Forumax – AI Powered Advanced Community Forum Plugin vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

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]

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.