24 Feb BuddyPress VS bbPress – Which is the Better To Create a Community with WordPress?

WordPress is slowly becoming the quintessential standard for the web, and I might be overstating the importance of WordPress, but statistics doesn’t lie. With more than 33% of the web made in WordPress website, it is here to stay and the upcoming days are looking bright for the platform.

WordPress with its array of plugins and themes can help you create almost anything, including social networking features. The two main plugins that are popular among the social networking arena for WordPress is BuddyPress and bbPress. Sounds Similar? Don’t worry, we will go in depth of each of these articles and understand why and how they can be useful to you as a website owner or developer.

Nowadays, social networking websites are booming, a prime example being Facebook. With Facebook and Google+, there is seldom a need for other social networking site or features. But, there are instances, when a website or community can take advantage of creating a personal social network using networks already available in the market. Examples would itself includes the forums of WordPress website, which runs on the bbPress.

We also recommend reading:

• 9+ Best Free WordPress Forum Themes for bbPress
• 10 Free BuddyPress Themes
• 7 Free Social Media Plugins for WordPress 2019

So, the real question arises. Which one to choose? Which one is better for you? We will go through all the questions one by one, exploring the differences and similarities of both the platform.

Here is a great summary from one of our readers:

If you want social network like facebook kind use BuddyPress, if you want forums use bbPress. Both cores are different and have different features but to call BuddyPress a forum is a little much, which it does not the same as bbPress. To call BuddyPress a forum when it is all by itself without bbPress is not right.Awesome Bryner

Let’s go through those two plugins one by one.

BuddyPress — Key to Social Network Creation

Social Networks are booming, so does the chance for you to create an incredible social network around your website. And, if you are looking to create a social network, then BuddyPress is a perfect choice.

BuddyPress is the work of Automattic, the team behind the WordPress platform, and this ensures that it integrates seamlessly with the WordPress ecosystem. BuddyPress, itself has become one of the finest ecosystems for social network creation as it comes with hundreds and thousands of plugins that makes websites created using BuddyPress more functional and impressive.

To add value to the BuddyPress platform, it comes free of cost as does most the other services that are released by Automattic. So, what makes BuddyPress great? It’s features. Let’s list few of its major features.

• Account creation by users.
• Activity Stream similar to Facebook.
• User Accounts can be filled with information and are interactive.
• Private and public message sending.
• Group creation.
• Facebook like network creation.

And much more. The BuddyPress platform is rich and can offer tons of other add-ons. Some of the popular add-ons are BuddyPress Activity, Invite Anyone and more.

bbPress — Forum based community

Another community-based plugin for WordPress that has been developed by the Automattic and yes it is free to use. The main purpose of the plugin is to create discussion boards on the website and extend the functionality of the website with the integrated interface and WordPress like feel.

The bbPress plugin is also blessed with add-ons that improve its functionality and comes with lots of features. They are as follows:

• Extremely easy installation.
• Have tons of add-ons to improve functionality.
• WordPress user accounts can be integrated to bbPress users.

bbPress is best suited for forums based community, and it can improve on its add-ons. So, if you are looking for anything for your bbPress, then you might not be disappointed as someone has taken its time to release an amazing plugin for your problems.

BuddyPress VS bbPress – Which is better software to create a community with WordPress?

Similarities between bbPress and BuddyPress

Even they are different plugins and are developed for different purposes. They do have some similarities, and we will try to list some of them below:

• Both of the plugins have a simple requirement, i.e., WordPress. The similarity is obvious, but the CMS does play a role in their functionality. WordPress is a great platform, and this enables both the plugins to take advantage of the core capabilities of the WordPress.
• The same team develops both the plugins, and this adds a significant amount of value to the plugin. The support for both the plugins is great, enabling you to focus on creating something valuable instead of focusing on the issue during installation, maintenance and other forms of working with the plugin.
• Both the plugins have one unique aspect; they build community, it can be either a forum based or social networking based.

Now, let move to some dissimilarities between bbPress and BuddyPress

Dissimilarities between bbPress and BuddyPress

Even with much core similarities, both of the plugins are made for different purposes. Let’s list the difference between bbPress and BuddyPress.

• The core difference between bbPress and BuddyPress is it’s what they are made for. bbPress is great for forum based community, but if you are looking for more features such as private message exchange, group creation, then BuddyPress is a great choice.
• The number of plugins for BuddyPress is more than that of bbPress. Both the plugins are popular in their respective segment but looks like BuddyPress have more lovers from the developer segment. Currently, BuddyPress has more than 500 plugins, whereas bbPress has only 150+ plugins.
• bbPress offers a simple solution to a build a community; the only tradeoff is the features that you do not get with bbPress — this helps easier maintenance for administrators.

Conclusion: So, which one should I choose?

The choice of the plugin completely depends on the requirements. If you are addressing a small to a medium audience and only wants a forum based functionality, then bbPress is for you. Finding the better software for creating a kick ass community whether forum base or more social is not a tough call after all.

On the other hand, if you are addressing a huge amount of visitors, then BuddyPress is for you. The reason is better control over different functionality and also providing features to a diverse audience.

Both the plugins offer the similar core feature but go apart as soon as they have more to offer. bbPress is the right choice for small and medium scale websites.

So, what are you choosing for your next project? Comment below and let us know which platform are you choosing and also share your experience with us!

*last updated 02/24/2019