BuddyPress so far is considered the best social community-creating plugin due to its huge number of downloads and more than hundreds of plugins and extensions that can add more functionality to a website. BuddyPress is the most suited and popular plugin to build a social networking website on WordPress. This plugin is capable to work with almost all WP themes. From members to friends, chats, activities, etc., This plugin offers everything a social networking site needs. The best part of this plugin is it’s completely free.
Checkout Reign BuddyPress Theme
But, if you dig a little deeper into a community-building aspect of WordPress especially the social networking aspect, you will find that there are other plugins as well that provide an amazing social community creating a platform for WordPress users. Many users are searching online that is BuddyPress has any good alternatives. Here are some popular plugins that can be considered BuddyPress Alternatives. Each plugin has more or less the same feature but they also have something different that sets them apart from other plugins as well as BuddyPress.
Best WordPress BuddyPress Alternatives
1. Peepso:
Peepso is a WordPress plugin that lets users create Social networks like community-based websites. This plugin is available for free as well as a premium version. Peepso has many features such as private messaging, adding friends, deleting friends, etc. It also provides options to add widgets for user’s photos, videos, and friends. One can easily place these widgets wherever one wishes to inside the theme. But one of the major features of Peepso is that it lets users add moods. You can show your mood by updating the status on your website just like Facebook. It also has various additional free plugins such as:
- PeepSo Moods
- Tags
- PeepSo Location
This plugin provides various free plugins that add more functionality to a website. This plugin is by far the best alternative to BuddyPress and is praised by many users. If you want to create a social networking website with PeepSo, you can try the Reign PeepSo Theme which allows you to make a social network of any niche.
Some major features of this plugin are:
- Activity Stream
- Mobile-Ready
- Extensible
- Powerful Admin
- Friends
- Messages
- Privacy
- Chat
Get It
Also Read: Best Guest Blogging WordPress Plugins
2. MemberPress
MemberPress will help you confidently create, manage, and track membership subscriptions and sell digital download products. In addition to these features, MemberPress will allow you to manage your members by granting and revoking their access to posts, pages, videos, categories, tags, feeds, communities, digital files, and more based on what memberships they belong to.
3. User Pro:
User Pro is another premium WordPress Plugin that helps build a social community like a website. Users can create front-end user profiles, member badges and achievements, customized registration forms, and member directories.
Major features of this plugin are:
- Front-end registration and login
- Password reset
- Customizable profiles
- Fully responsive- Mobile view modes
- Promote specific user
- Multiple templates to display a member list
- Content restriction to members verified accounts and specific roles only.
Get It
Also Read: Top Social Login WordPress Plugins
4. WP Symposium Pro:
WP Symposium is another one of the major BuddyPress alternatives. This plugin offers to build a Social Network website in just two simple steps. Symposium has a great support system. This plugin is a perfect plugin for schools, clubs, businesses, support sites, etc. One of the main benefits of this plugin is it supports almost every WP Theme and its support system is top-notch. The core of this plugin is free but if you need to add extensions you will have to purchase them. The main features of this plugin are:
- Forum
- Activity Wall
- Private mail
- Notification bar
- Chat rooms
Also Read: Increasing participation with Gamification
5. bbPress
This plugin provides a discussion platform for the members of the community. In this discussion, many members can join at a single time. These discussions take place in a particular set of people who are involved in a particular type of activity of public discussions.
Keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add-on features through WordPress’s extensive plugin system. Check BuddyxX free bbPress theme Demo.
6. Ultimate Member
Ultimate Member is another popular free WordPress Plugin that is considered as an alternative to BuddyPress.This plugin gives a user to add user profiles to their websites. It also helps to create online communities and membership sites. It’s free and also lightweight.
Major features of this plugin are:
- Front-end User Profiles, Registration, and Login
- Create Member Directories
- Create User Profiles
- Provides Content Restriction
- Add Custom Fields
- User Emails
This plugin also provides various extensions to add more functionality to a site. A few of them are:
- Private Messages
- User Reviews
- My Cred and much more.
7. Nextend Social Login
It is a professional, easy-to-use, and free WordPress plugin. It lets visitors to register and login to your site using their social profiles (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.) instead of forcing them to spend valuable time to fill out the default registration form. Besides that, they don’t need to wait for validation emails or keep track of their username and password anymore.
- One-click registration and login via Facebook, Google, and Twitter
- Your current users can easily connect their Facebook, Google or Twitter profiles with their account
- Social accounts are tied to a WordPress user account so every account can be accessed with and without a social account
- You can define a custom redirect URL after the registration (upon the first login) using any of the social accounts.
- You can define a custom redirect URL after each login with any of the enabled social accounts.
- Display Facebook, Google, Twitter profile picture as an avatar
- Login widget and shortcodes
Other Useful Alternatives For BuddyPress
Here, check out the list of other alternatives for creating social networking websites:
8. elgg
Elgg is an award-winning open-source social networking engine that provides a robust framework on which to build all kinds of social environments, from a campus-wide social network for your university, school or college or an internal collaborative platform for your organization through to a brand-building communications tool for your company and its clients.
9. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 provides tools for task management, document sharing, and time tracking integrated into just this type of social interface for maximum efficiency of communications and work.
The Activity Stream covers all production, social, and mixed-function sections of the intranet. Each employee can stay aware of what is going on, contribute to discussions, and, importantly, choose what types of updates to display, because the Activity Stream can be personalized by each user.
Liking content shows the opinions of coworkers and also influences search results, as liked content is shown with priority in search results.
10. Yammer
This alternative works on any site and used to engage the members over a platform to function properly and make a proper discussion through messaging and meetings. This powerful alternative is developed by Microsoft Corporation. This will be listed in BuddyPress Alternatives list because of its joining ability.
11. Ning
Be sharp – invite members, create different groups, and hold various events around your interests. All the most powerful features are already inside to afford ground for your efforts` monetization. Just make a community on NING social platform because this will make your community more attractive.
12. Social Engine
With SocialEngine Unite, instantly launch a 100% white label solution (using your domain name with no “powered by” or ads). Enjoy instant setup on a hosted solution that scales and improves over time, offering matchless support, feature upgrades, and reliability.
Also Read: Top WordPress Wedding Themes
13. Chatter
Connect, engage, and motivate employees to work efficiently regardless of their role or location. Collaborate on sales opportunities, service cases, campaigns, and projects with embedded apps and custom actions.
Provide a forum for anyone to share insights or propose new ideas. Connect product teams with direct feedback from customers on programs, products, and campaigns. You can share knowledge, files, and data. Connect with experts from across your organization regardless of their role or location.
14. Khoros (Lithium Community)
Previously known as Lithium Community, Khoros’ community software and services help brands connect with their customers to grow existing relationships and build new ones. Khoros Communities gives you a branded, interactive platform for spreading knowledge that transforms search, evaluation, purchase, and support interactions into valuable learning experiences.
Also Read: Best WooCommerce Shipment Tracking Plugins
15. CrowdStack
Crowdstack is an instant online community for your audience. It’s organized, searchable, and trustworthy– content, conversations, and relationships in a space you control. Instantly provide your audience with an interactive space that you completely control. See how easy it is to engage your audience with forums, blogs, media sharing, surveys, calendars, chat, and more.
16. Jom Social
JomSocial has a smooth, modern design that will impress your members. encourage them to stay and inspire them to tell their friends. JomSocial looks amazing and works perfectly on every device: phone and tablet, laptop, and desktop. Just one click will keep your JomSocial up-to-date and in the loop with the latest features and improvements. With many years of development, testing automation, and thousands of users, JomSocial is stable and reliable.
Final Thoughts On BuddyPress Alternatives
Above given were some of the major BuddyPress Alternatives that provide a user to build a social community like a platform on their websites. Every plugin has its own feature. Peepso, on one hand, provides users to add moods as Facebook does but its extensions are not free. Users always look out for plugins that they do not require to invest much in. BuddyPress provides that feature. It is free and seamlessly integrates with other plugins and extensions as well. It has its own hundreds of plugins that one can easily use.
Ultimate Member is another free plugin that provides an amazing way to create a social community-like platform. It’s not only lightweight but also provides a variety of extensions. It also helps to create membership sites and is one of the famous alternatives of BuddyPress.
Also Read: WordPress Social Network Theme Like Facebook
User ultra being a premium plugin proves to be really good for the users as it provides many different features such as 5- star rating where users can rate each other photos and galleries. WP Symposium is considered as popularly used by many. It easily integrates with almost any WordPress theme. One of the major cons of this plugin is that you can get more of its features and premium support only if you buy the premium version of the plugin. In today’s modern world, everyone has an online presence, so choosing the best plugin always depends on user requirements and how much he wishes to invest in it.
Interesting Read:
The Best WordPress Form Builders
