Discussion Board – WordPress Forum Plugin vs WP User Manager – User Profile Builder & Membership

Discussion Board is an easy way to add a forum to your WordPress site. It has a one-click installation and stacks of essential features that make it the leading WordPress forum plugin. In brief: Users can register and log in via a front-end form Users post new forum topics via a simple form Each forum topic is displayed on its own page where other users can reply WordPress forum plugin demo Test out a live demo version of our forum plugin here. Note that this demo includes some features only available with the Pro version. Feel free to register and post some sample content. One-click installation Discussion Board has a unique, one-click set-up. When you activate the plugin, it will automatically create the three pages you need to get your WordPress forum up and running: A log-in page A page with a form for users to post new topics A page to view existing topics. Your WordPress forum is up and running straightaway with no need to do any further configuration if you don’t want to. User management A key feature of Discussion Board is the ability to control separately who can view your WordPress forum and who can actually post to it. You can specify the required role for users to post new topics and, separately, you can specify the required role for users to view topics. So, for instance, you could allow anyone to view the content but only permit specific user roles to post content. Registration You can specify which role new users will be assigned when they register. You can also require users to activate their registration by verifying their email address – this drastically reduces spam registrations. In the Pro version, you also have the option to approve new registrations yourself if you want. Front end log-in Discussion Board has a complete front-end registration and log-in system. You can choose whether to use the standard WordPress system or keep everything on the front-end. Spam reduction As well as the restrictions over registration, you can limit the frequency that users can re-post. This will reduce possible spamming. As the owner of the site, you can also choose whether new topics should be published immediately or held as draft in order for you to moderate them. You can use standard WordPress settings to determine moderation levels for comments or set different rules for topics. Even more, you can block specific email addresses or entire domains from being able to register accounts. Styles Discussion Board is designed to work with any theme. You can update colors through the Customizer. Currently, there is a choice of three layouts, using either the standard WordPress archive layout from your theme or more classic forum layouts. Discussion Board should work out of the box with your theme. However, if you want to extend it and integrate it more closely, there are some optional templates supplied with the plugin that have hookable opening and closing wrapper tags so you can style the templates to match your theme. Shortcodes Discussion Board has a number of shortcodes. Some of these are installed automatically when you activate the plugin. Others are optional for usage around your site, including: [discussion_board_form] – displays a form for users to post a new topic (automatically installed) [discussion_topics] – displays a list of all topics (automatically installed) [discussion_board_login_form] – displays a log-in and registration form for new users (automatically installed) [discussion_board_login_only] – displays a log-in form without a registration form [discussion_board_registration_only] – displays a registration form without a log-in form [discussion_board_log_in_out] – displays a log-in / log-out link [is_logged_in] – use this shortcode to display content only to users who are logged in [not_logged_in] – display content only to users who are not logged in What can I use this for? You can use this plugin to create any type of forum that you like. Typically, this would include: Community forums School or other education sites Training websites Support forums Discussion forums Niche sites Discussion groups Question and answer sites Technical forums Ecommerce sites Bulletin boards Job boards WordPress forum theme Although Discussion Board should work with pretty much any WordPress theme, we developed Singularity – a free theme that integrates with Discussion Board. It’s available to download from the WordPress themes directory. Why have a forum on my WordPress site? There are many, many reasons to want to install a WordPress forum plugin on your site. In brief, these might include: SEO benefits – there are two key benefits to having a forum on your site. Firstly, you are benefitting from user generated content, where your users are writing your content for you and coming up with all kinds of keywords you never would have included in your content yourself. Secondly, users will spend longer on your site because of your forum, either writing their own posts or reading other people’s content. Google considers dwell time on a website to be a key quality metric. Get closer to your users – a forum is a priceless way of learning more about what makes your users tick, whether the forum is support-based or just a general community discussion board. Market more effectively – when users register for your forum, they are providing you with their email address, meaning that you have a great opportunity to market directly to people you know are interested in your offering. Documentation Full documentation and guidance on getting started with the plugin and on its features is here. Is there a Pro version? Oh yes, there’s a Pro version to give you even more possibilities with your forum. Features include: Multiple Discussion Boards for different subjects Set statuses for topics, e.g. ‘Resolved’, ‘Open’, etc Categories and tags Image uploads User profiles Topic following (subscribe to topics) Board following – subscribe to a board and get notified of all new topics and comments for that board Board permissions – set topics within boards to be post-only (so no replies) or author-only (only the author can view replies) Admin approvals – optionally require all new registrations to be approved by an admin WYSIWYG editor Check out the Pro version here. Contributing If you would like to contribute to the plugin, we’ve put together a guide on how to contribute.

The most customizable profiles & community builder WordPress plugin WP User Manager lets you create highly customizable user profiles together with custom user registration, login, password recovery and account customization forms to your WordPress website. WP User Manager is the best solution to manage your community. Powerful and flexible, yet easy to setup and use. With WP User Manager you can create almost any type of WordPress membership website where your visitors can join and become members. Create a custom login page, have full control over the registration form, give your site a member area, let the users manage their user data. Website | Addons | Documentation | Support Features included Frontend forms: Allow users to register and login from the front of the site. Customize the registration form with custom fields to collect data Stripe integration: Customize the emails sent to users when the register, reset their password and more Custom email notifications: Customize the emails sent to users when the register, reset their password and more Custom avatars: Users can edit their site avatar by uploading an image from the account page Elegant user profiles: All users have a public profile page to display their data Shortcodes editor: Easily add the plugin shortcodes to pages or posts with the shortcode generator and editor Roles editor: Edit roles and their capabilities. Create new roles and duplicate existing ones Beautiful user directories: Display users in a directories that can be displayed anywhere on the site SEO URLs: All the URLs are SEO friendly Content restriction: Restrict content for certain users, by logged in status, or by role Passwords management: Allow users to update their password from their account page Custom fields editor: Create custom user fields that can be used to collect data on registration Custom widgets: Display user data and forms in sidebars using widgets Custom redirects: Control where the users are redirected to on login, registration and more Powerful tools: Tools to be in control of your site and who registers Developers friendly: Customize and integrate with other plugins with a large number of hooks and filters Extensive documentation: Full documentation and expert support Translation Ready – The plugin and addons are fully localized ready for translation Read more about our features on wpusermanager.com Premium Features For more advanced functionality check out the pricing page. Custom Fields: Add custom fields to members profiles and registration forms WooCommerce: Integration with WooCommerce. Collect payment at registration, allow members to update their billing and shipping addresses, display product purchases, reviews and more! Stripe Pro: Integration with Stripe. Collect payment at registration with Stripe, restrict access to your site, remove the commission fees. User Verification: Send a verification link via email upon registration or manually approve users before they can login Groups: Give your users the ability to create and join groups Security: Add password security features and user login management features Registration Forms: Create unlimited registration forms, create multi-step forms, customize forms with HTML, and have full control over form settings Frontend Posting: Allow your users to submit posts and other content from the frontend Advanced Custom Fields: Collect ACF user data at registration and allow users to see and edit the data on their profile Social Login & Registration: Allow your users to quickly login and register with their favorite social network account, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn & Instagram Private Content: Provide private content for all your users, as well as user specific content so you can tailor for each member Mailchimp: Sync users with Mailchimp upon registration & more Google reCAPTCHA: Stop spam registrations on your website for free Content Restriction Plus: One-click restriction to posts, pages and custom post types Likes: Allow your users to like posts, pages and other content hCaptcha: Stop more bots. Start protecting user privacy with hCaptcha WPML: Translate your custom fields, field groups, registration forms, and emails using WPML Personal Data: Allows the user to request an export of personal data and request erasure of personal data from the account page for GDPR compliance Delete Account: Allows the user to delete their own profile from the frontend account page Free Extensions Newsletter: Subscribe your members to your Newsletter plugin lists easily during registration Username Length: Set minimum and maximum characters length for usernames Translations Want to add a new language to WP User Manager? Awesome! You can contribute via translate.wordpress.org. Please read the official translation tutorial for more information. Support Support is provided only through the support forum. Join the support forum to ask questions and get help regarding WP User Manager. Free support is provided exclusively for bugs and help using the plugin. Please read the support policy https://wpusermanager.com/support-policy/. Before opening a support topic please read the faqs and documentation. Support for premium addons is provided exclusively through the premium support platform. Support for premium addons cannot be provided through WordPress.org due to the rules put in place by the WordPress.org team.