bbPress WordPress plugin is the most widely used WordPress forum plugin till date, but does that make it the best forum plugin to use for a WordPress Powered blog or website?
I have written a review for bbPress forum plugin after using it for a client’s website and can tell it isn’t bad a choice for someones that needs a simple discussion board to get topic suggestion, question and interaction from readers of his website and / or blog.
If only Simple:Press was released for download from the WordPress repository, bbPress wouldn’t have found any ground to compete with it.
From migration, scalable options, better integration, customization and forum specific features, Simple:Press forum plugin will offer you the best of experience for WordPress installations.
Why Simple:Press is Better than bbPress
I practically settled for bbPress and was forced to wait for over 6 months for a bug with their migration tool to get fixed, and when I couldn’t find my way around the bug I decided to work directly on my SMF database to get the guest users converted to members.
I met the biggest shock of my life on realizing that the importer did not handle codes import correctly, in fact, all the post containing raw codes [code][/code] were left blank and wouldn’t even show up when I manually edit the text window with <pre>,/pre>.
This was what prompted me to start a second check on my decision to settle for bbPress, there’s little or no provision for advanced option and custom selections.
The few plugins available for bbPress also offers nothing more when compared with SMF, PHPbb, et al. This was my reason for switching to Simple:Press, a decision I felt I should have taken like 7 months ago.
Simple:Press is a highly scalable forum software that’s compatible and can fully integrate with 98% of WordPress themes out there.
The migration tool works seamlessly with all popular forum software making it very easy for one to switch a live forum to WordPress with little or no effort from their end.
You can create custom themes for Simple:Press from ground up or customize the free ones that comes with it to suit your website needs.
Functions such as;
- Ability to merge forums
- Full control over private and public forum
- Comprehensive Admin Options and Settings
- Rating System, Social Features and better plugins to boost up your forum
- Personal Messaging (PM), Post Moderation, Image, Media and File Uploader
- Fully customizable skins and icons
- Custom Smileys and Badges
- Forum Statistics – including who is online
- Subscription System and Watched topics
Among other admirable features that isn’t now available with bbPress or any other WordPress forum plugin is what makes Simple:Press the most scalable forum plugin for WordPress.
Pros and Cons
bbPress Pros
- Developed & Maintained by Automatic
- Light option for a support system
- Available from the WordPress repository
- Easily integrate with other WordPress plugins
bbPress Cons
- Poor Migration tools
- Little control over permalink & Forum specific SEO
- Little control over private & public board
- Scanty Admin options & settings
Simple:Press Pros
- Highly Secured with more control over user’s content
- Better Control over permalink & Forum-Specific SEO
- Completely localized for language support
- Compatible with WordPress themes including Genesis and Thesis
- Offers all features of a standalone forum
Simple:Press Cons
- Not available in the WordPress repository
- Plugins aren’t available to the public
- Membership plan cost money
- Users rely on the documentation for support except for those with a membership plan
In Conclusion
Simple:Press is best for you, if you’re looking for a robust and highly scalable forum software that seamlessly integrates with WordPress, providing all the features of a standalone forum.
We migrated to Simple:Press forum not too long ago and are already making plans to customize it to our test. You can see all the awesome features of the Simple:Press Forum plugin, documentation and installation guide from their official website.
Also feel free to use this thread for getting any support related to the Simple:Press forum software.
Took your advice and took the plunge with SimplePress instead of BBPress and we’ve been very disappointed in the results. While the SimplePress Support team have been responsive, it’s simply not as “simple” to integrate it into our (very current) Theme and a month into the process, we’ve been forced to simply give up and look for alternatives. Very dissapointing indeed.
So sorry about the disappointing experiences Dennis, most recent themes and frame-works does normally have this kind of jQuery and JavaScript compatibility issues when not configured properly.
You can always use the integration option to play around the theme compatibility challenges.
Thanks Obasi. We tried everything and while we expected seamless, it was quite the contrary. Seems to us that the SimplePress architecture needs to catch up with recent themes, versus the other way around.