General Information

183 Survey Participants from 37 Countries

  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • China
  • Colombia
  • Croatia
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Italy
  • latvia
  • Luxembourg
  • Malaysia
  • Moldova
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Nigeria
  • Norway
  • Philippines
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Serbia
  • Slovakia
  • South Africa
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Yemen

Gender

  • Male: 89%
  • Female: 11%

Top Countries Represented

  1. United States: 36%
  2. United Kingdom: 8%
  3. Germany: 6%
  4. Netherlands: 5%
  5. Canada & Italy: 4%
  6. Australia, France, & Spain: 3%
  7. Brazil, Denmark. India, & Turkey: 2%

Top U.S. States Represented

  1. California: 18%
  2. New York: 9%
  3. Texas: 8%
  4. Ohio: 6%
  5. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, & New Jersey: 5%
  6. MO, MN, SC, VA, MI, GA, CO, & IL: 3%

Your bbPress Installations

bbPress Versions Then and Now

Versions Used First Used Now
bbPress 0.7.2 4% 0
bbPress 0.8+ 3% 0
bbPress 09+ 7% 1%
bbPress 1.0+ 20% 5%
bbPress 2.0+ 20% 2%
bbPress 2.1+ 6% 1%
bbPress 2.2+ 3% 1%
bbPress 2.3+ 10% 3%
bbPress 2.4+ 9% 10%
bbPress 2.5+ 18% 88%

WordPress Versions Installed

WP 3.8+
98%
WP 3.7+
5%
WP 3.6+
2%
Other Option
1%
WP 3.5+
1%
WP 3.4+
0

bbPress Set Up

  • Easy: 46%
  • Very Easy: 29%
  • Neutral: 16%
  • Hard: 7%
  • Very Hard: 2%

bbPress Users

I use bbPress for my own site.
58%
I create sites with bbPress forums for others.
25%
I am a Keymaster of a bbPress forums community.
4%
I am an advanced bbPress developer - I can do anything bbPress.
4%
I create themes with support for bbPress forums.
4%
I have never used bbPress, but am considering it.
2%
I create bbPress plugins.
2%
I am a member of a bbPress forums community.
1%

bbPress Forums Installations

WP in domain root
72%
WP in physical subdirectory folder
20%
WP multisite - sitewide
13%
WP multisite - domain root
13%
WP in physical subdomain
8%
WP multisite - one subdirectory subsite
8%
WP multisite - multiple networks
7%
WP multisite - one subdomain subsite
6%

bbPress in Your Language

Visualization of languages used in bbPress forums.
Top Ten: English (79%), German (8%), French (4.5%), Dutch (4%), Italian (4%)), Spanish (4%)), Danish (2%), Portugese (2%), Russian (2%), and Turkish (2%).

bbPress Forums Site Types

Visualization of types of sites using bbPress forums.
Top Ten: Generic (37%), Technical (33%), Business (30%), Non-profit(24%), Gaming (20%), Artistic (9.5%), Academic(9%), Religious (3%), Scientific(2%), Clubs & Media (1%).

Features & Participation

Theming bbPress Forums

My custom theme/s using bbPress theme compatibility
41%
Free WP theme with default theme compatibility
25%
My custom theme/s overloading templates in main theme, bbPress theme compatibility disabled
22%
Commercial WP theme with default theme compatibility
19%
Commercial WP theme with bbPress support
14%
Free WP theme with bbPress support
14%
My custom theme/s with completely custom template loading handlers
10%
Other Option
4%

Preferred bbPress Theme Features

Responsive
66%
Light and Fresh Design
58%
Compatible with the latest bbPress version
51%
Responsive, mobile-first
28%
Translation-ready
24%
Dark and Edgy Design
6%
Mobile App
6%
Other Option
4%
RTL support
2%

bbPress Plugins Activated

Top 20 bbPress-Specific

  1. GD bbPress Attachments
  2. GD bbPress Tools
  3. bbPress Enable TinyMCE Visual Tab
  4. Buddy-bbPress Support Topic
  5. bbPress - Private Replies
  6. bbPress Stay Checked
  7. bbPress Topics for Posts
  8. bbPress - Mark As Read
  9. bbPress Notices
  10. bbPress - Report Content
  11. bbPress Like Button
  12. bbPress Search Widget
  13. bbPress WP Tweaks
  14. bbPress2 BBCode
  15. bbPress - Canned Replies
  16. bbPress Admin Bar Addition
  17. bbPress Digest
  18. bbPress New Topic Notifications
  19. bbPress Notify
  20. bbPress Pencil Unread

bbPress Support

  1. BuddyPress
  2. myCRED
  3. Wangguard
  4. Reply By Email
  5. WP Stop Forum Spam

bbPress Early 2.0

  1. Search bbpress 2.0
  2. Bbpress Latest Discussion
  3. GetShopped Support Forums

bbPress Legacy

  1. Human Test
  2. Report Post Form
  3. Select bbPress Custom Fields

Others

  1. None/Yet
  2. Custom bbPress Plugins
  3. Too Many to list
* Plugins mentioned can be found in this google spreadsheet.
Visualization of bbPress plugins used
Click on image above to view larger version.

Contributed to bbPress Development

No
73%
Yes
27%

Ways Contributed to bbPress Development

Helped out in bbPress forums
67%
bbPress Trac: Reported Bugs
43%
Submitted translation/s of bbPress
31%
bbPress Trac: Submitted patches
17%
Submitted a bbPress plugin in the WP plugin repository
13%
bbPress Trac: Tested patches
11%
Joined in bbPress IRC dev chat
7%
Wrote article/s in bbPress Codex
7%
Submitted a theme which supports bbPress in the WP theme repository
2%

Signed Up to Contribute to bbPress Development

23 respondents from 14 countries signed up to contribute. We will be contacting you soon. Thank you!

  • United States (5)
  • Brazil (2)
  • India (2)
  • Netherlands (2)
  • Turkey (2)
  • Australia
  • Canada
  • Colombia
  • France
  • Italy
  • Nigeria
  • Spain
  • United Kingdom
  • Yemen

Devices Used to Access Forums

Desktop
73%
Laptop
48%
Smartphone
46%
Tablet
20%
Television
0

Opinions & Requests

bbPress Strengths/Opportunities

Free
78%
Open-sourced
74%
bbPress is an official WordPress plugin
69%
bbPress integrates seamlessly with WordPress and BuddyPress
67%
Easy to set up
51%
Compatible with other WP plugins
51%
Theme Compatibility
46%
bbPress is extensible
37%
bbPress lets you own your own data
32%
Responsive
31%
bbPress has community support
23%
Translation in your language
15%
Positive feedback from community
8%
Documentation has improved
8%
Other Option
5%

bbPress Weaknesses/Threats

Lacking features as compared to traditional forum software
58%
Need more features added to the plugin
57%
Not sure about the future of the plugin
54%
Documentation is not complete
38%
Performance
33%
Spam
27%
bbPress is not compatible with some themes
23%
Developers are all volunteers
23%
Confusing for users to navigate
20%
Other Options
19%
bbPress is not compatible with some WP plugins
18%
Need phpdocs for developers
14%
Confusing to setup
13%
Not what I expected
6%
Translation in your language is not available
5%

Evaluated other Forums Software

Yes
88%
No
12%

Other Forums Software Evaluated

phpBB forums
72%
SimplePress plugin
44%
Vanilla forums
43%
vbulletin forums
40%
MyBB
24%
Invision Forums
22%
Mingle Forums plugin
21%
Discourse
8%
WP Forum Server plugin
8%
Simple Machine Forums
8%
Kunena (Joomla)
6%
XenForo
3%

Requested Improvements & New Features

Attachments
42%
Unread Replies
39%
Moderation tools in the front end
34%
Quotes
31%
Ajaxification of Topics and Replies
26%
Topic/Reply Ratings
25%
Resolved/Unresolved topic categories
>23%
Private Replies
23%
Other Option *
20%

*Other option:
  • Traditional forums layout - Categories
  • Better support in forums
  • Permissions system
  • More than one forum limit per BuddyPress Group
  • More user-friendly
  • Needs better documentation
  • Forum access by user role
  • Improve performance for larger sites/users
  • More layout options
  • Needs more features
  • Private Messaging
  • Mobile-first Responsive

Comments about bbPress or Survey

I want to see bbPress on wordpress.com
A big thank you to all who are part of making bbPress what it is!
You did an amazing job with bbPress 2.x! The WordPress plugin was a revolution when released in 2011, and it is still today! There's nothing on the market which compares to the philosophy, development and coding of bbPress - and its extensibility!
Yes, it may lack some features, but overall it's an awesome product, that is rock solid, scales and is very easy to setup and use.
So thank you all for your time to develop and maintain it. I, and many other of my WordPress dev friends will keep amazed by it and develop more add-on plugins! For sure :)!
Needs a lot more focus on adding front end features both for users and mods/admins. There is a serious lack of traditional forum features that people expect to have, and it really holds bbpress back.
Amazing software with amazing inline documentation. The code is so neat compared to whatever other plugins there are in the repo. I always return to bbPress for looking up how to code new stuff the proper way.
bbPress is great for simple forums, but it's just not capable of powering any serious online community without the help of copious plugins and lots of custom written code.
I would really like to see three things in bbpress:
1, Better performance
2, Better profiles with things like support for signatures and simple badges
3, Attachments!!!
bbPress rocks! Thanks to all the developers and bbPress community!
Thanks for listening!
I love the work you're doing and the progress bbPress made. Really the only thing that's really an issue is the post count thing.
In community forums "member motivation" means everything and a post count is one of the most basic things we can do.
On the other hand the progress with theme compatibility, responsiveness (I'm using bbPress in responsive environments) and other things are amazing.
Thank you so much!
Thanks for a great plugin! :)
Thanks! I really hope bbpress gets some more attention.
bbpress is behind in terms of functions. good legacy plugins but unsupported for bbpress plugin.
API doesn't resemble WordPress sufficiently
Keep up the great work!
In general a good plugin. If Attachments and a ANTI-Spam solution could be integrated right into the core, it would be a really great solution.
You need to stop relying on plugins.... plugins are being exploited by "seo" spammers and arw wrecking wordpress.....I only trust wordpress offical plugins like bbpress and buddypress all others can potentially be hacked so wordpress should incorporate and create secure plugins for wordpress and not thrid parties.
Add home page stats, forum view like vbulletin or ipb, as now is really confusing.
It greatly improved since 2.x. Great product, keep up the good work!
I'd love to get some support with styling my bbPress form.
Add more features.
It's good start to improve bbPress based on community opinions.
Please keep up your great work! I really appreciate all the time you invest in this plugin. Please make a croudfunding once a year like Wikipedia!
The only major thing lacking in bbPress is a more traditional forum layout design.
If you could make a legit members chat that's not gimicky and works with members / permissions which can be moderated, that would totes be tits!
I would like to see a number of improvements to the bbPress.org website itself, especially with regards to search, documentation, and navigation. Also, it's disappointing that there is no guarantee bbPress will work out of the box with any theme even with bbPress default theme compatibility as I recently found out. bbPress should work with any WordPress theme without requiring me to move template files or go through some weird configuration process.
I really like bbPress & my all current forums are created with bbPress. bbPress development is not so much ACTION, like the WordPress development is really active.
One of my major complaints about bbPress and what has kept me from implementing it in many sites is the lack of user roles. Many times I need to allow some registered users access to forums A, B, C and special users access to A, B, C and D, and I may even have another group who should only be able to access B and D. Adding custom roles is a much needed feature by MANY forum owners and a big reason for Simple:Press success (easy to install, plus features most, if not all major forum features).
Need only one menu where to regroup all together plugins and functions, now it's a mess, with a pletora of plugins that need for basic functions and some are under settings, other their own menu, other in BBpress settings, it's chaos.
Also, if a forum is big, the posts table become to much bigger to migrate easily, better to have its own SQL tables and possibility to export separately. Thanks for your work
about this survey : a bit too long. put demographic questions at the end
All of the options in Q.23 (features) would be wicked awesome, it was very hard to limit it to three. I love bbPress and watching it mature over the past few years has been both enlightening and inspirational. Such a great codebase to learn from.
Keep up the good work, don't let it die! I really love the idea behind bbPress - it's just a bummer it gets only a few contributors.
This survey needs to specify "YOU HAVE SELECTED TOO MANY CHOICES" before I try and submit. Basic survey design guys...come on.
I was going to embed BBPress on my site but after 4 days of wrangling with it chose to just keep the existing PHPBB installation and run it through an iframe instead. The reason for this is that my forum has over 2000 members and 400k posts. The posts imported fine but no signatures or avatars imported for the members. I cannot manually change 2000 members signatures or avatars so I had to go with PHPBB in an iFrame. If you could add this Import functionality (i.e. PHPBB Avatar and Signature Import) I would make the switch but as it stands I cannot.
Need to improve the way images are uploaded into the a post. Also starting and replying to a thread need to be made more similar to traditional forum software. Overly complicated and not intuitive.
bbPress need to have more active development, with more features added each new version, and shorter intervals between new major versions... Like a WordPress!
It would be awesome if the bbp and bp codex was similar (in design and functionality) to the wp codex. Overall, bbpress is a huge improvement over previous versions. Keep up the good work. Thanks!
bbPress' simplicity and extendability is why I use the software. However, it still needs to be more sophisticated in its feature set compared to other software. I have a hard time telling when posts are new (or not), viewing threaded replies easily, etc. Just a general polish and feature enhancement would continue to make it more mature and widely adopted.
bbpress needs granular permissions, forum access by wp user role !!!
I'm finding it very difficult to make bbpress work. The plugins on the bpress site all seem to be wordpress plugins (ie not bbpress specific), the default design (twenty twelve them on WP) is confusing and difficult to navigate. There doesn't seem to be much going on here and that worries me - will it be supported in the future?
Please fix the slow queries!
Thank you for your work!
We have had major problems integrating bbPress into a WP website. Nothing (plugins) seem to work right the first time. Some plugins (registration/login) don't work at all. Lots of spam. There is no robust online community support. Every feature seems to be a plugin. I can't find a list of active, robust bbPress forums to look at on the Internet.
Really wish the documentation wasn't so scattered. More hooks and filters.
What is the difference between laptop and desktop on the device question? I can't tell from my GA account. The answer to "have you helped with bbPress" really shouldn't be yes but "only a very little bit"
I think this plugin has a lot of great potential. I look forward to seeing how it grows. :-)
There is one issue missing in the survey - bbpress really needs its own user registration / user profile with a way to upload avatar front-end editing. There is no way to upload an 'avatar' and ordinary forums users do not have gravatar accounts.. and never will :) at the moment it seems like it's relying either on buddypress or wordpress.
The option to disable access to wp-admin should be really turned on by default.
wp-admin access should be really for the site contributors / authors NOT for users registered on the forums etc.. even not for bbpress moderators/keymasters
To make a successful forum, bbpress also needs to display (I can't even find a plugin) statistics of forum users who are online / and also moderators who are on line so it shows that the forums/site is actually 'alive'
And finally, 'New Topic' button should available - similar to other forums software.. Users do not always scroll to the bottom of the forums - especially on mobile phones) and do not have any idea how to post a new topic.
so, bbpress should be easy and straight forward to use.. so it is a pleasure to use.. (especially for new users - who are these days used to Facebook etc.. ) or forums software will die! :(
I hope my comments will be useful
We need more forum features not just simple topics and replies. I can do that with simple wordpress theme. As a forum we need more features. My critique bbPress development is very slow. It is become official plugin like 2-3 years ago and still plugin is dont have forum fatures.
You guys seem to know your requested features pretty well, and Ive taken the survey, so I wont go on about that. Please allow us to customize strings like freshness and topics. I want "Latest Reply", so I should be able to customize that. Same with topics. I prefer "Threads".
Topic and reply count should be listed under it's own column, nicely spaced out and centered, like other forum softwares.
Allow us to customize these strings, as well as having dividers (clear space) between each category, just like how any forums are (XenForo, phpBB, etc.)
I LOVE bbPress and I am confident these things will be fixed, but development is too slow. The stuff I listed are pretty much of utmost importance if bbPress is to be anything considerable.
bbPress is mainly lacking in the moderation area compared with dedicated forum scripts. In particular, I need to be able to block and warn users if they violate forum guidelines.
Then, bbPress developers should evaluate architecture and code changes for a substantial improvement in speed. Specially users coming from phpBB forums will find performance of bbPress disappointing.
Last but not least: Many thanks for this excellent plugin. I have extensively evaluated just about every option on the market (commercial and free), which allows one to build a community CMS + Forum plattform. The WP+Buddypress+bbPress ecosystem is the only solution out there which fitted all of my needs.
I would be willing to help sponsor certain developments, and am sure many other serious users would be as well. For this, I suggest that you come up with some sort of pledge system, where users can input feature requests and the community can pledge an amount to get it developed. This could be win-win, because the developers would get money for their work and the users get the features they want. Please think about it.
Most of my users do not like bbPress, instead prefer a phpbb3 forum feel. I switched to it because it integrates with WordPress and I did not want my users to have to create two accounts. bbPress works great for forums such as this, support forums and such, but it's not easy to navigate for users who visit daily and are trying to make sure they aren't missing any new posts. That is what true social sites really want to cater to, those are the members who are the core and keep everyone else coming back, so we really want to keep them happy.