Do you want to incorporate a community section into your WordPress website? Forums and discussion boards are excellent tools for increasing user engagement and creating a sense of community around your website.

We’ve hand-picked the best WordPress forum plugins for you to use to create a community around your website or business in this article.

Aside from the basic forum functionality, we made sure to find solutions with advanced features like a question and answer board, a custom social network feature, and more, so you can create the community of your dreams.

What’s the Point of Having a Forum on Your WordPress Site?

Online forums are a great way for your website visitors to get involved by asking questions, sharing solutions, and coming up with new ideas.

Your forum can be a question-and-answer platform, a discussion board, a knowledge-sharing space, or even a problem-solving help zone.

Adding a forum to your website has a number of benefits.

Your WordPress forum software, for starters, will assist users in engaging with and participating in your website. They’re more likely to return, buy your products, and recommend them to their friends and family if they participate.

Second, it’s one of the most common and effective methods of providing customer support. When your customers have a technical or general support question, they can check the forum to see if the problem has already been addressed. If it’s a brand-new problem, they can post it and have it solved.

Finally, when a unique issue is discussed and the thread becomes popular, it adds SEO value to your website. Forum threads frequently outrank other types of content in search results. User-generated content can sometimes make more sense than formal blog posts.

As a result, here are the best WordPress plugins for adding a forum to your site.

To use these plugins, you must first have a WordPress website. You’ll need a domain and web hosting if you want to start a new website.

We recommend Bluehost because they are an official How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting (Compared)WordPress hosting provider and provide our users with a free domain name and 60% off web hosting.

1. bbPress

When it comes to integrating a forum into WordPress, bbPress is without a doubt the best option. It’s a WordPress.org sister project, which means it’s built in the WordPress style and uses the WordPress core to power your forum.

bbPress is simple to install, moderate, and maintain, as well as fast and clean. This plugin allows anyone to easily create a forum in WordPress.

Pros

  • Built for WordPress, bbPress uses the same WordPress core as WordPress and adheres to the same coding standards.
  • It works with any WordPress theme without requiring any changes. There are also some excellent bbPress WordPress themes available.
  • There are over 200 bbPress extensions available to do almost anything.
  • bbPress is fast and lightweight because it doesn’t have a lot of bloat.
  • Multisite forums can be easily created and managed from a single dashboard.
  • Because it’s open source software, you can use it as much as you want for free.

Cons

  • Vanilla Forums isn’t as feature-rich as a full-fledged forum CMS like phpBB.
  • Because the core plugin only has the most basic features, you’ll need to install additional extensions to get more functionality.

2. BuddyPress

BuddyPress is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to create your own social network. BuddyPress, like bbPress, is an official WordPress plugin. It adheres to the same coding standards and practices as WordPress.

You can create a full-fledged online community with BuddyPress, which includes user profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and networking features.

It allows your users to add friends, send private messages, create groups, and receive notifications, similar to Facebook.

The best part is that you can combine BuddyPress and bbPress to create a feature-rich online forum.

Pros

  • Integrates seamlessly with any WordPress theme or plugin.
  • There are hundreds of third-party BuddyPress plugins and extensions available to enhance the functionality.
  • Allows you to quickly build a full social network with activity streams, user profiles, social connections, groups, and more.
  • It’s open source and free. BuddyPress can be downloaded for free and used on an unlimited number of sites, as well as receiving regular updates.

Cons

  • Advanced features that you might need to build a full-fledged online community are missing from the core plugin. You’ll have to rely on third-party plugins to increase its power.

3. ForumEngine

ForumEngine is a WordPress theme that converts your website into a discussion board. It’s a powerful theme designed specifically for using WordPress to create a forum. The forum threads are displayed right on the homepage of your website with this theme.

You can use ForumEngine to create forums where users can engage in a variety of activities such as posting topics, asking questions, replying, liking, or disliking a topic. With Ajax live search, users can quickly search any topic in the list.

It also gives your users access to a private area where they can access and manage all of their forum activities.

Pros

  • You won’t need to install any plugins to create a forum in WordPress because it’s a full-featured WordPress forum theme.
  • It has a lot of styling options to help you change the look of your forum and make it more appealing.
  • There are numerous widgets for adding forum statistics, categories, and hot topics, among other things.
  • Great way to earn cash quickly by displaying advertisements.

Cons

  • Because it’s a forum theme, it’s difficult to use it to build a regular business or eCommerce site. It can be integrated with your WordPress blog, but there are no options for displaying products or other content.
  • This is a premium theme. If you’re on a tight budget, free plugins like bbPress and BuddyPress might be a better fit.

4. Simple:Press

Simple: Press is a straightforward way to incorporate a forum into your WordPress site. It is available in both free and premium versions, so you can pick the one that best suits your needs.

You can easily create an unlimited number of forums, forum groups, sub-forums, private and public forums with Simple: Press. Any forum can also be locked and pinned. It has a robust user group and permission system to help you manage your users. Your users can create extended profiles that include things like timezones and much more.

Pros

  • WordPress registrations and logins are supported, and the plugin is fully integrated with WordPress.
  • It also works with both standard WordPress and multisite installations.
  • There are over 70 premium plugins available to expand its capabilities.
  • It generates SEO-friendly permalinks and has a number of SEO features.

Cons

  • The free version is quite limited. To get advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan.

5. wpForo Forum

wpForo is a free WordPress forum plugin with a lot of customization and design options. It comes with three different design layouts for your forum: Extended, Simplified, and Question and Answer. Each layout is distinct in terms of design and features. There are also six different color styles for the forum, including a dark style.

You can easily create modern forums with this plugin, where your users can participate, receive support, and contribute. Users can ask questions, answer them, vote on them, subscribe to them and receive notifications, share them on social media, and so on.

Pros

  • Available for free, with the option to purchase paid addons to expand functionality.
  • Search engine optimization (SEO), XML sitemaps, caching, antispam, and other features are all built-in.
  • BuddyPress integration is seamless, allowing for more social networking features.

Cons

  • The free plugin only allows you to use the most basic features. Advanced features such as ad management, polls, user custom fields, private messaging, and so on will cost you money.
  • For first-time users, the plugin settings are a little confusing.

6. Asgaros Forum

wpForo is a free WordPress forum plugin with a lot of customization and design options. It comes with three different design layouts for your forum: Extended, Simplified, and Question and Answer. Each layout is distinct in terms of design and features. There are also six different color styles for the forum, including a dark style.

You can easily create modern forums with this plugin, where your users can participate, receive support, and contribute. Users can ask questions, answer them, vote on them, subscribe to them and receive notifications, share them on social media, and so on.

Pros

  • Available for free, with the option to purchase paid addons to expand functionality.
  • Search engine optimization (SEO), XML sitemaps, caching, antispam, and other features are all built-in.
  • BuddyPress integration is seamless, allowing for more social networking features.

Cons

  • The free plugin only allows you to use the most basic features. Advanced features such as ad management, polls, user custom fields, private messaging, and so on will cost you money.
  • For first-time users, the plugin settings are a little confusing.

7. CM Answers

CM Answers is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create a powerful Q&A (question and answer) discussion forum. The free plugin’s basic features are sufficient to quickly set up a Stack Exchange-style forum on your website.

Users can ask questions, answer them, vote, upload files, subscribe to categories, send private messages, and so on. You can customize questions and answers, filter out unwanted content, and manage users as the administrator. You can purchase plugin addons if you want additional features like anonymous posting and payments.

Pros

  • Most WordPress themes are compatible with it.
  • Questions and answers can also be voted on by users.
  • The premium version includes a number of additional features, such as the ability to select the best answer, profiles, comments, social media login, and so on.

Cons

  • Your forum is only available in Q&A format.
  • The premium version includes the majority of the useful features.
  • According to some user reviews on the plugin’s page, users found it difficult to use.

8. WP Symposium Pro

WP Symposium Pro is a BuddyPress alternative. This plugin allows you to create your own social network. It allows your users to create profiles and activity walls, add friends, set email alerts, join forums, and more, similar to BuddyPress or Facebook.

The plugin is compatible with all WordPress themes and plugins. This makes it possible to integrate it into an existing WordPress site.

Pros

  • Shortcodes make it easy to change colours, fonts, buttons, and other elements.
  • Option to purchase a Premium version or individual addons to enhance functionality. Users of the paid version have access to premium support.
  • The plugin’s website has documentation and videos to help you get started.

Cons

  • A premium plan is required for many useful features.

9. DW Question and Answer

On your WordPress site, you can use DW Question and Answer to create a complete Q&A (question and answer) system. If you want to build a system similar to Quora or Stack Overflow, DW Question and Answer is the place to start.

Unlike most forum plugins, it allows your users to vote on the answers, allowing the best answer to rising to the top and the least useful answers to fall to the bottom.

Pros

  • The free plugin can be used to create a simple question-and-answer system. Advanced users can upgrade to the premium version to gain access to additional features.
  • Support for CAPTCHA aids in the fight against spam.
  • It’s ideal for providing assistance to your customers or users.

Cons

  • The free plugin allows you to create a simple question-and-answer forum.

10. Discussion Board

You can create a forum with WordPress discussion board, which is a free plugin. The plugin is simple to install and configure, so anyone can create a forum in WordPress without touching any code.

You can enable a front-end registration and login system with this plugin to attract more users. It has options to limit reposts, comment moderation, and other features to prevent spamming.

Pros

  • Theme for the discussion board created specifically for the plugin. This plugin can be used with any theme you want.
  • There are plenty of useful shortcodes for displaying forms, lists of topics, and other things.
  • There is a paid version that adds more options and possibilities.

Cons

  • The free version lacks advanced features. For many useful features, you’ll need to upgrade to their premium plan.

Important Tips for Setting Up a Forum Website

To run a successful online community, you’ll need additional hosting resources, regardless of which online forum software you use.

On a shared hosting plan, you can install all of these WordPress forum plugins. On the same starter hosting package, you can even run a forum quite effectively for a while.

We recommend Bluehost if you’re just getting started and want to test the waters. They are an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider and one of the top hosting companies in the world.

However, as more people visit your forum, it will slow down and possibly crash your website. You’ll need to upgrade to a managed WordPress hosting plan in that case.

WPEngine is a plugin that we recommend. They are one of the most well-known managed WordPress hosting providers on the planet.

SiteGround would be our second choice. They are a WordPress and bbPress hosting provider that is officially recommended.

Do you require assistance in relocating your website? See how to move WordPress to a new hosting server with no downtime in our article.

We hope this article was helpful in locating the best WordPress forum plugins.

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