Adding a Forum to a WordPress Blog?

[davidfranco]

I have already got a wordpress blog but now I want to have a forum for it, I searched and found some like bbPress, or buddypress. But I am getting confused between choosing a standardalone version like phpbb, mybb, vbulletin, xenforo or using a forum software that compatible with WordPress?

 

[Dean]

Hi, If you're looking to add a forum to your Wordpress then bbpress and buddypress are the easiest because they will integrate right in with Wordpress.

You can use one of the separate forum software packages but it will require a little more work. You would have to install these in a subdomain or subfolder and link them together with your blog.

It all comes down to how much work you are wanting to do to integrate a forum in with your blog.

Cheers, Dean

 

[KeralMTG]

All the wordpress blogs that i seen with forums on them looked cheap when they are using buddypress or bbpress. I think it would be better to use a script that is made to be a forum and not on that ads on a forum to a blog.

If it looks good then your traffic will stay and if it looks bad then they will not stay long.

 

[KeralMTG]

Last weekend I was looking at many different forums and several of them were wordpress sites with forums in them. They were all using the bbpress and buddypress and none looked good and all looked real cheap because of they way those plugins make forums.

The best way to have a forum on a wordpress site is to use stand alone forum script and link the 2 together. This way it will look more professional.

 

[ulterios]

Adding a forum to a WordPress blog and how to do it will come down to how serious you are about the forum part of it. If you are going for easy and not so feature filled then the WP forum plugins like bbPress and BuddyPress can be good and quick options.

However, if you are more serious about the forum part of your site then I would recommend a stand-alone forum script. This will give your forum a much more professional look and feel as well as adding tons of great features over a WP based forum. XenForo even has some WP to XF bridges so that you can easily integrate a forum with XenForo. I haven't looked but I am sure that vBulletin might have the same or similar abilities.

Stand-alone is the way to go for features, functions and a nice clean forum look. The WordPress forum plugins will work if you want ease of setup and less features to deal with.

 

[jpy]

I don't think it really matters whether or not you use a WordPress forum or a different one. However, though, if you're really into WordPress, then, of course, you might want to use a WordPress product. Anyway, if you don't choose, say, bbPress, then there are many things to consider. For instance, do you want a free or premium platform like XenForo or Vbulletin? Do you want to pay for updates? Are you good at "under the hood" stuff with forums, a possible requirement with free platforms?

 

[vinaya]

So you want a forum with your blog. In that case create a subdomain and install a free forum scripts such as mybb or phpbb. These two forum scripts are most used forum scripts. I don't see any need to use a premimum forum script such as xenforo. They say there are forum plugins for wordpress which allows you to create and use forums on your main website. However, I have never tried this.

 

[Ben]

If you use the dedicated forum software options like Xenforo or Vbulletin then you are going to have a lot more features and options available to help you with your forum.

They have some addons that you can get to connect a regular wordpress website to them that you can check and see more about. I am not sure but I think that they are paid options though.