WordPress is one of the best and Top host provider in the world, Meanwhile, you have the best chance to make the Best WordPress Discussion Forum with the Following Plugins which we will be Disusing on this page.

However, WordPress forum plugins has made it possible for you to build a forum without even knowing a single line of code of any kind.

The Best WordPress Discussion Forum Plugins

It has become a lot more easier to build a community than in the past, now with just few clicks you will have a full functional forum.

The List of Best WordPress Discussion Forum Plugins

Let’s take a look at the best WordPress forum plugin options to help you quickly setup a forum and build a community.

• bbPress
• BuddyPress
• ForumEngine
• Simple:Press
• wpForo Forum
• Cinnamon Boards
• Sabai Discuss for WordPress
• bublaa forum and comments
• CM Answers
• Forym

Now, you have to get the following straight …

1. bbPress

This is number one on the list when it comes to integrating a forum into WordPress, bbPress is one of the best plugin to build a forum with WordPress. It is preferred by many people. It is a sister project of WordPress.org, which means that it’s built the WordPress way and uses the existing WordPress core to power your forum.

This plugin is a lightweight version, with simple designs and a friendly user interface. It is easy to setup and it’s also available in about 11 languages, and they seem to add a few more on occasion. It has everything you would expect in a forum,

Features

• It’s a free open source software, so you can use it unlimited for free.
• Built for WordPress, bbPress utilizes the same WordPress core and follows the same coding standards as WordPress.
• It integrates with any WordPress theme without painful modifications. There are also some excellent WordPress themes for bbPress that you can use.
• More than 200 bbPress extensions available to do just about anything you want.
• You can easily create multisite forums and maintain them from one dashboard.

2. BuddyPress

With BuddyPress, you can create a full-fledged online community with user profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and networking options.It like social media like to Facebook because it allows your users to add friends, send private messages, create groups, and get notifications.

Features

• Easily integrates with any WordPress theme and plugin.
• Hundreds of third party BuddyPress plugins and extensions to extend the functionality.
• Lets you easily create a complete social network with activity streams, user profiles, social connections, groups, etc.
• It’s free and open source. Download BuddyPress for free and use it on unlimited sites, and also get regular updates.

3. ForumEngine

ForumEngine is actually a paid WordPress theme which turns your WordPress site into a discussion forum. It’s a powerful theme built specifically for creating a forum in WordPress. The theme shows the forum threads right on your website homepage.

With ForumEngine, you can create forums where users can interact in many ways like posting topics, questions, replying, liking or disliking a topic. It allows users to quickly search any topic in the list with Ajax live search.It also provides a private space to your users where they can access and manage all their activities in the forum.

4. Simple:Press

Using Simple:Press, you can create unlimited forums, forum groups, sub-forums, private and public forums easily. You can also lock and pin any forum. To let you manage the users, it has a powerful user group and permission system. Your users can create extended profiles with timezone, and a lot more. It has a free and premium version to cover your every need.

5. wpForo Forum

wpForo is a free WordPress forum plugin which comes with plenty of design and customization options. It features 3 design layouts for your forum: Extended, Simplified, and Question and Answer layout. Each layout has a unique design and features. Plus, there’re 6 set of forum color styles including dark style.

Using this plugin, you can easily create modern forums where your users can participate, get support, as well as contribute. Users can post questions, give answers, vote, subscribe to topics, and receive notifications, share topics on social media, etc.

 6. Cinnamon Boards

Cinnamon Boards is a WordPress forum plugin for the relatively small price of $25. The thing I enjoy most about this plugin is that it responds to all devices so you don’t have to worry about excluding people who are working on cellphones or tablets.

It includes sleek forum features such as threads, categories, topics and messages, and it integrates directly into WordPress so you can use the default user/admin system and even link the plugin with Akismet. It’s an out-of-the-box product, meaning you don’t have to go into the settings and change things around beforehand.

Simply activate the plugin and you are good to go. You will have to create your own topics and categories, but that’s up to you to decide on.

 7. Sabai Discuss for WordPress

This plugin is close to my heart because of its minimalist design. It’s actually a Q and A plugin, but this is so similar to a forum that I like to include plugins like this in the discussion.

Basically, people can type in a question on your site and all of the other users can chime in and help the person out, just like a forum. The reason I like using Q and A plugins is because once you start building up questions and answers it starts to act as a knowledge base so you can send it to people who are in need of support.

It has a flat deign, you can put categories in a hierarchical format and it even has a reputation system to show which people are best at answering the questions.

8. bublaa forum and comments

The bublaa forum and comments plugin is one of the less known options, but it stands out for a couple reasons. To start, it combines the comments and forum areas on your site so everyone can come together and consolidate the conversations in a single place. This helps with real-time discussion and keeping users engaged before they decide to do something else with their time.

Another nice feature is the ability to display active discussion on any page throughout your website. Even if someone is looking at your products pages or something else deeper in your website they can see what people are talking about and even join in if they desire.

 9. CM Answers

CM Answers is one of the most powerful forum and Q and A plugins I have come across, because users can filter the discussions by week, month, featured items and what’s hot at the time. You can also post answers to the questions and vote on whether or not you like it or think it adds value to the community.

This is quite similar to Reddit or Stackoverflow, where the voting plays a big part in the way items show up to other people.

10. Forym

Forym formerly known as WP Pro Forum System is a reasonably priced WordPress forum plugin that lets you make customer filters so you don’t have to stick with what it given to you.

Translate items on your forum through the plugin and even drop images into the design on the frontend of your website. The custom page styling options are some of the best I’ve ever seen, and they really make it easy for beginner forum moderators. Not to mention, the integration with WordPress is flawless.

Conclusion

Note that choosing the best WordPress forum plugin depends on the needs of the forum you want to create. Once you have a clear picture of what you want you can now make a choice of WordPress forum plugin.