5 Best Choices for Wordpress Forum Plugins

What if you want a forum on your blog? Well there are plenty of open source forum systems available. But what about integrating your blog cms with your new forum? There are some effective Wordpress plugins to help you accomplish this. But choosing the right one is critical. There are many plugins to help you accomplish this, but I found 5 that actually do what they say they do!

1. bbPress

http://bbpress.org/
Pound for pound bbPress is your best option for integrating a full fledged forum into your blog. bbPress has a very simple interface which makes it very popular amongst it’s users. The templates are easy to customize. In fact they are just as easy to customize as Wordpress templates. And the plugin actually integrates the forum database with your Wordpress database, that way the integration is seamless.

2. Forum Server

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/forum-server/
Forum Server is a plugin for Wordpress that is a more advanced and up-to-date plugin of the original WP-Forum plugin. It will integrate with your Wordpress Users database table so that users who are registered with your blog will also be registered with the forum. The plugin is a little bit more complex to use than bbPress, but you will find a few different characteristics of this forum that you might like and choose over bbPress.

3. Simple: Press Forum

http://simplepressforum.com/
If you like lots of icons in your forums than you will enjoy this plugin. Again this one is not as easy to use as bbPress. But for those who are accustomed to more traditional looking and functioning forums than this will be a great choice for you. This plugin can too integrate with Wordpress user registrations and logins. This forum appears to have the most overall features than any of the other Wordpress forum plugins. If it is a more advanced forum you are after, then go with Press Forum.

4. phpBB Recent Topics

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/phpbb-recent-topics/
There may be a situation where it’s best to install your forum with an open source application, separate from the blog entirely. phpBB is by far the most popular and notable of the open source forum apps. This plugin for Wordpress called phpBB Recent Topics will allow you to include in your blog (anywhere of your choice) a list of the most recent threads or topics from your phpBB forum! This is the quickest and least painful way of integrating a forum with your blog.

5. Wp2BB

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp2bb/
Wp2BB provides another way for you to integrate your phpBB forum with your Wordpress blog. What this plugin does is that it automatically creates new topics in your phpBB forum for every new post that you write in your Wordpress blog. It can also coexist with the Wordpress comments system or replace it completely. In a nutshell this plugin would increase the conversation in your forum rather than where normally takes place in your blog posts comment threads.

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Bookmark and Promote!

Rhys on September 19, 2009:

Big BIG fan of bbPress. I love it, it’s so simple, and like you’ve said – it’s easy to integrate with Wordpress blogs. I wonder why it hasn’t been picked up more? phpBB is a ballache to edit & vBulletin is expensive!

Mark on October 28, 2009:

Tried bbPress on one of our sites after seeing it here and I must say I really like it very much. Very simple and effective.

admin on October 29, 2009:

That’s really good to hear. It’s such a good feeling to setup a new open source app and that thing to work perfectly! Gotta love it!

Johan L on December 4, 2009:

Just a note on Forum Server. It has quite a few security holes if you use user groups and protected forum categories. See my post att wordpress.org – http://wordpress.org/support/topic/338055?replies=1

Apart from that it’s easy to use, looks good and integrates well with WP.

/johan

Honey on January 6, 2010:

Nice, compilation, i’ve tried bbpress but doesn’t work for me.

Bill Joyce on January 26, 2010:

I’ve been trying to figure out how to use WP as a forum. Blog Posts, comments, Hmmm.

I want something that looks and feels more blog like (and less belletin board like) that has the interaction of a ommunity.

I’m off to try BB Press and see how that goes. Your list was helpful.

Thanks

HKBP on February 7, 2010:

wow, i like this article …
very interesting to build my community in wordpress!
Thanks so much!

Encyclopedia on February 28, 2010:

Thank you. i like w2bb forum.
thanks.

Huw on March 4, 2010:

Some very good info here – handy to find too since I am in the process of choosing a forum for the New Beats site.

Written on September 18, 2009 at 8:29 am by Chase Sagum