If you want to create a community site for WordPress, then BuddyPress is the solution.
In this WordPress Wednesday, I’ve collected six of the best community WordPress themes, you will find loads of different options for your site. As all of these themes at least has one pre-built community site demo, you’re sure to find a suitable design for your project.
All of the theme demos in today’s post includes a stylish homepage layout as well as templates for all the main pages your online community is likely to need such as the member profile page, user activity sections, the discussion and messaging areas
Many of these community themes are highly customisable, making it easy to adjust the appearance of your site. Depending on which themes you choose, you might also get premium drag-and-drop page builder plugin for customising your site even further.
However, even if you choose a theme that doesn’t include a page builder tool than you can easily invest in a free page builder plugin like Elementor to be added into your site.
To provide the community features into your website will need, all of these themes are fully supported with BuddyPress plugin. Thanks to this, plugin you can enable lots of extra functionality to ensure your community site is a success.
Some of these themes also have excellent support for some of the popular eLearning and membership plugins, giving you more options for the sort of site you can create.
1. Klein
Klein works with BuddyPress and bbPress to help you create a online community site. It ben updated recently to provide you with a fresh design for your community website, it also hav some great templates to give your site a modern appeal.
Examples of Klein’s templates include the designs for the user profile pages, support for custom cover images for groups so your users can create more attractive profile pages and customise the look of the groups so they start to appeal to their target audience.
While the pre built content and templates has been recently updated, you’re still can customise them by using the drag-and-drop page builder plugin included in this theme.
There is also a slideshow builder tool that will help you customise the pre-built sliders used in the demo as well as making your own presentations. Configuring your site and controlling how the features of it will work, the theme comes equipped with an easy to use admin panel and the demo importer tool will simplify the process of getting started, making it easy to lay the foundation for your new online community.
It comes with a full set of eCommerce templates as well, so if you want to sell products, and/or promote services on your community website, this theme also beensupported for the WooCommerce.
There are templates for blogging that gives you the option of adding a blog to your site or letting your users publish content to your site and lastly features like social media registrations and logins should help encourage visitors to sign up to your community.
Price: $39.00
2. Olympus
Olympus been created to help you build your own social networking and online community site it comes with a great mix of features and pre-built content, this theme aims to provide you with everything that’s required to launch your online community hub. Although you only get one site demo to work with, this does simplify the process of getting started.
However, that’s not to say that Olympus lacks in options. The pre-built site demo comes with all the templates your site is likely to need. As well as the pre-built content that comes with this theme, you do get access to WPBakery Page Builder tool to customise the appearance of your site.
Other customisation work can be carried out through the easily accessible admin panel, giving you control over the colours, fonts and layout properties of your community site.
Olympus has a setup wizard that walks you through the process of creating your website. As working with these featured-rich themes sometimes require multiple tasks to be completed, it’s great to see that a feature like the setup wizard has been added to this theme to help simplify this process.
Price: $59.00
3. BuddyBoss
BuddyBoss integrates with the best plugins for WordPress to help you launch your community site, whether you want to create an online community that is free to access or a private-members only site, BuddyBoss provide you with everything that is needed to get started.
The templates in the BuddyBoss bundle covers all the areas your community site should need; this includes not only the homepage but also all of the other pages your site might require. The customisation tools and settings make it easy to personalise the pre-built content of BuddyBoss.
BuddyBoss is not just about useful and well-designed templates though, and this theme been packed with loads of features that will help you launch a useful community website. It includes support for member connections, private messaging, and activity feeds, and you can give your users the ability to upload photos etc and create their very own image galleries.
Another option to is it option to Gamify your online community, thanks to the feature that let’s you award them with points and badges based on their engagement with your site.
When it comes to monetisation options, BuddyBoss doesn’t lack in this area either and depending on your preferences, you can charge users a one-time fee, or you can instead opt for charging recurring subscription fees. The eCommerce functionality of BuddyBoss makes selling products, such as digital downloads and physical products, from your website very straightforward.
Price: Starting at $228.00 annual license for 1 site
4. Socialize
Socialize is a multi-purpose theme for building online communities and social networks with BuddyPress; it has multiple page layouts to help you finding the right type for your community. Due to the loads of ways that this theme can be used you can create a content-focused site that has lots of social networking and community features, or you’d instead build a community based website.
If you go down the content route, you can use the templates in the theme to publish your articles in the best format or you can give them to your readers with the ability to sign-up at your site and start interacting with each other and your content.
If you are planning to launch your own social networking and community site, then thanks to integration with BuddyPress plugin, you can add almost many features to your site, including instant messaging, live chat, and groups or you can also let your users create detailed profiles and post updates to their activity feeds.
The site design can be just as easily customised when you use the Socialize theme, it also has a powerful theme options control panel that takes care of the site-wide adjustments you make, while the WPBakery Page Builder is here to help you personalise the individual pages that make up your website.
Price: $199.00
5. BeSocial
BeSocial has been built specially to integrate with both the bbPress and BuddyPress plugins.
By harnessing the power of these plugins, this is another theme that makes it possible to create your own social network and the content that makes up the theme focused on making your social networking site as effective as possible, taking from the style and appearance of social networks we see today.
It all thanks to the templates that you can find in the BeSocial theme, you can easily add interactive elements to your site like activity feeds, private messaging, user connections and discussion forums. If there are any features you don’t want in your site then you can easily disable them through the theme control panel. You find the same approach applies to the design of your site, with lots of customisation options. There is also a drag-and-drop page builder tool in the theme, giving you full control over the appearance of your website.
If you’d like to monetise your online community, BeSocial has some useful features in this area too plus you will find it has full WooCommerce support, making it possible to collect payments from your members, either via a one-time payment or through recurring subscription plans, displaying advertising on your site is an added option so you can generate revenue from your community portal.
Other useful features I noticed in this theme is it’s recommended plugins include live website notifications, integration with other social networks, and a live search tool to help your users find who and what they’re looking for.
Price: $59.00
6. Cinematix
Cinematix is now on version 3.0 that has the code be completely rewritten and redesigned pages plus lots of updated features, Cinematix been billed as the ultimate BuddyPress theme, Cinematix has lots to offer those creating online community websites with WordPress.
Cinematix looks like a modern community theme for WordPress, so check out the Cinematix website demo, to see that this theme has a bold layout with lots of large images, full-width layouts, and big fonts. Like many of the WordPress themes featured in this WordPress Wednesday collection, you can easily adjust those display properties if necessary.
With the distinctive appearance of the Cinematix demos, the pre-built layouts include useful features that are sure to enhance your community website. This theme consists of a panel that displays the profile photos of members and with a filter you can showcase the most active, popular or newest members who’d joined.
With the homepage layout, it has a section for displaying information and links about the groups you have added to your site. You can view the latest posts from the optional discussion forums and to summarise the design of the default homepage layout, and you could say that its focus on directing your visitors and registered users to the most active sections of your site.
Additional to the default pre-built homepage layout that comes with this theme, Cinematix also has over forty page templates for all the content a community site likely to have.
Price: $59.00
