard' ] );
			add_filter( 'pre_option_default_pingback_flag', '__return_zero' );
		} // phpcs:ignore
		// Filters for front end only
		else {
			add_action( 'template_redirect', [ $this, 'check_comment_template' ] );
			add_filter( 'comments_open', '__return_false', 20 );
			add_filter( 'pings_open', '__return_false', 20 );

			// remove comments links from feed
			add_filter( 'post_comments_feed_link', '__return_false' );
			add_filter( 'comments_link_feed', '__return_false' );
			add_filter( 'comment_link', '__return_false' );

			// remove comment count from feed
			add_filter( 'get_comments_number', '__return_false' );

			// Remove feed link from header
			add_filter( 'feed_links_show_comments_feed', '__return_false' );
		}
	}

	public function check_comment_template() {
		if ( is_singular() ) {
			// Kill the comments' template. This will deal with themes that don't check comment stati properly!
			add_filter( 'comments_template', '__return_empty_string', 20 );
			// Remove comment-reply script for themes that include it indiscriminately
			wp_deregister_script( 'comment-reply' );
			// Remove feed action
			remove_action( 'wp_head', 'feed_links_extra', 3 );
		}
	}

	public function filter_wp_headers( $headers ) {
		unset( $headers['X-Pingback'] );

		return $headers;
	}

	public function filter_query() {
		if ( is_comment_feed() ) {
			wp_die( esc_html__( 'Comments are closed.' ), '', [ 'response' => 403 ] );
		}
	}

	public function filter_admin_bar() {
		remove_action( 'admin_bar_menu', 'wp_admin_bar_comments_menu', 60 );
		if ( is_multisite() ) {
			add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', [ $this, 'remove_network_comment_links' ], 500 );
		}
	}

	public function remove_network_comment_links( $wp_admin_bar ) {
		if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
			foreach ( (array) $wp_admin_bar->user->blogs as $blog ) {
				$wp_admin_bar->remove_menu( 'blog-' . $blog->userblog_id . '-c' );
			}
		}
	}

	public function filter_admin_menu() {
		global $pagenow;

		if ( in_array( $pagenow, [ 'comment.php', 'edit-comments.php', 'options-discussion.php' ], true ) ) {
			wp_die( esc_html__( 'Comments are closed.' ), '', [ 'response' => 403 ] );
		}

		remove_menu_page( 'edit-comments.php' );
		remove_submenu_page( 'options-general.php', 'options-discussion.php' );
	}

	public function filter_dashboard() {
		remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_recent_comments', 'dashboard', 'normal' );
	}

	public function admin_css() {
		?>
		<style>
			#dashboard_right_now .comment-count,
			#dashboard_right_now .comment-mod-count,
			#latest-comments,
			#welcome-panel .welcome-comments,
			.user-comment-shortcuts-wrap{
				display:none !important;
			}
		</style>
		<?php
	}

	public function disable_rc_widget() {
		// This widget has been removed from the Dashboard in WP 3.8 and can be removed in a future version
		unregister_widget( 'WP_Widget_Recent_Comments' );
		/**
		 * The widget has added a style action when it was constructed - which will
		 * still fire even if we now unregister the widget... so filter that out
		 */
		add_filter( 'show_recent_comments_widget_style', '__return_false' );
	}

	public function filter_gutenberg_blocks( $hook ) {
		add_action( 'admin_footer', [ $this, 'print_footer_scripts' ] );
	}

	public function print_footer_scripts() {
		?>
		<script>
			wp.domReady( () => {
				const blockType = 'core/latest-comments';
				if( wp.blocks && wp.data && wp.data.select( 'core/blocks' ).getBlockType( blockType ) ){
					wp.blocks.unregisterBlockType( blockType );
				}
			} );
		</script>
		<?php
	}

	/**
	 * Remove the comments endpoint for the REST API
	 */
	public function filter_rest_endpoints( $endpoints ) {
		if ( isset( $endpoints['comments'] ) ) {
			unset( $endpoints['comments'] );
		}
		if ( isset( $endpoints['/wp/v2/comments'] ) ) {
			unset( $endpoints['/wp/v2/comments'] );
		}
		if ( isset( $endpoints['/wp/v2/comments/(?P<id>[\d]+)'] ) ) {
			unset( $endpoints['/wp/v2/comments/(?P<id>[\d]+)'] );
		}

		return $endpoints;
	}

	public function disable_xmlrc_comments( $methods ) {
		unset( $methods['wp.newComment'] );

		return $methods;
	}

	public function disable_rest_api_comments( $prepared_comment, $request ) {
		return new WP_Error( 'rest_comment_disabled', 'Commenting is disabled.', [ 'status' => 403 ] );
	}

}

Done! Commenting functionality is disabled.

Complete Disabling of Commenting Functionality in WordPress

Disabling Comments via Code

Before, from: Comments