Best WordPress forum plugins compared

WordPress forum plugins at a glance

Of the 90 plugins tagged "forum" on wordpress.org, bbPress, wpForo and Asgaros Forum have the most active installs. Install counts and update dates below come from wordpress.org on October 29, 2026; prices are list prices for one site.

CommentCamp: community spaces on your own site

CommentCamp is a free comments and community layer for independent publishers, bloggers and WordPress sites, launching with an official WordPress plugin and a universal embed script. Community threads and post comments share replies, member profiles and notifications, so readers use one account for both. Optional modules add accepted answers (Q&A), reactions, member levels and quests, and automated spam filtering and a moderation queue are built in.

It's $0 for site owners, hosting included, with no ads. It runs as part of your site rather than as a standalone forum host, and its import roadmap covers WordPress comments, so existing forum threads stay where they are. CommentCamp is in private early access, onboarding the first cohorts of sites; join the waitlist. Disclosure: CommentCamp is our product.

bbPress: the free default

bbPress is "forum software from the creators of WordPress," and it has been in the plugin directory since 2010. It's free under the GPL, has 100,000+ active installs, and it was last updated on October 27, 2026 (version 2.6.21, tested up to WordPress 7.1.4).

You get forums, topics, replies, user profiles, subscriptions and multisite forums, all on your existing WordPress accounts and admin area. It has built-in support for Akismet and BuddyPress, and with BuddyPress each group can have its own forum.

wpForo: the most features out of the box

wpForo has 20,000+ active installs and a 4.7 out of 5 rating from 390 ratings, and it was last updated on September 28, 2026 (version 3.2.2).

The free core includes 5 layouts (Extended, Simplified, Question and Answer, Threaded and Boxed), member ratings and badges, usergroups with per-forum permissions, and built-in forum SEO with a sitemap. Reputation is based on the number of forum posts.

Paid add-ons are sold on gvectors.com for $15 to $49 each for a single site, such as Polls ($29), Private Messages ($39) and Groups ($49). The Full bundle costs $290 and includes an unlimited-sites license for each add-on; a Basic bundle costs $190.

Asgaros Forum: the simplest setup

Asgaros Forum is free, and we found no paid edition. It has 10,000+ active installs and a 4.7 out of 5 rating from 210 ratings, and it was last updated on October 23, 2026 (version 3.5.0).

Its developer calls it a "lightweight and feature-rich discussion board" that's "easy to set up, super fast." Polls, uploads, reactions, guest posting, moderators, usergroups, multiple forum instances and multisite support are built in, which makes it a good pick if you want to create a free forum without buying add-ons.

Forums inside a social network: BuddyBoss, PeepSo and ForumWP

If you also want member profiles, groups and activity feeds, you're shopping for WordPress community plugins. Three of them handle forums in different ways:

• BuddyBoss Platform is a free fork of BuddyPress with bbPress forums merged in as a native component, and it isn't listed on wordpress.org. Paid web plans list at $199, $399 and $699 a year for one site, with first-year discounts on the pricing page and extra site licenses at $99 each.
• PeepSo has no separate forum module; its own guide has a section called "Use Groups Like Modern Forum Categories." The free core now downloads from peepso.com; its wordpress.org listing was closed at the author's request on November 19, 2024. For one site, the Community bundle costs $149 a year and Ultimate $249 a year, or $1,999 lifetime.
• ForumWP comes from the Ultimate Member team. The free version has 800+ active installs; Pro costs $120, $180, $300 or $400 a year for 1, 3, 10 or unlimited sites and adds private replies, solved topics, votes, likes, bookmarks and subscriptions.

Tip: Before you buy a social network bundle, check whether members want profiles and activity feeds or just a place to ask questions.

Discourse with the WP Discourse plugin

For a large or fast-growing community, a dedicated forum app can beat any plugin; our best forum software guide compares the options. The free WP Discourse plugin (1,000+ active installs, last updated August 13, 2026) "acts as an interface between your WordPress site and your Discourse community."

It doesn't install Discourse for you. It can create a forum topic for each new post, show forum replies under the post and let WordPress act as the DiscourseConnect single sign-on provider. Discourse itself is open source under GPL v2 and free to self-host; hosted plans include a free plan, Pro at $100 a month and Business at $500 a month.

How to choose, and when comments are enough

• CommentCamp for free community spaces next to your posts, with comments and threads in one place.
• bbPress for a free, lightweight board or BuddyPress group forums.
• wpForo for a forum-first site with Q&A layouts and badges.
• Asgaros Forum for a fast, free board with polls and uploads included.
• BuddyBoss, PeepSo or ForumWP when the forum is part of a social network or an Ultimate Member site.
• WP Discourse when you want a full Discourse forum tied to your posts and logins.

Note: WordPress VIP's docs say "requests from logged-in users will always BYPASS the cache," so a busy forum where most visitors are logged in needs more server capacity than a mostly cached blog.

If readers mainly discuss your posts, a separate forum adds a second place to moderate. CommentCamp keeps unlimited comments, replies and threads on your own site under one member profile, with WordPress comment import, full data exports and an optional local comment mirror on its roadmap.