Forumax – AI Powered Advanced Community Forum Plugin vs ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities

Forumax is the ultimate standalone community forum solution for WordPress. Designed for forum administrators, content creators, and community managers, Forumax provides a complete suite of powerful features to create professional, engaging forums with minimal effort—no external forum dependencies required. What is Forumax? Forumax provides a complete, self-contained platform for building support forums, knowledge bases, or discussion communities. It includes everything you need to foster engagement, manage content effectively, and create an exceptional user experience right out of the box. Video Overview Note: We have renamed our plugin from BBP Core to Forumax. All features previously available in BBP Core are still here and fully supported. Important: After updating to version 2.0.0, the plugin will be renamed to forumax. This may cause WordPress to deactivate the plugin. If deactivated, please simply reactivate it. Key Features of Forumax 🎯 Unified Forum Builder Take complete control of your forums with our intuitive, built-in builder. View all forums and topics in one organized dashboard, filter by status (open, closed, pending, spam), and manage discussions efficiently without navigating multiple pages. 🔐 Private & Confidential Replies Enable users to post private responses visible only to forum owners and moderators. Perfect for sensitive discussions, support tickets, and confidential advice while maintaining full transparency where needed. ✅ Solved Topics System Help community members quickly identify answered questions. Mark topics as solved to display a prominent ‘Resolved’ badge, reducing duplicate questions and improving user experience. Visitors instantly know which topics have solutions. ⭐ Smart Voting & Reputation System Empower your community with a built-in AJAX-powered voting system. Users vote on the most helpful replies, automatically elevating quality answers to the top. Build reputation-based authority and encourage quality contributions. 📎 Media Attachments & File Sharing Allow users to attach files, documents, images, and media directly to replies. Organized attachment sections make it easy for community members to share resources, code snippets, documents, and collaborate effectively. 💡 Advanced Forum Statistics Widget Display real-time forum information including topic count, reply count, last activity, and most active users. The ‘Current Forum Info’ widget provides visitors with a quick overview of forum vitality and engagement. 🎨 Elementor Page Builder Integration Create stunning forum layouts using Elementor’s drag-and-drop builder. Use specialized Forumax widgets to display forums, topics, and replies on any page with full customization control. No coding required. ⚡ Lightweight & Performance-Optimized Forumax is built for speed. It loads assets intelligently—CSS and JavaScript only when needed. Minimal footprint ensures your forum runs fast without bloat. 🔧 Intuitive Admin Interface Create, edit, and delete forums and topics directly from the Forumax admin dashboard. Streamlined interface eliminates confusion and reduces admin overhead. Free Features: Live Customizer – Instantly preview and customize forum styles with real-time visual controls. Pre-made Templates – Start quickly using professionally designed forum templates for common use cases. Unified Forum Builder – Build and manage forums, topics, and layouts from one centralized builder. Voting on Topics & Replies – Allow users to upvote or downvote topics and replies for engagement. Solved Topic – Mark topics as solved to highlight correct answers and improve usability. Frontend Brand Color Option – Customize forum brand colors directly from frontend settings easily. Who Can Upload Files – Control user roles and permissions for uploading files in forums. Pagination in Forum Builder – Manage large forums efficiently with built-in pagination support. PRO Features – Everything You Need for Advanced Community Management: Upgrade to Forumax Pro for enterprise-grade forum management: Real-Time Admin Notifications – Stay updated with instant dashboard alerts for new posts, moderation requests, and community activity. Smart User Notifications – Keep members engaged with real-time updates on subscribed forums, topics, and replies they care about. Mini User Profiles – Display compact user profile cards with activity summaries, follower counts, and quick-view reputation. Pre-Built Elementor Templates – Import professional forum layouts with one click. Fully customizable templates for forums, knowledge bases, and support centers. “I’ve the Same Question” Feature – Reduce duplicate threads by letting users indicate similar questions, improving forum organization. Anonymous Posting – Allow sensitive discussions without revealing user identity. Ideal for support forums and confidential advice. Dynamic User Profile Links – Generate personalized profile URLs for logged-in users. Perfect for user bios and contributor pages. Topic Approval Workflow – Control content quality with admin-approval for new topics. Prevent spam and maintain forum standards. Advanced File Management – Support multiple file uploads with increased size limits. Delete attachments independently or with content. Powerful Voting Controls – Guest voting restrictions, prevent closed-topic voting, disable self-voting, admin voting privileges, and vote-based sorting. External Image Insertion – Insert images via URL or media library picker. Enhance replies with visual content effortlessly. Auto-Approval System – Automatically publish reply replies instantly. Streamline moderation workflows and maintain conversation flow. Attachment Moderation – Approve/unapprove replies containing files for enhanced content security and compliance control. Promax Features: Reply Timeline Navigation Automatically loads more replies when users scroll down. A reply timeline is visible beside the replies to help users follow long discussions easily. Live Chat Adds a private real-time chat system. A chat icon is visible on the right side of the site to open the chat box. Admins can set default assistants from the settings. Users can chat with the assistant or with forum participants. Messages support likes, replies, emojis, and file or video sharing. Chat can also be started by hovering over forum, topic, or reply users. Emoji for Topics and Replies Allows users to add expressive emojis to forum topics and replies, making conversations more engaging, emotional, and easier to understand. Real-Time Alerts Displays instant notifications when new topics are published or existing discussions are updated, keeping users informed without refreshing the page. Social Login Allow users to sign up and log in instantly using Google, Facebook, or Twitter, reducing friction and increasing overall registration conversion rates. Analytics Get powerful insights into forum performance with real-time statistics, activity trends, user engagement metrics, and resolution data—all presented in a clear, actionable dashboard view. AI Integration (via Our AI Plugin) Forumax can be extended with powerful AI capabilities using the AI Tools, designed to automate support workflows, improve engagement, and transform forum discussions into valuable long-term content. Important: AI features require the Antimanual AI Plugin and an active AI provider connection. AI-Powered Forum Replies Instantly generate intelligent, context-aware replies to forum topics. Improve response time, reduce moderator workload, and maintain consistent support quality across your community. Ideal for: Support forums Product discussions Knowledge-sharing communities Convert Solved Topics into Posts Automatically convert resolved forum topics into structured WordPress posts. Each generated post can include: Problem summary Accepted solution Key insights and takeaways This feature turns your forum into a living knowledge base while improving SEO and long-term content value. Smarter Community Management By combining Forumax core features with AI automation, moderators can: Reduce repetitive replies Scale support without increasing team size Keep forums clean, searchable, and helpful Forumax + AI transforms discussions into long-term assets. Important Links Get Pro Version Live Demo Full Documentation Learn More WHAT’S NEXT? If you like Forumax, then consider checking out our other WordPress Plugins: EazyDocs – Powerful knowledge base plugin to easily create and manage professional documentation, wikis, and helpdesk sections. Antimanual – AI-powered assistant that automates content creation, documentation, and support, transforming static sites into dynamic experiences. Advanced Accordion Block – Lightweight Gutenberg block for creating visually appealing, organized accordion sections with extensive styling options. Changeloger – Transform plain text changelogs into visually stunning, organized representations with pagination and version links. Jobus – Comprehensive job board solution transforming your site into a recruitment platform with dashboards and ATS. Spider Elements – Versatile library of 20+ creative widgets to enhance Elementor and build professional websites. Why Choose Forumax? The Trusted Choice for Communities 1000+ Active Users: Join thousands of community managers using Forumax Actively Maintained: Regular updates with new features and security patches Security First: Built with WordPress security best practices Scalable Solution: Handles small communities to large enterprise forums Beginner-Friendly: Intuitive UI requires no technical knowledge Expert Support: Responsive team ready to help you succeed Open Source: Community contributions welcome on GitHub Ready to Transform Your Forum? Start with Forumax Free today and upgrade to Pro when you’re ready for advanced features. Get Started → | View Pricing → | Read Documentation → Support & Community Complete Documentation Report Issues & Suggest Features Visit Official Website Contact: [email protected]

WordPress User Profiles & Membership Plugin Create WordPress user profiles, groups, communities, paid memberships, directories, WooCommerce profiles, bbPress profiles, content restriction, sign-up pages, blog submissions, notifications, social activity and private messaging, beautiful threaded interface and a lot more! The #1 Custom User Profile Plugin that brings together user data from all your plugins, which use custom posts or shortcodes. The #1 Free WordPress Community Plugin with inbuilt private messaging & friends system. The #1 Free WooCommerce User Profile Plugin. The #1 Free bbPress User Profile Plugin. For any issues, bugs, feature requests and general help, contact our awesome support team! ProfileGrid is a power-packed user profile, member, community and directory plugin. While ProfileGrid is fundamentally a user profile builder, it also offers User Groups. Groups are equivalent to Profile types where you can have different profile structures for different group of users. Advantages of Group based system is apparent from the very beginning: You can have multiple User Profile types. Each Group can have its own set of fields. Each Group can have its own Group Manager or Moderator. Group Manager can have special privacy level for group members. Each group can have its own registration workflow. You can offer visitors option to sign up or request membership for Group of their choice. Groups can have membership limits. Groups can be mapped to a specific WordPress Roles. Filter user profiles based on groups on directories page. Groups can be Open (public) or Closed (private) Closed Groups require membership approval from Group Manager or site Admin Users can join multiple Groups And so much more! If you do not need multiple Groups, there’s nothing stopping you to use the default Group as single profile type, membership or as user directories system. It’s a unique WordPress profile plugin that’s flexible and modular. A lot of stuff can be turned on or off by single click. ProfileGrid is pretty both on the frontend and the dashboard area. We understand you spend a lot of time inside the dashboard, therefore, we made sure the admin facing interface is clean and organized. You will absolutely love it when you first log into ProfileGrid. And it looks even better once profiles start to fill in! With release of version 4.1.0 we have added a bunch of new shortcodes which offer amazing amount of flexibility with displaying different types of user groups and user profiles data inside your WordPress theme and widgets. Brand new content enclosure shortcodes allow you to take control of content restrictions and membership access to granular level. Using new dynamic content shortcodes you can create personalized content for your users. WORDPRESS COMMUNITY PLUGIN & COMMUNITY BUILDER FEATURES What makes ProfileGrid a perfect WordPress community plugin? Here are a few reasons to start with: Ability to create public and private groups. Adding group specific modules like discussions, photos, events etc. Appointing group managers for community moderation. Community based privacy levels for content. Ability for users to join multiple groups. Allowing users to create their own groups from frontend. And the list does not stops here! There are many other features tucked inside ProfileGrid making it a robust WordPress community plugin for all types of community based websites. WORDPRESS MEMBERSHIP PLUGIN FEATURES ProfileGrid’s WordPress membership plugin features include: Paid membership groups with native checkout process. Separate Group membership registration forms. Content restrictions based on membership levels. Member exclusive group area. Member limits in groups. Member discounts for WooCommerce products (via extension). These, combined with many other similar features, make ProfileGrid the ideal WordPress membership plugin. Dashboard areas include: Group Manager to create, edit and manage groups, and set membership rules. Custom Fields Manager to manager Profile Sections and Fields. User Profiles area to view, search and filters User profiles and members. Requests to manage and moderate membership requests for closed groups. Email Template manager to create and edit email notifications for users. User Blogs to manage user submitted blog posts. Global Settings to fine tune your ProfileGrid installation. Shortcodes page to help you understand how shortcodes work. Frontend offers a slew of shortcodes to present custom user profile related areas to the visitors. These are: Groups page showing a grid of Groups for users to browse and sign up for them. Group page showing Group’s details and all its members. Profile page showing single custom User Profile with blogs and conversations. Single and Multipage sign up forms. Latter splitting Sections into pages. All Users page displays all members without grouping them, with global search. Login and Password Recovery pages. Find complete list of shortcodes here. Group Attributes Group Name Group Type – Open/ Closed Group Description Group Badge/ Icon/ Logo Option to Hide Group Card Membership Limit Associate WordPress User Role Group Manager (Selectable from Group Members) Label for Group Manager Membership Type – Free/ Paid Membership Price Redirection after group registration Custom message after group registration Custom Email notifications for members Email on joining Group Email on joining request being denied Email on account activation Email on account deactivation Email on password change Email on account deletion Email on publishing new post Email when Group Manager resets password Turn on Emails for Group Managers Email on new membership request Email on being assigned Group Manager Groups provide basic setup of using ProfileGrid as a WordPress Community Plugin. WordPress User Profiles Attributes User Profile page user avatar photo User Profile page Cover Photo Parent Group picture appears on user page User Profile page Sections Custom User Profiles (Custom Fields for user profiles) Custom Field Attributes Field Label (as it appears on registration form and user page) Field Description Field Type Placeholder Text CSS Class Maximum Length/ Rows/ Columns etc. Field Label Icon or picture Parent Group Parent Section Display on Sign Up form Required/ Not Required Fields visibility on Profile Page Fields visibility on Group Page Email Template Attributes Template Name Subject Body with Mail Merge fields. Content Restriction Restrict content to logged in users Restrict content to users of specific group Restrict content to friends Make contend private Multi Author Blogging Multi Author Blogs that integrate with frontend user profile Users can write and submit blog entries from a frontend user page Users can upload picture as featured image field Option to choose between WordPress blogs and ProfileGrid blogs Admins can moderate and approve Multi Author blog posts Define initial status of Multi Author blog posts on blog submission Private Messaging System ProfileGrid features an inbuilt private messaging system that works in realtime – a rare WordPress profile plugin that offers advanced messaging capabilities as part of the core. Once you install and visit custom user profile page, you will see Messaging among other profile tabs. Following features boost ProfileGrid user case as a Community Plugin: A system that works in realtime using WordPress Heartbeat API See live status of members you are chatting with Supports emoji Users can message anyone from their user profile page by clicking a button or typing username Users receive live notifications and unread count when messaging tab is not active Notifications also appear in left bar which shows active messaging threads Friends System ProfileGrid also comes with an inbuilt Friends system that allows users to other members as friends – once again a rare WordPress profile plugin that offers Friends system in core. Friends tab automatically appear on custom user profile page once it is activated in ProfileGrid Global Settings. The features include: Users can add other members as ‘Friends’ User can send Friend requests Users can accept or decline Friend request All friends appear on user profile page inside ‘Friends’ tab Users can remove friends from Friends tab. Admin can set rule for resending, once declined friend requests Friend request appear in Notification tab and add to unread count Users can accept or decline friend request from user notification box On accepting friend request friend’s user profile url appear inside user notification box Global Settings Global Settings page includes all plugin-wide settings. It is divided into following subsections: General Settings Template Selection Theme selection Light/ Dark Redirection for Authors Enable Gravatar Allow or Disallow WordPress login page access to visitors Allow or Disallow WordPress login page access to visitors Hide WordPress toolbar Set limit for password reset tries Multiple Attachments Map default WP Registration page Redirection after user login Redirect After logout Map All Groups page Map User Registration page Map Single Group page Define Sign Up form Style Map Profile page Map Login page Map Password Recovery and Password Reset pages Profile Templates A selection of readymade profile page layouts to chose from! Each layout is unique and adopts color scheme of your active theme for a clean native look. Security Settings Toggle reCAPTCHA reCAPTCHA language Site Key Secret Key Request method Auto Logout after inactivity Whitelist IPs Blacklist IPs Email Notifications (Global) Send notifications to site admin Manually define admin email notification recipients User Account review notification Account Deletion email notification Turn on SMTP configuration SMTP Host, Encryption, Port, Authentication, Username, Password Test SMTP Connection User Accounts Turn on automatic approvals Send User Activation Link in email Display User Password change option Show User Privacy options Allow User Profile deletion Account deletion warning text Allow User Email change Allow Users to hide their profiles Default Profile Image, default user avatar Default Cover Image Email Notifications Toggle Admin notifications Define additional notification recipients Toggle SMTP with credential fields Tools Import Users. Importing parameters and field mapping. Export Users. Exporting parameters. User Blogs Turn User Blog Post Submission On/ Off. Fetch Posts from WordPress Posts/ In-built System/ Both Default Post state after user submission Allow Feature Image Allow tags Use rich text editor Privacy settings Notify Users Notify Admin Private Messaging Toggle Messaging On/ Off Friends System Toggle Friend System On/ Off All resending friend requests Period after which resending request is allowed Uploads Profile Image Maximum File Size (in bytes) Cover Image Maximum File Size (in bytes) Image Quality Profile image minimum width Cover image minimum width SEO User Profile Page Title User Profile Description (HTML Meta) Payments Payment Processor – Paypal (Free) & Stripe (Extension). Toggle test mode. PayPal Email. Currency selection. PayPal page style. Currency symbol position. As you can see, ProfileGrid core is pretty powerful in its own right and many will find it useful standalone. For those who need extra, there are plenty of extensions available. Present set of extensions include: Free Custom User Profile Slugs Define how your frontend user profile URL will appear to site visitors and search engines. Take control of your frontend user profile url permalink and add dynamic slugs. Custom User Profile Slugs Group Photos Allow your users to create and share Photo Albums within their Groups. Albums can be public or restricted to group members. Users can browse and enlarge photos, and post comments. Group Photos Free User Display Name Take complete control of your users’ display names. Mix and match patterns and add predefined suffixes and prefixes. There’s both a global and a group based option, allowing display names in different groups stand out! User Display Name Custom Group Properties Create and add custom data fields to user groups! Now your user groups can have more detailed information and personality just like your user profile pages. These fields appear on single group page. Custom Group Properties Free bbPress Integration – ENHANCE BBPRESS USER PROFILES Integrate ProfileGrid user profile properties and sign up system with the immensely popular bbPress community forums plugin. bbPress User Profiles with Community Activity bbPress Custom User Profiles Fields. Edit bbPress User Profiles Free bbPress Integration User Geolocation Maps Publish interactive maps on your website showcasing locations of all registered users or members from a specific group using simple shortcodes. Features location markers with user info popovers. User Geolocation Maps Frontend Group Creator Give your registered users power to create their own user membership Groups. These Groups behave and work just like regular ProfileGrid membership groups. Frontend Group Creator MailChimp Integration Allow users to subscribe to your MailChimp lists. Comes with custom field mapping support and option for users to manage subscriptions right from their user profile area. MailChimp Integration Free WooCommerce Integration – ENHANCE WOOCOMMERCE USER PROFILES Combine the power of ProfileGrid’s user membership groups with WooCommerce to create enhanced WooCommerce user profiles with option to display purchases, reviews, manage addresses and more. This can be used instead of default WooCommerce user profile page for more engaging user experience. WooCommerce Profile Builder. WooCommerce User Profile with Payments, Reviews & Social Activity. WooCommerce Custom User Profiles Fields. Edit WooCommerce Customer Profiles. Social Login Allow users to connect and login using their social networking accounts. Users can manage connected accounts from their profile settings. Social Login Custom User Profile Tabs Display user specific, or custom content, from other plugins as additional tabs on user profiles. You can add as many custom tabs you like. Examples of practical uses include, events, meetings, forms, listings, directories etc. Custom User Profile Tabs myCred Integration Reward your website users with custom ranks and badges, on reaching predefined goals, using powerful and free myCred points system. Ranks and Badges will also be displayed on their user profiles. myCred Integration User Photos Allow users to create albums and upload photos to them. Albums can be public or private, or shared with fellow group members or friends. Other users can post comments on photos. User Photos = Menu Restrictions …