Maneela K.CAs well all know, WordPress serves as the platform for almost all kinds of websites. And, the list also includes social networking or community websites. As a matter of fact, the largest portion of such websites heavily relies on BuddyPress for creating the online communities on their website. So, it wouldn’t be wrong if I say BuddyPress is the backbone of the social networking websites.
BuddyPress plugins, on the other hand, helps in adding functionalities to those websites. They have been proved to be a boon when it comes to creating a social community or groups for your website. All in all, BuddyPress plugins help in bringing out the best and enhancing the community features to WordPress.
What is BuddyPress?
BuddyPress is an official WordPress plugin that provides you an opportunity to enhance your WordPress site by adding social networking features to them. This plugin allows you to add features like activity streams, user groups, member types, user profiles and many other such features.
Since BuddyPress is perfectly compatible with WordPress, the duo helps you to create awesome social networking communities on your WordPress sites. Moreover, BuddyPress is an open source platform and a flexible package. Thus, it will save your thousands of dollars that you would spend in creating a quality community website.
What are BuddyPress plugins?
BuddyPress comes loaded with galore of features that are required to create an amazing social networking site. However, BuddyPress alone, in some ways, lag behind in making the website super successful. That is where we need the BuddyPress plugins. Thus, BuddyPress plugins can be said to be the support system while it comes to building a beautiful and successful community website.
In simple words, BuddyPress lays the foundation while the other BuddyPress plugins help in building outstanding membership websites by fulfilling the advanced networking needs.
Let’s check out on all the BuddyPress plugins in detail now…
List of Best BuddyPress Plugins
1. iFlyChat ( Free + Premium)
iFlyChat is one of the most popular real-time chat plugins by far. This plugin fits in all kinds of social networking and community websites. Moreover, iFlyChat is integrated with WordPress, Drupal, BuddyPress, and Phpfox. In addition, it takes care of the security of your conversation by providing automatic encryption for SSL based sites. Moreover, it also offers a set of customizable emoticons that allows the users to be more expressive about their emotions. Furthermore, one can also share the files, images, and documents in different formats like PDF, docs, png, etc. Besides, the files can be shared both in private as well as in public chat room.
Key Features:
- iFlyChat Server
- Embedded Chat Room
- Attractive Pop Up Chat
- Cross-Platform Chat
- File Attachment
Price: Starting From $ 17 per Month (A free version of this plugin is also available )
2. BuddyPress Member Types (Premium)
If you are running a community website that consists of various types of members, the plugin is definitely for you. BuddyPress Member Types is one of the best BuddyPress plugins that make it easy to create, manage and assign member type to the users. Moreover, you can also assign WordPress User Roles to different member types. Besides that, it gives you the power to hide or display the member types in you members directory. Additionally, it allows displaying different registration forms and profile fields that suits the member type.
Key Features:
- New Member Type
- Availability of Registration Forms
- Profiles fields for Member Types
- Assignment of WordPress Roles
- Import Member Types
Price: Starting From $39
3. User Pro (Premium)
UserPro is one of the best BuddyPress plugins that provides the ability to your users to log in to your community site in the simplest way possible. Not just allows them to log in to the site via their social networking accounts, but it also allows them to manage their details on your site. Moreover, it comes along with stunning front-end registration and login system. Also, you can embed them wherever you think is suitable. Apart from that, this plugin also has many other features like following and follower system, badges and achievements features at your disposal.
Key Features:
- Front-end Registration and Login
- Customizable Front-end Profile
- Multiple View Modes
- Multiple templates to Display Member List
- Content Restriction Option
Price: $39
4. rtMedia (Free )
If you are looking for a complete media solution to elevate your WordPress, BuddyPress and bbPress experience then, rtMedia can be your ultimate solution. Firstly, this plugin is very easy to install and configure. In addition, it is also WordPress.com VIP compatible. Moreover, it is built on mobile first approach meaning it looks good on all types of devices. Apart from that, rtMedia also offers more than 35 premium add-ons. Hence, the add-ons make it easier for you to upload, edit and manage media on BuddyPress.
Key Features:
- Extension for Instagram Effects
- Custom Thumbnail for Audio/Video
- 35+ Pemium Add-ons
- Media Privacy
- Lightbox and Masonry
5. Paid Membership Pro (Free + Premium)
With 60,000+ active installs, Paid Membership Pro is the leading payment collection plugin for the variety of membership and community sites. It is a complete package of everything required for member management, membership subscriptions, and payment collection. Moreover, it is suitable for all kinds of online as well as offline businesses. Furthermore, it is also fully compatible with some popular payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net. All the configurations for these gateways can be done through a single page easily.
Key Features:
- Over 60 Add-ons
- Unlimited Membership Levels
- Supports Popular Payment Gateways
- Extensive Options for Content Restriction
- Highly Customizable Reports and Member Dashboards
Price: Starting from $297 per year (A Free version of this plugin is also available)
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I know it’s not an easy task to select one plugin out from the hundreds of best plugins. Thus, I tried to make your task a little easier. Hopefully, BuddyPress plugins that I have listed down will help you a lot in creating an impressive community website. In fact, Using these plugins will help you to take your community website to a whole new level.
Would you like me to add more plugins to the list? Do let me know about your thoughts through the comments 🙂
If you liked this article, please feel free to check out on our other articles. I’m pretty sure, they are all worth you time.
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