bbPress was great in 2013. Your community deserves better now.
bbPress was built for WordPress 3.x and stores everything in wp_posts. It works until your community grows past a few thousand topics - then queries slow, moderation becomes manual, and you realize there is no Q&A mode, no voting, no trust levels, and no REST API. Jetonomy is the modern bbPress alternative with dedicated database tables, self-moderating trust levels, and a built-in bbPress importer. Free forever.
bbPress stopped evolving. Your community did not.
Everything bbPress is missing - in a single free plugin.
Jetonomy was not built to iterate on bbPress. It was built to replace it. Three architectural decisions separate Jetonomy from every forum plugin that came before it.
Migrate from bbPress to Jetonomy in 3 steps
Who it's for
A direct feature comparison between Jetonomy and bbPress
bbPress has been around since 2011. It was a good solution for its era. But WordPress has evolved dramatically since then, and bbPress has not kept pace. Here is exactly what you gain by switching.
bbPress is a lightweight forum from 2011. Jetonomy is a complete community platform for 2025. The bbPress importer with dry-run and resume makes switching safe - preview what changes before committing.
Migrate your entire bbPress community with zero data loss
The built-in bbPress importer reads your existing forums, topics, replies, and user associations directly from the database. It maps bbPress forums to Jetonomy spaces, preserves reply threading, and maintains user attribution. Dry-run mode lets you preview the full migration before committing a single row.
After migration - your bbPress topics now have trust level badges, voting, and threaded replies
Everything your community needs
No extensions to buy. No integrations to configure. It ships with all of this.
Custom tables replace wp_posts storage
Every forum, topic, reply, vote, and subscription lives in dedicated MySQL tables designed for discussion patterns. Denormalized counters, proper indexes, and cursor pagination that never degrades.
Trust levels that bbPress never had
6 tiers of automatic member progression. New accounts are rate-limited and link-blocked. Experienced members earn editing and moderation abilities. Configure thresholds once, then let the system run.
Q&A mode with accepted answers
Create spaces where questions get definitive answers. Topic authors or moderators mark the best reply as accepted. Accepted answers appear at the top with Schema.org QAPage markup for search engines.
Idea boards with voting and status tracking
Members submit and vote on feature ideas. Admins move them through Open, Planned, In Progress, and Done. The roadmap view reduces support requests about upcoming features.
Built-in bbPress importer with dry-run
Auto-detects your bbPress data, maps forums to spaces, and imports topics and replies with user attribution. Dry-run previews everything. Live progress with resume on failure.
Real-time interactions without page reloads
Voting, reply loading, content sorting, and new-reply notifications use WordPress Interactivity API. No jQuery, no React, no external frameworks. Fast, native WordPress interactions.
Reputation system with public leaderboard
+10 per upvoted post, +15 per accepted answer, -20 for spam. Reputation reflects real contribution quality. The leaderboard highlights your top community members.
Per-space roles that bbPress never had
WordPress capabilities, per-space roles, and trust levels resolve in a single permission check. A user can moderate the Support space while being a regular member in General Discussion - granularity bbPress never offered.
Template overrides from your theme directory
Copy any template to your theme's jetonomy/ directory and customize it. Same WordPress template hierarchy you already know. No proprietary systems, no learning curve.
61+ REST API endpoints
Full CRUD for every resource type. Cursor-based pagination, JSON schema validation, Application Passwords support. Build anything - mobile apps, bots, headless frontends.
Full-text search with type grouping
MySQL FULLTEXT out of the box with results grouped by posts, spaces, and tags. Swappable adapter supports Meilisearch and Elasticsearch for larger installations.
Notifications, subscriptions, and email alerts
In-app notification bell, email notifications for replies and mentions, per-topic and per-space subscriptions. Members control their notification preferences.
A complete platform, not a simple widget
Simple, honest pricing
One-time payment or annual subscription. All features included in every plan — no hidden add-ons.
- Unlimited sites - no license key
- Forums, Q&A, Ideas, Feed spaces
- 6 trust levels + auto-moderation
- Voting, reputation, leaderboard
- Full-text search with filters
- 48+ REST API endpoints
- bbPress & wpForo importers
- MemberPress & PMPRO integration
- Forever free - no feature locks
- Everything in Free, plus:
- 1 site license
- Emoji reactions on posts & replies
- Private messaging (1:1 & group)
- Polls with live results
- Community analytics dashboard
- Email digest & web push
- Webhooks (Zapier, Slack, n8n)
- 1 year of updates & support
- Everything in Developer, plus:
- Unlimited site licenses
- White-label branding
- Reply-by-email
- Client site deployment
- Priority email support
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Free forever - no credit card required. Pro plans renew annually. Cancel any time.
Rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot from 87 reviews
Top notch support! I've been frustrated generally by the slow support for most themes and plugins, but they are helpful and quick to reply. Highly recommend!
Woods
Trustpilot Review
I wanted to build a community website and these guys created the perfect plugins for me. To be honest, I want to buy every single one of their plugins.
Sora Seaton
Trustpilot Review
The template from Wbcom Designs is truly great. Modern, flexible, and easy to use. The support is very helpful and friendly. For questions or problems you receive fast, competent assistance.
Barry Bohme
Trustpilot Review