bbPress opinions - vanilla alternative?

mikho

I'm considering adding some sort of forum to a site I'm working on and I have aquired a strange liking on how vanilla presents the forum for the users. Not going to discuss the admin side so no need to comment on that.

Since the main site is Wordpress I've looked and tested bbPress. The thing I like about bbPress is that you can customise the template pretty easy if you have worked with Wordpress before.

My concern is how users would feel about using it? Any comments from people who have used it? Either as admins or a regular user.

agentmishra

so far, so good, bbpress is the best option for forum on wordpress

boxelder

Disliked bbpress - it just seemed like a custom post type tacked onto wordpress instead of an actual forum. And it seems like the least supported variant of WordPress as far as developer support. The little things that you take for granted in a forum - PMs, new reply notifications, customizing subforum thread listings - are things wordpress er, I mean bbpress, just doesn't do well.

My two favorite forum software right now are Xenforo and Discourse (requires Rails). I also like Vanilla but don't like the ridiculous prices they charge for hosted service, and there seems to be some features in the .com version they don't bother migrating to the free .org version.

Just noticed that Vanilla requires a browser refresh to get the little red notifications - Xenforo's implementation pushes notifications w/o requiring a refresh.

PremiumN

bbpress is ok for a basic forum, but it seriously lacks many features.

2bb3

boxelder said: Xenforo and Discourse

Good to know, thanks for sharing.
Do both integrate well with wordpress?

Ole_Juul

boxelder said: Just noticed that Vanilla requires a browser refresh to get the little red notifications

I use Firefox and it does not require a refresh here.

boxelder

@Ole_Juul said:
I use Firefox and it does not require a refresh here.

Hmm ... Chrome on Mac is not so accommodating.

@2bb3 said:
Do both integrate well with wordpress?

You'd have to purchase a bridge plugin from a 3rd party developer. If your members are only limited to commenting on your WP blog it might be better to not even bother - delete the comments section from your theme and replace it with a forum thread link (pulled from a custom field in WordPress) where they can discuss the post in the forum.