Add a Forum to WordPress Blog with bbPress
If you run a WordPress blog on topics that lend themselves in to discussions among the visitors then adding a discussion board to your blog will be a good idea. The discussion boards will be very helpful for increasing the visitor activity in your blog. There are many fully functional forum scripts like phpBB, SMF, myBB and vBulletin. But these scripts will consume lot of your hosting resources like database, bandwidth and most importantly the handling of these forum scripts will be a bit difficult for non geeky blog owners. If you like to have a simple discussion board then bbPress will the best option because of its simplicity and the reputation that it comes from the same team behind WordPress.
bbPress is simple, clean and powerful forum software from Automatic, the team behind WordPress. The installation, administration and maintenance of bbPress are very easy. Unlike other forum software’s bbPress is built on same infrastructure of WordPress and hence it will integrate perfectly with a WordPress powered blog. You should upgrade your blog to a recent version before trying to get WordPress and bbPress talking to each other. bbPress can share user data with an existing WordPress installation. Your users can login to either your WordPress blog or bbPress forum and be effectively logged in to both.
bbPress has some disadvantages too. The main problem is that bbPress is still in its initial stage and hence it misses some of the features offered by other forum software’s. So if you want many advanced features for your forum then bbPress may not be the right cup of tea for you. But for those who want a simple discussion board bbPress have everything for satisfying their need. Also bbPress don’t have such a vast supporting community at this stage so you may not find lot of plugins and templates like WordPress have.
Installing bbPress:
1. Download bbPress from the download page.
2. Upload the uncompressed files to your server.
3. Optionally upload language files to “my-languages” – You will have to create this directory.
4. Visit the intended URL of the bbPress site.
5. You will be greeted with the bbPress installer.
6. Follow the instructions in the installer and submit the necessary details.
7. Visit “Settings” in the admin area to customize your installation.
8. Integrate bbPress with WordPress.
That is all buddy, your forum is up and it is the time for party.
Have you already tried bbPress? What was your experience? Please Share your comments here.
A simple 21 year old guy who loves blogging and having infinite passion for technology. Founder of 
There was definitely a point where I considered having a forum on my blog. I didn’t know there was a plugin for it. Then again, there’s a plugin for everything. I don’t think forums are a thing of the past whatsoever because there are still many people that use them. However, I just don’t know if that’s something I plan on implementing at this time. It is good to know there’s a plugin to make it happen.
Tal.ki Forum and Wp- Forum are two good forum plugins. But if you need a full featured forum then you should use bbPress.
Thanks for commenting
Hi Rojish,
I have experimented with BBPress in past but I do not like that it behaves more like a stand-alone script. I prefer Simple Press Forums plugin. It works better according to me.
Nice to see you here Ishan.
Yes, Simple Press Forums plugin is very good and easy to use. But I felt that bbPress was more powerful and we can make lot of customizations using additional plugins.
Thanks for commenting.
I was unaware of a plugin for the forum for a blog but after going through the post which yo written it was really cool to know.
Glad that you shared it.
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