I recently integrated a forum into one of my Wordpress blog and it really is a great thing to add if you have a “hot topic” people are talking about a lot. I will talk about a forum platform that integrates very well with wordpress for a good reason: it was developed by Wordpress developers!

Tell me!

I’m actually surprised no one really talked about it because it deserve the spotlight. The web application I’m talking about is called bbPress. bbPress can be installed without a Wordpress blog, but for that we already have some good forum platforms like vBulleting and phpBB. The real cool thing about bbPress is that it integrates with your Wordpress blog’s database. You can share the same users and login so you don’t really have to manage two different things, it’s really an extension of your blog. It supports what made Wordpress a success: Templates, easy administration interface and plugins.

Full of features?

bbPress doesn’t have the look of traditional forums running phpBB or vBulletin, it looks a little bit lighter but it doesn’t mean less features. Users can have their own avatar or Gravatar, you can have users with different levels of security, they can also add signatures, smiles and all that good stuff you would expect from a forum. If it doesn’t have the feature you want, there’s probably a plugin doing it. It’s really like wordpress. When you look at wordpress without any plugins it’s a good platform, but nothing that impressive. It’s really when you start customizing your template and adding plugins that you understand its power. If you want to have a look at what a forum might look like, you can have a look here:

http://bbpress.org/about/examples/

In the examples you will find the wordpress.org support forums and also the technorati.com support forums. These are two pretty big and important forums so even if bbPress looks light at first sight, it’s packed with features and can scale to a very large forum very easily.

Here’s the official features list from bbPress.org:

• Fast and light

  We keep our code lean so that you get the best experience possible.

• Simple interface

  One of our biggest goals is to keep things simple and make things intuitive. Our dream is that you forget you’re even using the software.

• Customizable templates

  Not everybody likes the same pair of pants, so we allow you to dress up your forums however you like.

• Highly extensible

  bbPress can’t toast your bagels, but a plugin for it sure could!

• Spam protection

  A bundled Akismet plugin offers you an amazing weapon against spam.

• RSS Feeds

  You want feeds? We get ‘em; they’re everywhere.

• Easy integration with your blog

  WordPress and bbPress are siblings, and they get along together a lot better than you and your brother did when you were kids!

So there you go, you can now integrate a nice forum into your wordpress blog without too much pain!