Web Development: 10+ Best bbPress Themes for WordPress Forums

10+ Best bbPress Themes for WordPress Forums

Are you looking for the best bbPress themes for your WordPress website? Do you want to know how to install and customize the bbPress plugin? Do you want to know Where can you find a WordPress forum theme? Then read on!

What is an Online Forum?

A forum is an online discussion place where users can ask questions or talk about any subject. They can help communities solve problems and help one another. Forums can therefore help you to make your website more interactive and user-friendly.

Now, if you want to create a forum website with WordPress, then you probably know that using a plugin is one of the easiest ways to create what you want. The bbPress plugin is one of the easiest and most reliable ways to set up forums on a WordPress website. bbPress is a free open-source forum plugin, built by contributors to WordPress that is been actively installed over 300,000 times. It’s compatible with most WordPress themes, but some of these themes are integrated more effectively with this plugin.

This roundup is focused on the most popular and useful bbPress themes that also have some built-in CSS codes for bbPress pages. Moreover, I'll show you how to install bbPress and how to find bbPress add-ons and features to customize your forum pages.

Let's get started!

Best bbPress Themes on ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the biggest online marketplaces available on the internet where you can find a large number of different items like bbPress themes.

Let’s get started with the roundup, where you can find a list of WordPress forum themes compatible with the bbPress plugin. They're all available on ThemeForest.

1. Newspaper

Newspaper is a magazine and news WordPress theme with more than 110 perfectly designed demos or pre-built websites you can use to power up your dreams! The Newspaper theme is completely Integrated with bbPress Forums and it offers a custom login system with custom CSS styling for this plugin.

2. Forum - A responsive theme for bbPress plugin

Forum - a clean and well-styled WordPress theme

Forum is a clean, well-styled WordPress theme focused on integration with the bbPress plugin. It is one of the best bbPress themes on ThemeForest that help WordPress developers to create their forum websites without using any unnecessary add-ons and features. By installing this special forum theme, you can also change the color and style of your forums in the theme customizer.

3. Avada | Website Builder For WordPress & WooCommerce

The Avada theme - a powerful website builder for WordPress

Avada is a multi-purpose theme and it's one of the most popular items on ThemeForest that is used by +600,000 customers on this market. This famous WordPress theme has an easy-to-use one-click demo importer and a special pre-built website for the bbPress plugin. When you import the Avada Forum demo, it will automatically import bbPress content on your website.

Avada is offering a beautiful design for bbPress pages, and it's fully compatible with this plugin.

4. Disputo - WordPress bbPress Forum Theme

Disputo is a bbPress theme for wordpress

If you want to build a forum-based website, and if you looking for an elegant theme for the bbPress plugin, then you can choose Disputo as your main WordPress theme.

"Disputo is a WordPress theme that is made for the bbPress forum plugin. All bbPress pages are designed with care but the theme doesn’t just support bbPress. It will take your bbPress forum to the next level !"

5. Education WordPress Theme | Eduma

Eduma is a WordPress theme developed to use in educational or LMS websites. Eduma provides you with tons of demos, plugins, add-ons, and other features. it has a one-click demo installer too. Eduma uses the bbPress plugin as an important part of its learning system and it Provides a discussion forum for each course, between teacher and student.

Therefore, the developers of Eduma always pay great attention to the compatibility of this theme with the bbPress plugin.

Note: If you’re interested in building an LMS website specifically, check out this collection of LMS themes for WordPress:

WordPress Themes

20 Best Learning Management System (LMS) WordPress Themes (Free & Premium)

Eric Karkovack

6. Total - Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

The Total theme - a forum theme for the bbPress plugin

Just like the Avada theme, Total is a multi-purpose WordPress theme that has a special demo for the bbPress forums. The bbPress Demo is highly customized for WordPress forums and it has a clean CSS code for bbPress pages. Total is an easy-to-use WordPress theme and comes with various pre-built websites. it's used by +47,000 customers, So you can use it with ease too.

Best bbPress Themes on Envato Elements

Envato Elements is what you need to create a website or start an online business. It's an unlimited subscription service for all digital assets such as stock videos, photos, fonts, WordPress themes, graphic templates, sound effects, etc.

Envato Elements - an unlimited subscription service

Once you sign in to your Envato Elements account, you'll have access to numerous premium WordPress themes and millions of creative assets with unlimited downloads. In the following, I'll show you some of the best WordPress forum themes (bbPress themes) available on Envato Elements.

7. Insomnia - Beautiful and Modern Creative WordPress

Insomnia - a good wordpress theme for bbpress

Insomnia is a good choice for creating an online store or a portfolio website, however, it has some good CSS styles for the bbPress plugin. It is fully integrated with bbPress and works correctly with other forum plugins. You can also find the Insomnia theme on ThemeForest at the price of $109. but It's better to subscribe to Envato Elements and download it with ease.

to be certain that it's a good theme to set up on your WordPress forum site, you can take a look at its live preview on Envato Elements, and rest assured that you're going to get a good deal!

8. Tessera - Knowledge Base WordPress Theme

Tessera - a good WordPress theme for those who want to create a knowledge base website

Tessera is a well-designed WordPress theme for those who want to create documentation or support websites. this theme has a perfect CSS code for the bbPress plugin with some extra shadow styles on its forum tables.

"Tessera is fully compatible with the most popular WordPress forum plugin, bbPress. This means you can create your own fully functional forum in minutes."

9. Miao - Clean Blog & Shop WordPress Theme

Miao is another bbPress-integrated WordPress theme that is suitable for almost any kind of online store, blog, or magazine. If you're looking for a lightweight WordPress theme with beautiful styles for bbPress pages, then the Miao theme is an excellent choice for you. It is available and downloadable on Envato Elements now.

10. Khaki | Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Khaki - an elegant responsive WordPress theme

This is a multi-purpose WordPress theme with nine unique pre-built demos. Khaki has a special gray style for the bbPress plugin and its demos include all bbPress pages.

This responsive theme can be used for a wide range of websites and online stores.

11. Shadowcat

Shadowcat is a beautiful theme for wordpress forums

Shadowcat is a magazine and news WordPress theme that is compatible with the bbPress plugin. This WordPress forum theme comes with a dark style design for its forums and it works correctly with all features of the bbPress plugin.

How to Install and Customize the bbPress Plugin

As mentioned before, bbPress is a free and open-source plugin developed by the Automattic team (creators of WordPress). In order to find and install the bbPress plugin, in your WordPress admin area click Plugins > Add New and search for "bbPress". Then you can install it from the WordPress repository.

how to find bbpress in the WordPress repository

After you’ve installed and activated the bbPress plugin, you should create some new pages.

Note: Some of the themes on ThemeForest and Envato Elements that we mentioned above have a demo importer; when you import a demo it will automatically create bbPress pages or sidebars. But if you don’t use a demo importer with your theme, then you should follow the process below.

Add New bbPress Pages

To set up bbPress pages, log in to your WordPress admin area. Then, in the dashboard left-hand menu click Pages > Add new and create a new page. Now you can paste any bbPress shortcode to your page (take a look at bbPress official website to access all its shortcodes).

In the following screenshot, we have created the index page for our forum.

how to set up bbpress pages on a wordpress website

Save and publish the new page. Then the result will be like the screenshot below. You can create other bbPress pages by following the above steps.

Go even Further

If you want to customize the bbPress pages without changing your website's theme, or if you want to make your forums look even more professional, then you need to install some helpful plugins on your site.

There are multiple WordPress plugins for bbPress available on Envato Elements and CodeCanyon that allow you to customize all your forum pages. Just take a look at Envato Elements or CodeCanyon and search for the "bbPress" keyword. You'll be surprised by the results!

Design Your Forum Website with a bbPress Theme

As you already know, bbPress is a popular plugin, so most theme developers try to integrate their WordPress themes with this plugin. In this post, you have learned how to install bbPress on your own WordPress website. Moreover, you have seen the best WordPress forum themes, so now you can pick a modern and elegant bbPress theme, and launch your first forum with no trouble!