10 Best WordPress Forum Plugins in 2024 (Compared)

Looking for the best WordPress forum plugins?

Forums are a good place to share ideas and information. They are great for establishing niche communities where anybody can submit questions and answers or simply chat.

Individuals or company owners who want to add a forum page to their website may do so quickly by using a plugin. However, choosing the best WordPress forum plugin for your business can be difficult with so many options available.

To make this process easier, we will highlight some of the best WordPress forum plugins that you can use to create a community around your website or business.

Why Do You Want a WordPress Forum Plugin?

There are many benefits of using the WordPress forum plugin. These include:

• Audience Engagement: Forums are an excellent way to boost interaction among visitors. Additionally, it offers a platform for businesses to post announcements and get customer feedback.
• Increase Website Traffic: Most forum plugins are SEO-optimized, which may help your website rank higher in search engines. Furthermore, forums attract active visitors, which results in organic traffic.
• Access to Support: Users may ask questions and get answers to their questions without contacting customer support.
• Community Building: Forums provide a sense of community by allowing members to freely express their opinions and help each other with issues.

What Should You Look for in a WordPress Forum Plugins?

When choosing the WordPress discussion plugin, make sure to pay extra attention to these features:

• Value for Money: Choose a WordPress forum plugin that offers good services at a reasonable price. If a free version of the plugin is available, it’s a good idea to use it before committing to pay for it.
• SEO-Friendly: Choose a plugin that is search engine optimized. This is essential for increasing organic traffic and establishing brand trust.
• Responsive: A plugin offers a responsive design by default. A responsive design offers a better user experience and a fast load time.
• Suitable for Your Site: Determine the type of forum you want to establish and search for a plugin that has the features you want. Additionally, look for a plugin that allows you to pay only for the services you need rather than purchasing a plan you don’t need.

Best WordPress Forum Plugins

Below are some of the best WordPress forum plugins that you can use to build a community forum for your site.

1. bbPress

bbPress is the best free WordPress forum plugin. It was created by the same team which created WordPress.org. It’s simple, easy to use, and should be very familiar if you already use WordPress.

It’s lightweight and fits perfectly inside your WordPress admin. Plus, you can easily manage forums, topics, and posts from your dashboard.

You may decide whether or not to ask users to register before posting on the front end. You may also make certain forums private and only allow select users access.

If you’re looking for a simple and versatile forum solution, bbPress is a good place to start. Other plugins are better for specific types of forums. However, if you just want to quickly add a general discussion forum to WordPress, check out bbPress.

Overall, bbPress is the best plugin for adding forums to a WordPress website.

Pros:

• It’s free, open-source software, so you can use it unlimited for free.
• Extend bbPress using hundreds of third-party extensions.
• It works with any WordPress theme without the need for any changes.
• Multisite functionality, manage multiple forums from one dashboard.
• bbPress is extremely lightweight; no one could accuse it of being bloated.
• It’s owned by Automattic, so you can be sure it’s not going anywhere.
• It easily integrates with some membership plugins.

Cons:

• The core plugin has only the basic features, so you need to install additional extensions for more power.
• Technical support is not immediately available.
• The visual appearance is nothing special.

Price:

The bbPress plugin is 100% free.

2. BuddyPress

BuddyPress is another plugin created by WordPress contributors. However, BuddyPress is more than just a simple forum plugin. It’s software that transforms your WordPress website into a social network for free. BuddyPress is perfect for anyone looking to build a community around their content and/or product.

Like bbPress, BuddyPress is quick and simple to install and set up on your website. You may create a full-fledged online community with user profiles, activity streams, user groups, chat, and networking features.

Further, users may add friends, send private messages, create groups, receive messages, and do other things similar to Facebook and other social networks.

Best of all, you can use BuddyPress with bbPress to build a feature-rich online forum.

Pros:

• Open source as well as a free social network WordPress plugin.
• Highly flexible and extensible.
• Extend BuddyPress using hundreds of third-party extensions.
• Integrates with LearnDash and other WordPress plugins.
• Supports micro-communities (a group within groups).

Cons:

• The core functionality is basic, and you may want to use other plugins to add specific functions based on your needs.
• It does not provide social share buttons.

Price:

BuddyPress is free and open source.

3. Asgaros Forum

Asgaros Forum is yet another lightweight WordPress forum plugin for creating a general discussion forum for your site. To use it, you need to configure some basic settings, copy the shortcode, and paste it onto the page where you want your forum to appear.

You may change the layout of your forum as well as more advanced options like whether or not to allow file uploads. The design is simple and reminiscent of old-school bulletin boards.

Asgaros Forum is also multilingual and WordPress Multisite compatible.

Pros:

• Simple and lightweight forum plugin for beginners.
• It allows users to create a survey through polls.
• Statistics page to see how your forums are performing.
• SEO-friendly plugin.
• Multisite compatible plugin.

Cons:

• It does not support extensions to add new features.
• Better for smaller forums than larger ones.

Price:

Asgaros Forum is free to use.

4. ForumEngine

ForumEngine is a WordPress theme that converts your WordPress site into a discussion forum. It’s a strong theme designed primarily for creating a forum in WordPress. The theme displays forum posts on your website’s homepage.

With ForumEngine, you can build forums where users may engage in many ways. For example, users can post topics or questions, answer questions, like or dislike a post, etc. Additionally, users may easily search for any topic in the list using Ajax Live Search.

It also provides a private space for individuals to access and manage all of their forum activity.

Pros:

• It’s a full-featured WordPress forum theme, so you won’t need to install any plugins to set up a forum in WordPress.
• It provides various styling options for changing the appearance of your forum and making it more appealing.
• There are several widgets for adding forum statistics, categories, popular topics, etc.
• It allows you to display advertising and make money.

Cons:

• It’s a paid theme.
• Since it’s a forum theme, creating an eCommerce site with it is not possible.

Price:

ForumEngine costs $49.

5. Simple:Press

Simple:Press is a good option for adding a forum to your WordPress site. It is available in both free and premium versions, so you may select the one that best suits your needs.

With the free version, you can easily create unlimited forums, forum groups, sub-forums, and private and public forums. You may also lock and pin any forum. It offers a robust user group and permission system that allows you to control the users.

The premium version contains a private message system, image and media uploader, TinyMCE editor, nested threads, and more features.

Pros:

• It supports WordPress registrations and logins.
• Lots of tools for managing users and forums.
• SEO and translation-friendly.
• 70 premium plugins to extend its features.

Cons:

• The premium version is more expensive.
• Simple:Press is ideal only for advanced users.

Price:

A free version is available on WordPress.org. However, the premium version starts from $199 per year for a single site.

6. wpForo Forum

wpForo is another WordPress forum plugin with many design and customization options. It has four design styles for your forum: Extended, Simplified, Question and Answer, and Threaded. Each layout has its own design and set of features. There are also six forum color options, including a dark style.

Using this plugin, you can easily create advanced forums where your users may engage, get help, and contribute. Users may ask questions, answer, vote on topics, share topics on social media, and so on.

The wpForo forum plugin is also compatible with various Profile Builder and Membership plugins, including BuddyPress and Ultimate Members.

wpForo, like some of the other plugins, offers additional functionality through paid extensions or add-ons. There are add-ons for private chat, polling, and ad management.

Pros:

• The free version is very functional.
• Lots of forum features, including admin tools.
• Built-in features for SEO, XML sitemap, caching, antispam, etc.
• Migrate from other forums using the Go2wpForo tool.

Cons:

• The plugin settings are a bit complex for first-time users.
• It can get expensive if you need a lot of premium add-ons.

Price:

The free version is available at WordPress.org. To add more features, you can purchase individual add-ons that range in price from $15 to $49, depending on the feature.

7. Discussion Board

Discussion Board might be a good option if you’re looking to quickly set up a simple forum for your site. A free version of the plugin is available, as well as a paid version with more features.

The plugin is simple to install and configure, and you’ll have a working forum in no time. Visitors may register and login using a front-end form. Discussion Board makes significant use of shortcodes, which may be useful for setting up and managing forums.

The premium version includes user profiles, a WYSIWYG editor, media uploads, and more features.

Pros:

• Simple to install and set up.
• Shortcodes for ease of use.
• One-click installation for WordPress forum.
• Built-in spam reduction.
• A free version to use.

Cons:

• Limited features in the free version. You’ll need to purchase their premium plan for many useful features.

Price:

Discussion Board has a free version on WordPress.org. However, the premium version costs $49 per year for one site and $89 per year for unlimited sites.

8. CM Answers

With CM Answers, you can easily create a powerful Q&A (question and answer) discussion forum in WordPress. The basic free plugin has enough functionality to easily set up a Stack Exchange-style forum on your website.

It allows users to post questions, answer questions, vote, send private messages, and so on.

As the admin, you may modify questions and answers, filter out unwanted content, and manage users. If you want more features, such as anonymous posting and payments, you may purchase plugin add-ons.

Pros:

• Users can vote on questions and answers.
• Supports showing ads and banners inside the forum.
• Integrates with BuddyPress API.
• Users can login with their social media accounts.
• Compatible with WordPress multisite functionality.

Cons:

• Forum is limited to only a Q&A format.
• The best features are premium only.

Price:

CM Answers has a free version on WordPress.org. The premium version starts from $39 per year for a single site.

9. Sabai Discuss

Sabai Discuss is a premium Q&A forum plugin for WordPress. The plugin features the ability for users to ask and answer questions similar to Stack Overflow or Yahoo Answers.

With the help of Sabai Discuss, you can create a Q&A section on your website, similar to Quora or other Q&A sites. Visitors can register and post their questions. Other users can answer and vote up questions and answers. This is a great way to boost engagement on your website and attract highly engaged visitors.

Pros:

• Simple and attractive layout.
• Flagging and moderation tools.
• Custom filters for questions.
• Work with any themes.
• Detailed user and admin roles.

Cons:

• No free version.

Price:

Sabai Discuss plugin for WordPress costs $24.

10. AnsPress

AnsPress is an open-source, developer-friendly WordPress question-and-answer plugin. It adds a complete question-and-answer system to your existing WordPress site. You may use it to build a Q&A network similar to StackOverflow and Quora, or it can be used as a single page on an existing website. The plugin supports different languages, shortcodes, reCAPTCHA, email and push notifications, and other features.

AnsPress is more than simply questions and answers. It may be used as a bug tracker, internal Q&A board, support ticket forum, FAQ, etc.

Pros:

• Featured questions and best answers.
• Notification emails and web push notifications.
• BuddyPress integration.

Cons:

• It’s not the best option if you’re looking for a traditional forum.

Price:

The AnsPress plugin is 100% free.

Which WordPress Forum Plugin is Best for You?

Here are some suggestions to help you pick the right solution for your specific situation:

• If you just want a general discussion board, you should go with bbPress, Asgaros Forum, and wpForo.
• On the other hand, if you want a forum with social profiles and networking aspects, you should go with BuddyPress.
• Lastly, if you want to create a Q&A style forum, you should go with Sabai Discuss and CM Answers.

And that’s all we have to say about WordPress forum plugins.

Read out these other WordPress plugins articles to build your website:

• Cookie Consent Plugins for WordPress
• Review Plugins for WordPress
• WordPress Popup Plugins
• WordPress Search Plugins

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