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WORDPRESS

WordPress Forum Plugin for communities that need to scale.

Jetonomy is a free WordPress forum plugin for forums, Q&A boards, and idea communities. It stays fast as discussions grow, trust levels reduce moderation work, matches your theme automatically, and ships with SEO-ready discussion pages out of the box.

jetonomy / forums/general
  1. Fast at any scale Tens of thousands of topics, hundreds of replies per thread. Counts pre-calculated, instant loads.
  2. 6 trust levels auto-moderate Rate-limit new accounts, lock links until earned. Members get mod abilities as they contribute.
  3. Feels like an app, not a forum Vote, sort, load replies inline. No page reloads. Modern community UX members expect.
Forum + Q&A + Ideas in one plugin · Free forever · self-hosted
  • 87 Five-Star Reviews on Trustpilot
  • 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
  • Priority Support
  • Works With Any Theme
  • GPL Licensed

The problem

Most WordPress forum plugin options force you to choose between scale and features.

  1. bbPress slows down at scale

    Everything lives in WordPress's default post storage queries degrade past a few thousand topics

  2. wpForo is hard to theme

    Custom styles fight your theme. CSS overrides pile up. It never looks native.

  3. Manual moderation burns out your team

    No trust system, no auto-promotion you review every post from every user, every day

  4. No Q&A or ideas built in

    You need separate plugins for accepted answers, feature voting, and roadmap boards

Jetonomy solves all four with a single free plugin.

The only plugin of its kind

The WordPress forum plugin built for scale, self-moderation, and modern UX

If you are comparing WordPress forum plugin options, most either slow down as they grow or leave moderation entirely on your team. Jetonomy was built differently, around three advantages most forum plugins still do not combine.

01

Stays fast as you grow

Jetonomy handles tens of thousands of topics and hundreds of replies per thread without dragging your site down. Counts are pre-calculated, so even a busy forum loads instantly.

02

6 trust levels that automate moderation

New accounts are rate-limited and cannot post links the single most effective anti-spam measure. As members contribute, they earn moderation abilities automatically. By Trust Level 4, the community moderates itself.

03

Feels like an app, not a forum

Voting, sorting, and loading replies happen instantly with no page reloads. Browsing your community feels fast and modern, the way members expect today.

See Jetonomy in motion

This is what an active community looks like: questions answered, members rising through trust levels, and votes surfacing the best content. All on your own site.

Live 196 online now
0
Members
0
Posts this week
0
Replies
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Helpful votes
  • New question posted in Support just now
  • Maria accepted an answer 2m
  • Alex reached Trust Level 3 5m
  • Poll closed with 142 votes 11m
  • 8 new members joined this morning 1h

Your community is live in under 5 minutes

1
Install and activate
Upload the plugin zip or install from your Wbcom Designs account. No external services, no API keys, no separate database to configure.
2
Run the setup wizard
Create your first spaces, choose forum types (Forum, Q&A, or Ideas), set visibility rules, and configure anti-spam. The wizard seeds demo content so you can see the community working immediately.
3
Your community is live
Members sign up, post, vote, and earn trust levels. Moderation is automatic from day one new accounts are rate-limited, trusted members gain abilities, and your workload shrinks as the community grows.

Who it's for

Community managers
Stop spending hours on manual moderation trust levels let your community police itself while you focus on growth and engagement
WordPress developers and agencies
48+ REST API endpoints, template overrides, and an adapter pattern for search, email, and membership build custom community experiences for clients without fighting the plugin
Course creators and educators
Q&A spaces with accepted answers turn repeat support questions into a searchable knowledge base students help each other while you teach
Product owners and SaaS founders
Idea boards with voting replace scattered feature requests in email and Slack your customers prioritize the roadmap for you
Small business owners
A professional forum on your existing WordPress site in 5 minutes setup wizard, built-in spam protection, no monthly fees, no coding required
And many more
If your members and conversations live on WordPress, Jetonomy fits. Start free, then scale when you are ready.
See the full feature list

Looking for a WordPress forum plugin? Here is where Jetonomy pulls ahead.

bbPress stores everything in WordPress's default post storage, which becomes a bottleneck as communities grow. wpForo uses custom tables, but it still lacks trust-based moderation and usually needs more theme work. Jetonomy combines performance, moderation, and product depth in one WordPress forum plugin.

Capability
Jetonomy
Free
bbPress
Free
wpForo
Free
Built for forum-scale performance
Denormalized counters (no COUNT on load) Partial
Cursor-based pagination
High-performance at scale (with optional Redis)
Trust levels with auto-promotion
Automatic behavior gates (rate limits, link blocks)
Q&A spaces with accepted answers
Ideas / roadmap spaces
Threaded replies (3 levels, collapsible)
Real-time new reply banner
REST API (61+ endpoints) Partial
Schema.org + QAPage structured data Partial
Template override system Partial
bbPress importer with dry-run
wpForo importer with dry-run
MemberPress integration (free)
Adapts to any theme via CSS custom properties

Choose Jetonomy if you want a WordPress forum plugin that stays fast, moderates itself, and feels modern on mobile. If you're already on bbPress or wpForo, built-in importers with dry-run and resume make migration safe.

WordPress forum moderation

A WordPress forum plugin that gets easier to moderate as your community grows

New accounts start at Level 0 with rate limits and link restrictions. As members contribute, Jetonomy moves them through 6 trust levels automatically. By Level 3, they can help with edits. By Level 4, they can actively moderate. You configure thresholds once and the WordPress forum plugin keeps doing the work.

Automatic spam prevention
Level 0 rate limits and link blocks stop most spam before it reaches the moderation queue no CAPTCHA fatigue for real members
Earned moderation abilities
Trusted members can edit, close, and move posts reducing the load on your admin team by letting the community share the work
Reputation that means something
+10 per upvoted post, +15 per accepted answer, -20 for spam reputation scores reflect real contribution, not just activity
Single topic with replies showing trust level badges on each user

WordPress forum replies with trust level badges so members can see earned authority at a glance

Everything your community needs

No extensions to buy. No integrations to configure. It ships with all of this.

Trending Topics block

Surface what's hot right now with a time-decayed engagement score. Drop on the homepage to bring community signal into your marketing surface.

Embed your forum composer on any page

Drop the Compose Topic block on a landing page, sidebar, or page-builder canvas. Members can start a discussion from anywhere on your site. Picker mode shows only spaces they can post in. Fixed mode locks posting to one forum space.

One WordPress forum plugin for forums, Q&A, ideas, galleries, and feeds

Run open discussion forums, Q&A spaces where the best answer gets marked, idea boards members vote on, Show and Tell galleries, and fast social feeds. Choose a type per space instead of stitching multiple plugins together.

WordPress forum moderation with trust levels

Six trust levels with automatic promotion. New accounts are rate-limited and link-blocked. Reliable members earn moderation abilities. You set the thresholds once, then the forum plugin lightens your moderation load over time.

WordPress forum search that stays fast

Fast search out of the box, with the option to plug in Elasticsearch or Algolia as your community grows. Results are grouped by type so members can find questions, answers, and spaces quickly.

Permissions that fit real communities

WordPress capabilities, per-space roles, and trust levels resolve in a single permission check. A user can be a moderator in Support and a regular member everywhere else.

Voting, reputation, and leaderboard

Members upvote and downvote posts and replies. Good answers surface. Top contributors appear on the leaderboard. Spam loses reputation automatically.

Notifications and subscriptions

In-community notification bell, email notifications, and per-space or per-post subscriptions. Members choose how they want to be notified.

Migrate from bbPress or wpForo without rebuilding your forum

Built-in importers auto-detect your existing community. Dry-run before committing. Live progress tracking. Resume on failure. No record limit, so you can switch WordPress forum plugins without starting over.

Forum plugin API for custom WordPress builds

Full CRUD for spaces, posts, replies, votes, users, tags, notifications, and moderation. Cursor-based pagination. JSON schema validation. Build mobile apps or custom community frontends on top of the plugin.

Template overrides and CSS custom properties

Override any template from your theme's jetonomy/ directory. CSS custom properties pull from theme.json Jetonomy adapts to your brand colors, fonts, and radius automatically.

Membership plugin integrations

Gate spaces by MemberPress or Paid Memberships Pro membership level included free. Pro adds WooCommerce, LearnDash, and Restrict Content Pro.

Ideas and roadmap

Members submit and vote on ideas. Admins move them through Open, Planned, In Progress, and Done. The roadmap view shows what's coming reducing 'when will you add X?' support requests.

SEO-ready WordPress forum pages

Schema.org DiscussionForumPosting, QAPage with acceptedAnswer, BreadcrumbList structured data, Open Graph tags, Twitter cards, and XML sitemap inclusion are automatic, so your WordPress forum content is easier to discover.

A complete platform, not a simple widget

Jetonomy WordPress forum plugin homepage with category-based spaces, trending topics, top members, and popular tags

Resolved WordPress forum Q&A thread with accepted answer, trust levels on every reply, and voting controls

Feature request forum where members vote on ideas and sort discussions by latest, popular, or unanswered

WordPress forum plugin setup wizard for choosing your URL slug, forum type, and first community space

Search results grouped by posts, spaces, and tags so WordPress forum members can find answers quickly

Member profile inside the WordPress forum plugin showing reputation, trust level, badges, posts, and replies

WordPress forum notifications for badges, replies, and mentions with mark-read controls and notification preferences

Forum leaderboard ranking top members by reputation with trophy icons, trust badges, and post counts

Jetonomy settings for permissions, email, appearance, SEO, anti-spam, and extensions in one WordPress forum plugin admin area

Moderation dashboard for reviewing pending content, resolving flags, and managing forum spam rules

Admin dashboard with forum posts, replies, spaces, moderation flags, recent activity, and system info

Manage forum, Q&A, and idea spaces with category filters, member counts, and join policies

Simple, honest pricing

Pay once and own it forever, or pick the annual plan. All features included in every plan, no hidden add-ons.

Jetonomy Free
Unlimited sites
Free
  • 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
Get Jetonomy Free
Most popular
Pro Personal
1 site
$199
$139 one-time 30% off
or $48/year
  • 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)
  • Updates & support (lifetime or 1 year)
Get Pro Personal
Pro Agency
Unlimited sites
$499
$349 one-time 30% off
or $139/year
  • Everything in Developer, plus:
  • Unlimited site licenses
  • White-label branding
  • Reply-by-email
  • Client site deployment
  • Priority email support
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
Get Pro Agency

Free forever. Pro lifetime: pay once, own it forever. All future updates included.

Free forever no credit card required. Pro plans renew annually. Cancel any time.

Free plugin: no strings attached. Pro plans: 30-day money-back guarantee.

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

Common questions

What makes Jetonomy a strong WordPress forum plugin for growing communities?
Jetonomy combines the things most WordPress forum plugin options split apart: forum-scale performance, built-in Q&A and idea boards, trust-level moderation, theme-friendly design, and SEO-ready discussion pages. You can start free, keep everything on your own WordPress site, and grow without rebuilding your community stack.
How do I embed forum content outside the community pages?
Jetonomy ships 7 shortcodes (recent posts, trending posts, spaces directory, leaderboard, user profile, space members, and the new compose-topic) plus 8 Gutenberg blocks (Forum Feed, Trending, Space List, Leaderboard, Navigation, User Panel, Login, and Compose Topic). Use them on landing pages, sidebars, or any page-builder layout. Assets only load on pages that actually use them.
How is this different from bbPress?
bbPress stores everything in WordPress's default post storage. That works for small communities, but queries degrade past a few thousand topics. Jetonomy uses its own dedicated database with denormalized counters no COUNT queries on page load, fast response times at scale with optional Redis caching. Beyond architecture, Jetonomy includes Q&A spaces, idea boards, trust levels, a full REST API, and built-in importers that bbPress does not offer.
How is this different from wpForo?
wpForo also uses custom tables, so the performance story is similar at the database level. The differences are in moderation and overall experience. Jetonomy has 6 trust levels with automatic promotion and behavior gates wpForo has none. Jetonomy has 48+ REST API endpoints wpForo has partial coverage. And Jetonomy adapts to your theme via CSS custom properties wpForo requires manual CSS overrides to match your design.
Can I migrate from bbPress or wpForo?
Yes. Built-in importers auto-detect your existing installation and show what will be migrated. You can run a dry run that previews everything without touching data. The import runs with a live progress indicator and can resume from where it left off if interrupted. No record limit the importer handles communities of any size.
Will it work with my theme?
Yes. Jetonomy uses CSS custom properties that pull values from your theme's theme.json font families, brand colors, border radius, and spacing. It adapts automatically to any block theme or classic theme. If your theme uses BuddyX, integration is even tighter with full design token inheritance including dark mode.
What are the server requirements?
PHP 8.1+, WordPress 6.7+, MySQL 5.7+. No external services required. Works on shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting (Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways), VPS, and dedicated servers. Redis or Memcached is optional but recommended for object caching at scale.
Is the free version limited? Will features get locked behind Pro later?
No. The free plugin is a complete community platform forums, Q&A, ideas, voting, trust levels, moderation, search, notifications, SEO markup, 48+ REST API endpoints, template overrides, and importers. It will stay free and fully functional. Pro exists for communities that need additional modules like private messaging, analytics, badges, and webhooks not to lock features that should be free.
What does Jetonomy Pro add?
Jetonomy Pro adds 14 modular extensions: emoji reactions, private messaging (1:1 and group), polls, custom profile fields, custom badges with auto-award, community analytics dashboard, advanced moderation (keyword filters, bulk actions), email digests (daily/weekly), webhooks (Zapier, Slack, n8n), web push notifications, reply-by-email, white-label branding, and SEO Pro. Each extension is independent enable only what you need. Pro starts at $69/year for 1 site, $99/year for 5 sites, or $199/year for unlimited sites. Lifetime licenses available. See the full comparison at /jetonomy-pro/.
How does Jetonomy handle spam?
Three layers. First, trust levels: new accounts (Level 0) are rate-limited to 3 posts per day and cannot post links this cuts the majority of spam before it is published. Second, reCAPTCHA v3 or Cloudflare Turnstile on registration and posting forms. Third, member flagging sends content to a single moderation queue where moderators approve, spam, or trash in one click. Spam deducts 20 reputation from the author.
Who owns the data? Can I export it?
You own your data. It lives in your WordPress database in wp_jt_* tables. No data is sent to Wbcom Designs servers. No telemetry. No usage tracking. Export via standard database tools, WP-CLI, or the Jetonomy REST API. If you delete the plugin, a clean uninstall option removes all tables, options, capabilities, and scheduled jobs.
Does it support GDPR compliance?
Jetonomy integrates with WordPress's built-in personal data export and erasure tools. When a user requests data export or erasure via WordPress privacy tools, Jetonomy includes its data in the response. Admins can also delete any user's content from the moderation admin area. For specific GDPR obligations, consult a legal professional.
Is there a REST API?
Yes 61+ endpoints under the jetonomy/v1 namespace covering spaces, posts, replies, votes, users, tags, notifications, moderation, and search. Cursor-based pagination on all list endpoints. JSON schema validation on inputs. Application Passwords supported for external clients.

Need a WordPress forum plugin that can grow with your community?

One license. Instant download. Works with any WordPress theme.

Buy Jetonomy Read the docs Try the demo