You can scroll to the bottom and click the Go to Forum Settings link , or click Settings » Forums in the WordPress dashboard menu.
At the top of the settings page, you can customize user settings to prevent spam.
bbPress Review - settings
Below are the forum features settings . Here you can enable favorites, subscriptions, topic tags, and other useful features.
bbPress Review - Features
Under Topics and replies per page , you can adjust how many topics are visible at once.
bbPress Review - topics and replies per page
And at the bottom of the page, under Single qatar email database free Forum Slugs and Forum User Slugs , you can adjust your URLs.
bbPress Review - slugs
Remember to click the Save Changes button at the bottom when you're done choosing your options.
To create your forums, navigate to Forums » New Forum .
Enter a title and description for your forum, and configure the options on the right side of the screen. Then click Post .
bbPress Review - publish forum
If your blog has permalinks enabled (you can check this under Settings » Permalinks ), you'll be able to see your forums at example.com/forums , where you can add your first topic.
bbPress Review - add thread
In your dashboard, you will now have a widget that shows the current status of your forums:
bbPress Review – dashboard widget
For more details on how to set up your forums, check out WPBeginner’s tutorial, How to Add a Forum in WordPress with bbPress .
How to style your forums
The appearance of your forums on your website is controlled by your theme's styles. There are no separate bbPress themes to customize the appearance of your forums.
If you want to customize the appearance of your forums, you will need to edit your theme 's CSS or add custom CSS .
What if bbPress doesn't fit with your current theme and you don't want to mess with CSS code?
You may want to consider switching to another WordPress theme that has built-in support and styling for bbPress.
You can also check out a plugin like CSS Hero, which lets you edit CSS with a visual editor, even if you don't know how to code. Check out our CSS Hero review to learn more about how it works.
Create Advanced Forums with bbPress Plugins
bbPress is a very simple and lightweight plugin, so it may be missing some features that you need for your site.
Since bbPress is free and open source, there are a number of third-party plugins available for free in the WordPress.org directory.
If you search for “bbPress” in the directory, you will find plugins that can help you:
customize notifications
send private messages
sort the answers
generate reports
flag inappropriate content
…and much more.
Documentation and assistance
The official bbPress site has plenty of documentation to help you get started. It also has developer documentation, so you can create your own bbPress-compatible WordPress themes or additional bbPress plugins.
Support is also available on the official site. The developers and community are very responsive on the forums, and many issues are resolved quickly.
Our verdict
If you need to add a simple forum to your WordPress site, we recommend you try bbPress.
It's free and lightweight, so it won't slow down your site. It's very simple to set up and easy to use for beginners.
Because it's so simple, it might be missing features you need. But there are so many third-party plugins available, there's probably one for you.
The only major drawback is the inability to customize the look of your forums. Depending on the WordPress theme you use, your forums may not look very attractive. Unfortunately, the only options are to change the theme or modify the code.
We hope you enjoyed this bbPress review. If so, you might also want to check out our other guides:
7 Best Forum Hosting Services (Compared)
18 Best WordPress Comment Plugins to Increase Engagement
7+ Best WordPress Membership Plugins
We give bbPress 4 out of 5 stars. Here is the breakdown of our review scores: