5 Best WordPress Forum Plugins 2020: How to Add a Forum to WordPress

Ever wondered how to add a forum to WordPress website?

If yes, you have come to the right place. Keep reading. We’ll discuss everything about creating a WordPress forum here.

Well, making a WordPress website is super-easy at first place. And certainly creating a discussion forum on WordPress is super simple – all you need to know is how to install a plugin. Just pick the best WordPress forum plugin out there and install it. And, you are almost done.

Among all website platforms, WordPress platform has always been so generous and rich that there are multiple ways for doing one thing. You have thousands of themes and templates for design variations and so the huge number of plugins for various features and functionalities. No wonder there are multiple WordPress forum plugins to let you add a WordPress support forum easily.

So, I have carefully handpicked the best forum plugins for WordPress here so as to help you out choosing the most appropriate one for your site.

But before that, let’s discuss what a WordPress forum is and why it is important.

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What is a WordPress Forum? Why do you need it?

Forums are one of the traditional ways of online communication however they are very effective and useful even today. A forum allows you an opportunity to create a virtual online community, connect, discuss, share ideas, and support each other. As a website owner, you can get your entire website users involved in the community and provide a chance to learn as well as contribute.

Well, WordPress platform officially endorses forums as most of the WordPress discussion, support is based on forums. Besides, WordPress has a grown as a massive worldwide community where WordPress forum plays a pivotal role in keeping and strengthening it. So no doubts, you might want to have a powerful forum on your WordPress website.

Here are some advantages of having a WordPress forum:

• Support: A WordPress forum provides a simple platform to provide support to website users/ your customers. Moreover, it works as and a question answers discussion board where you can answer the users’ queries.
• Social Networking: You can create a huge social network of the website users. It provides a platform where website users and everyone can involve with different discussions, share ideas, and network.
• SEO Value: Often underrated but forums can provide great SEO value in an unbelievable manner. Sometimes, forum threads have the most useful content like nowhere else so rank on the top of search results and bring lots of search traffic.

Well, there may be many reasons why you want to have a forum on your WordPress site if we keep listing. But above all, a simple and easy way of connecting and communicating with people makes it worth to have.

So, let’s discuss how to add a forum on WordPress website with forum plugins.

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Best WordPress Forum Plugins for 2020

1. bbPress (FREE)

Undoubtedly, bbPress is the best WordPress forum plugin and the first of its kind. It is open source forum software which is made the WordPress way by the same people behind the WordPress software. Thus, the plugin will provide you an easy, simple, and speedy WordPress forum solution. It makes sure that your discussion forum is never slow, bloated, and the server hacked.

If you are already a WordPress user, you might have visited the WordPress.org forums. It means that you have seen how bbPress works. Similarly, ThemeGrill support forum is also based on this plugin. Hence, bbPress is for sure the first choice for a forum solution on WordPress.

Using bbPress plugin is very easy. You can easily install and set up the plugin to create a great discussion forum on your website. After activating the plugin, you can visit the ‘Forums’ menu and create some forums.  It has separate pages for forums, topics, and replies.

Pros:

• bbPress is the official WordPress plugin for forums and therefore it is built with the same coding standards as WordPress.
• It works flawlessly with any WordPress product (theme or plugin) that follows the WordPress standard guidelines.
• There are over 190 bbPress extensions/ plugins which let you add anything you like.
• It ensures seamless integration with BuddyPress which is another official WordPress community plugin. You can create a more advanced community with a forum, social network, open and private messaging using these two plugins together.

Cons:

• The plugin is simple and minimal which may not be sufficient for creating an elegant forum. It requires you to install other extensions/ plugins.

Learn More/ Download bbPress Plugin

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2. wpForo Forums (FREE + Premium Add-ons)

wpForo is a feature-rich and modern WordPress forum plugin. The plugin is suitable for small as well as large communities and all types of discussion forums. The plugin offers three different layouts: Extended, Simplified and Question and Answer Layout.  The extended layout features a classic forum layout, the Simplified layout like its name has a light and modern design, and Question and Answer Layout is great for providing support by answering users’ queries. No doubts, it is yet another best forum plugin for WordPress.

The plugin comes with five wonderful premium add-ons. The available plugin add-ons are: Embeds, Ads Manager, Advanced Attachments, Private Messages, Blog Cross Posting. The free plugin along with these add-ons make it a perfect WordPress community plugin for building an awesome community.

To creating WordPress forums using this plugin, install the plugin from the official WordPress plugin repository and activate it. Next, the plugin will ask you synchronize users and create the user profile if you already have over 100 users. Then, you can easily add ‘Categories and Forums’, choose a layout, and customize further settings from ‘Forum Settings’.

Pros:

• The plugin offers 5 add-ons for additional functionality and more add-ons are on the way. The extended features make this a complete community plugin for WordPress.
• It has three forum layouts and extended design options for displaying members, member profile and more.

Cons:

• It takes a while to understand and start; not-beginner-friendly. Extensive settings and options available in the plugin may be confusing for the beginners.

Learn More and Download wpForo Plugin

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3. DW Question & Answer (FREE + Premium)

DW Question & Answer is yet another WordPress discussion plugin for creating beautiful forums on your WordPress site. It lets you create powerful question and answer system like Quora or Stackoverflow on your WordPress website. The plugin allows the website users to submit questions, search, filter, answer, and vote the best questions/ answers.

The plugin uses a similar system like the WordPress posts that you can order the questions by tags and categories. Furthermore, it features follow a question and auto-receive notification option, sticky question, private/public questions and answers, Google reCAPTCHA, shortcode, etc. The plugin has 4 add-ons: Embed question and Social Sharing, DWQA Markdown, Leaderboard and Captcha.

DW Question and Answer plugin has a very neat and clean backend with minimalist design. After activating the plugin, go to ‘DW Q&A Settings’ and change general settings and notification settings. You can set notifications for a new question, new answer, and comments.

Pros:

• The plugin is available in both free and premium version. So, you can first start with the free version and anytime switch to the premium version as your business grows or need a more powerful WordPress forum.
• The plugin is an open-source Github project which is making improvements and also accepting contributions.

Cons:

• The plugin ignores advanced community options like member lists and member profiles.

Learn More and Download DW Question and Answer Plugin    View Premium Version

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  4. Discussion Board (FREE + Premium)

Discussion Board is an incredible WordPress discussion plugin which is a good alternative to the other forum plugins mentioned here. It is an ideal solution for adding a discussion board, message board, question answer WordPress support forum etc. The plugin adds a new post type and lets you add front-end registration and login form.  The website users can post questions and reply to the topics posted by others.

Unlike other plugins discussed above, Discussion Board has options to user roles like in standard WordPress settings. You can decide who has access to your discussion board; permission to post comment, view comment.  The plugin works closely like WordPress membership plugins. In addition, Discussion Board features automatic setup feature, anti-spam fields, shortcodes, etc.

After installing the plugin, it automatically adds three pages i.e. login and registration form page, a page with a form to post new topics, & a page with a list of topics. It has a simple and user-friendly interface so that anyone can easily configure the settings easily.

Pros:

• It is beginner-friendly. The automatic setup feature lets you an easy and quick option to start with.
• The plugin is available in both free and premium version. You can always try the free version first before making a purchase for additional functionalities.

Cons:

• The free version of the plugin lacks the major features. Most useful features are available only on Premium version.

Learn More and Download Discussion Board Plugin    View Premium Version

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5. CM Answers (FREE + Premium)

CM Answers is a questions and answers plugin for WordPress. In other words, it is an amazing forum plugin for WordPress with an ability to create discussion forums where users can add questions and answers in a stack overflow style. It allows users to post questions, give answers, comment, vote the best questions/ answers, and also upload files.

As the website owner, the plugin enables you to control the user roles and capabilities. You can decide who can view and post the questions, answers, and comments. Besides, you can have moderation options by which you can decide whether the posts be auto-approved or need moderation. In addition, the admins can customize the questions and answers, filter the posted content, and also track the user actions.

After installing and activating the plugin, you can go to the ‘Settings‘ and customize the way you like. It has multiple setting tabs including general, appearance, thread, labels, moderation, access control, notifications etc.

Pros:

• CM Answers plugin comes in both free and premium plans so you can choose one as per your need and budget. The availability of premium version and add-ons lets you an option to extend whenever you want.

Cons:

• The free version of the plugin is too basic which requires you to purchase premium add-ons or premium version.
• The plugin has a bit complex admin page with several settings which make it less beginner-friendly.

Learn More and Download CM Answers plugin    View Premium Version

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Wrapping Up

Well, we have put together the top 5 plugins for creating WordPress forums but can’t dictate which particular one to choose. Now it’s all up to you. Take your time to study the plugin features and pick the one that best fits your needs.

Concluding, if you want a free simple solution, bbPress is surely the best one. Well, it’s not just ONE plugin now but the major one with more than one hundred extensions. So, there is barely any chance of not getting any feature you need.

Last but not the least, if you have a WordPress website, you may also find these plugin collections useful:

• 15 Best WordPress Plugins Essential for Professional Websites
• TOP 5 FREE WordPress Social Media Plugins
• Best 5 WordPress Contact Form Plugins

Have any thoughts?

Feel free to comment below. 🙂