10 of the Best WordPress Community Plugins For 2024

Regardless of the type of website you own and run, you’re constantly on the lookout for ways to retain as well as engage your visitors. This is where the WordPress community plugin comes in.

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Quality content goes a long way, however, forming a community around your website can take you a step further and make your goals achievable. Including community functionality in your website can be an exceptional approach to developing a long-lasting relationship with your users, thus, making your site a success.

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Fortunately, WordPress makes it pretty simple to implement. With the help of the ever-growing options of WordPress community plugins available, adding community functionality to your site now can be seamless and efficient.

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In this article, you’ll discover which WordPress community plugin you can use to add community functionality to your site and how effective they can be to your community site!

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What are Community Plugins For WordPress?

Community plugins for WordPress are third-party add-ons that add features and functionalities to facilitate community building and interaction. These plugins allow website owners to create more engaging and dynamic user experiences by enabling the creation of social networks, discussion forums, Q&A sections, and more.

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While WordPress allows posting comments on pages or posts, it may not suffice for a community website. To enable more advanced features, such as those required for building an interactive and engaging online community, the use of community plugins becomes essential.

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Best Community Plugins For WordPress - 

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Testing plugins is necessary to determine whether you will enjoy the user experience and how it appears on the frontend of your site. This is especially true for communities and forums, where you'll need to manage the community and make the forum attractive so people will want to visit again.

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The top WordPress community plugins, most of which are free, are listed here. We hand-picked all of the WordPress community builder plugins on the list based on their active installations, ratings, and updates.

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As a result, you can look over each plugin and select the one that best suits your website.

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1. AtomChat
2. Youzify
3. UserPro
4. Ultimate Memberships Pro
5. bbPress
6. wpForo Forums
7. Profile Grid
8. BuddyBoss
9. WP Symposium Pro
10. Ultra Community

1. AtomChat - 

AtomChat is a chat plugin that enables your community members to converse with one another without redirecting them to another page.

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By installing this plugin on your website, you can easily add real-time chat functionality to your site and transform your online community into a truly social community!

Some extraordinary features of this plugin include:

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• Real-time text chat, video, and voice call

• Real-time translation with over 30 languages supported

• Collaborative features such as Screen sharing and whiteboard

• White Label Mobile Apps so that your members never miss a notification

• Monetize with ads and tiered access

• Customize your chat window with the Admin Panel

• 30+ Integrations

• GDPR Compliant

Price - $49/month

2. Youzify -

Youzify is a highly customizable and WordPress best community plugin that allows your users the opportunity to create a custom profile or page according to their likes. This feature-laden WordPress community builder plugin allows your website to produce a unique user experience which translates into your community site becoming a social hotspot and you achieving substantial community engagement.

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Youzify includes all the necessary features needed for building a great community website:

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• Highly Responsive Design
• MyCred, MailChimp, Giphy, Mailster, bbPress Integrations
• Powerful Admin Panel with color schemes, custom profile widgets, social network icons, profile structures, and much more
• Secure Memberships with social login, advanced Captcha, secure password reset, limited login attempts
• Monetize with Ads, Donations, and Sponsors, or charge a subscription fee
• Ajax Admin Panel

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Youzify Price: $60 for Lifetime Youzify Pro

3. UserPro - 

UserPro is a simple-to-use all-in-one WordPress community plugin that helps complete your community website. The plugin offers features such as building front-end user profiles, registration, and login for WordPress as well as content restriction, verified accounts, and user badges amongst others.

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By adding UserPro, your community website can have features such as:

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• Enabling Social connect and instant profile sync via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Bkontakt, LinkedIn, and Instagram
• Custom Redirection after login/registration
• You can give each registration form an automatically assigned user role
• MailChimp Integration - Link UserPro fields with MailChimp list fields for advanced email forms
• WooCommerce Sync - This allows you to manage the WooCommerce Shipping and Billing fields directly in UserPro forms and extend the WooCommerce checkout page with custom fields added by UserPro.
• SVG Avatars Generator Integration - For unique user avatars
• BuddyPress Integration - UserPro allows you to synchronize UserPro profiles with BuddyPress profiles
• You can also choose to display online users on the website and also their profile pictures
• Display users by specific role
• Admin can block/unblock user accounts

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UserPro Price: $39 for a single site

4. Ultimate Memberships Pro - 

Ultimate Memberships Pro is a must-have for community sites that are subscription-based and give access to content and plans based on membership levels.

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This plugin allows you to monetize your website by providing you with paid and free membership levels as well as subscription packages that allow you to restrict visible content as per the membership fee paid.

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The plugin also comes packed with some other desirable features such as:

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• Sale of Subscriptions via WooCommerce
• Restriction of pages and URLs
• Restriction of Keywords
• Dashboard Statistics
• Responsive Design that looks beautiful on any type of design
• Payment Gateways such as PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2CheckOut, Braintree, Payza, Bank Transfer integrated
• Drip Content - UMPro allows you to release content at regular intervals, with settings for when each item becomes available based on subscription time or level
• The plugin also locks and unlocks content based on subscription level
• UMPro is integrated with 9 email marketing platforms for ease of marketing reach
• Social Login with sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, VKontakte, Tumblr integrated
• Custom Redirects
• GDPR Compliant

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Ultimate Memberships Pro: Price: $59/1-site

5. bbPress - 

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bbPress is one of the most popular forum plugins for WordPress. Adding a powerful discussion board to your site makes it easy to grow your community. Built by the creators of WordPress, this plugin is well-supported and often integrated with other themes and plugins for more advanced forum functionality. 

It integrates with membership plugins like MemberPress and Paid Membership Pro to easily add a forum to your membership site.

By adding bbpress, your community website can have features such as:

• Seamless integration with WordPress, making it easy to set up and manage forums on your website.
• Simple and lightweight, allowing for faster loading times and better user experience.
• Customizable templates, allowing you to create a unique look and feel for your forum.
• Moderation tools, including the ability to assign moderators and manage user roles and permissions.
• Built-in Akismet spam protection, reducing the need for additional spam filters.
• Support for user subscriptions and email notifications, ensuring users stay up-to-date with forum activity.
• Threaded and flat view options, allow users to view discussions in the way they prefer.

bbPress Price -  Free

6. wpForo Forums

The greatest WordPress forum plugin is wpForo Forums. A full-featured yet simple and light forum solution. Modern and responsive forum layouts and styles are included. This WordPress best community plugin includes everything you'll need to build a professional and efficient community. A powerful and attractive forum with a variety of features.

For those who like a more current design than bbPress, we recommend the WPForo Forum plugin. The colors appear to be brighter, the threads are well-organized, and it is pretty simple to follow even for new users. To get you started, there are a few layouts available, all of which are modern and responsive.

Features:

• Antispam and Akismet are both built into the forum plugin, so you can combat some of the spam that plagues boards.

• It has a more modern forum design than bbPress and some of its competitors.
• Users can cast votes and respond to questions.
• The profile system is quite sophisticated, including member ratings and badges for establishing credibility.
• A drag-and-drop editor controls the forum administration system. As a result, you won't have to fiddle with any switches or codes.
• Users can subscribe to specific topics and receive updates as they are updated.

• WPForo Forum comes with three different layouts: one with an extended forum, one with a condensed forum, and one with a question-and-answer format.
• Other plugins are constantly being developed to be compatible with WPForo Forum. There's one plugin for advanced attachments and another for blog publishing, for example.

wpForo Forums Price: Basic FREE, addons cost between $11 and $95

7. Profile Grid - 

Profile Grid is a user profile plugin for WordPress that allows you to create custom profiles and directories on your website. With Profile Grid, you can create unique profile layouts with custom fields and content, and display them in a grid or list format. This plugin is highly customizable, allowing you to configure the display of profiles based on user roles, and choose from various grid templates and animation effects. 

Profile Grid also comes with powerful search and filtering options, making it easy for users to find the profiles they are looking for.

Features - 

• Customizable user profiles, allowing you to create unique layouts with custom fields and content.
• Grid and list layout options, with multiple grid templates and animation effects to choose from.
• User role-based display options, allowing you to configure which fields are displayed to different user roles.
• Powerful search and filtering options, making it easy for users to find specific profiles based on different criteria.
• Responsive design, ensuring that the profiles and directories display well on different devices.
• Integration with WooCommerce, allowing you to display user profiles as vendors or customers.
• Import and export functionality, enabling you to migrate profile data across different websites.
• Multisite support, allowing you to create profile grids and directories across multiple websites.

Profile Grid Price -  You can purchase a bundle of all add-ons starting at $79.

8. BuddyBoss - 

BuddyBoss is technically more of a WordPress-powered community “platform” than a standalone plugin. More specifically, it’s a combination of a WordPress theme and a plugin, as well as an optional mobile app that lets people access your community on the go.

It’s a fork of the BuddyPress plugin from above and shares a lot of the same development team members. The BuddyBoss team was frustrated at the slower development pace of BuddyPress, which is why they decided to launch BuddyBoss.

Because everything is bundled together, you can quickly get started with a fully functioning community site.

Features - 

• Integration with WordPress and BuddyPress, allowing you to create a social network with familiar WordPress features.
• Customizable user profiles, allowing you to add custom fields and sections to profiles.
• User role-based permissions, allowing you to control what users can see and do on the website.
• Activity feeds and notifications, keeping users up-to-date with the latest activity on the website.
• Private messaging and chat, enabling users to communicate with each other.
• Group management, allowing users to create and manage their own groups with their own activity feeds.
• Online courses and memberships, enabling you to sell courses and memberships through the website.
• Gamification and points system, making the website more engaging and encouraging user participation.

BuddyBoss Price - The BuddyBoss theme and plugin start at $228/year.

9. WP Symposium Pro -

The WP Symposium Pro Social Network Plugin, like BuddyPress, converts your WordPress website into an online community. This includes a full forum and activity wall, as well as various other features seen only on social media sites like Facebook. Users visit your website after the app has been installed and create profiles. They have control over such profiles and can add friends with whoever they want to speak to.

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Users get email alerts as soon as any action is taken. So, whenever you liked anything on a friend's page or sent them a message, they'd get a notification describing what you did.

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Because forums are so great for discussions like gaming, clubs, dating, and technology, it's occasionally a good idea to go beyond the conversational aspect and include more advanced social profiles.

Features

• Selective sharing and YouTube video attachments, for example, are difficult to come by elsewhere.
• WP Symposium is one of the easiest forum plugins to edit thanks to shortcodes.

• Your forums' access and permissions can be fine-tuned.
• Custom fields are accessible, for forum posts and replies.
• You can like and dislike things, but you can also turn them off if you want.
• The plugin has a number of different style templates.

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WP Symposium Pro Price: Free

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10. Ultra Community -

Ultra Community is one of the most in-demand WordPress community plugins which helps transform your regular website into a full-blown community site. The plugin comes packed with features that aid in community development and help nurture relationships amongst members.

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With the help of this plugin, you can create a responsive and functional community website without any deep programming knowledge.

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Some attractive features of this plugin are:

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• Customizable and Stunning User Profile
• Create and join user groups
• Create customizable login and registration forms
• Enable members to create custom wall posts
• Ultra Community provides an interactive front-end user login experience, complete with error handling and specific redirection options.
• You can either activate the plugin network-wide or on a single site on a WP Multisite.
• Create user roles and add permissions and capabilities to them

Ulta Community Price: Free

Wrapping Up - 

So, we've assembled a list of the top WordPress community plugins to help you expand your community website. Whether you want to start a community blog or a forum, these plugins are the best choices. But, before you start, think about what kind of community you want to build, what kind of content you want to provide, and how that will bring value to it. Start an online community if you have something valuable to offer the users, not merely to fit in with the herd.

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Finally, consider aspects such as speed, versatility, and compatibility before making your final decision on the WordPress community plugin. The overall experience of visitors to your site will be determined by these elements.

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