BuddyBoss VS BuddyPress

Why we left BuddyPress and created the BuddyBoss Platform and how this transformed the experience of building social networks on WordPress

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BuddyBoss is used by Industry Leaders

We are seeing more and more leaders in the industry choose BuddyBoss
to launch their WordPress-powered social network

Pros & Cons of using BuddyPress

Cons

No paid staff. All contributors have full-time jobs and they’re volunteering their free time.
Development is moving too slowly.
Not the ideal solution for customers who are launching an online community on WordPress.
BuddyPress is not serving our customers well.
Very incomplete. Basic features. You need to add plugins for the most basic features. All these plugins are built by different developers and the whole thing is held together by rubber bands. Most of these plugins are adding features that really should be there out of the box in a modern social network.
Our customers end up having a site with 20 or 30 different plugins, all built by different developers, managing multiple different license keys, different admin experiences, and one plugin update that could break the other plugin…and it ends up being a really poor experience for our customers.

Pros

It’s years of development. It would be a huge project for a company to recreate all this from scratch and they’d risk having too many bugs to handle.
Open Source. This means that the code is available for you to modify, extend and do almost anything you want with it.
High-code quality standards. The developers that have been leading the development of BuddyPress have done a very good job keeping high standards in the quality of the code and development process.

Raising the bar with BuddyBoss

With BuddyBoss, you create and launch your online community faster,
and without all the pain that comes with trying to make BuddyPress and
bbPress work.

Simple Stack: One Plugin, One Theme, and if you want it, one Mobile App.
Unified admin experience: The settings are organized beautifully, with video tutorials explaining each section. The forum functionality and the social networking functionality are brought together into the same plugin.
Synchronized updates: When we update the BuddyBoss Platform, we’ll usually update the BuddyBoss Theme on the same day. Contrast this with using plugins from different authors, and when new functionality gets added to the plugins, you realize that your theme doesn’t have styling for it, which means it won’t look nice. You then need to hire developers to style it for you, and it becomes a pain to maintain it all.
The features you need, out of the box: We’ve added a huge set of features that are missing in BuddyPress, even very basic things like support for media. In BuddyPress you can’t add photos; you have to add a third-party plugin for that. You can’t follow other users; you have to add a third-party plugin for that.
Customer Support: BuddyPress doesn’t have professional support. You end up posting in forums and waiting for someone to respond. It will usually take a few days to weeks before someone responds, if they respond at all. At BuddyBoss, we have 9-5 Eastern customer support. We have a distributed team of support agents and an office of support agents with a 9-5 Eastern shifting schedule. At any time of the day, there are agents ready to answer your questions, and if there’s a bug in the product we’ll go onto your website, patch it and fix it in the product.
Speed of development: We have a large team of developers working day and night, throughout the year on building new features and improving existing features. And we’re moving very aggressively. As the months go by, our feature set will keep stacking and stacking.
Compatible with BuddyPress plugins: If you’re migrating from BuddyPress, you can bring all the BuddyPress plugins with you. Since the BuddyBoss Platform started as a fork of BuddyPress and bbPress, we made sure to retain all the compatibility with the existing BuddyPress plugins.

TESTIMONIALS

What our customers are saying

More power out of the box

All the features you need to build a thriving online community, and
more cool stuff in the pipeline!

FEATURE
Member Profiles
Profile Fields
Account Settings
Notifications
Social Groups
Activity Feeds
Member Connections
Private Messaging
Multisite support
REST API
Event Based, Cached REST API		coming soon
Forum Discussions
Photo Attachments
Photo Albums
Document Uploading
Document Library
Emojis
Animated GIFs
Email Invites (invite users to the network)
Network Search (search all social components)
Profile Repeater fields
Profile Gender fields
Profile Social Network fields
Advanced Profile Search
Group Types Management
Group Hierarchies
Group Messages
Group Cover Photo Repositioning
Self-selection of profile type
Private Network
Custom URL Registration
Custom Profile Name Formats
Grid and List View settings
Forum @mentions
Edit Activity
Activity Likes
Activity Follow
Activity Privacy
Activity Link Previews
Customizable Activity Post Types
Profile Completion widget
Profile Custom Navigation
Profile Cover Photo Repositioning
Following/Follower widgets
Restrict Messaging to Connections
Intuitive Threaded Messaging Experience
Block Members
Report Content
Member Access Controls
Advanced LearnDash Integrations
Zoom Meeting Integration (PRO only)
Zoom Webinar Integration (PRO only)
Lazy Loading of content
Admin can “View As” any other member
Beautiful email templates with site logo
Default Data
Documention with video tutorials
Github for Open Source
Starter Add-on for developers
Public Product Roadmap
Public list of verified integrations
Dedicated Theme, updated at same time
9-5 Eastern support for paying customers
Full time, paid development team
Mobile app solution, built by the same team

Shaping the future of WordPress
powered communities

The development of the BuddyBoss Platform is moving aggressively. Our public roadmap lists the major features that are in the pipeline. Thousands of sites are already using the BuddyBoss Platform within months of launching it, and our team is committed to making the BuddyBoss Platform the #1 solution for building online communities on WordPress.

These organizations also use BuddyBoss

Premium Customer Support

BuddyBoss Technical Support

Need help? We've got your back.

Our team is here for you
from 9-5 Eastern.

Your experience with BuddyBoss doesn’t stop at the checkout. We are committed to providing you with the support you need to take full advantage of our products.

Send us a message and we’ll help you find the best solution to achieve your goals and bring your vision to life.

We’re committed to helping every customer experience the transformational power of BuddyBoss technology.

OUR PLATFORM

Discover the BuddyBoss platform

The #1 all-in-one web/mobile platform for your courses and community.

Explore BuddyBoss App

Explore BuddyBoss Web

USE CASES

Explore more use cases

We support courses and communities of all kinds.

Boost the classroom experience, enhance students’ performance and increase course completion rates with BuddyBoss for Education.

Online Courses | BuddyBoss — Online Courses

Course Creators deliver online
Create online courses with a collaborative learning experience on Web, iOS & Android. The only web/mobile platform to bring online learning and scalable communities to course creators. No matter how big your knowledge business grows, BuddyBoss grows with you.

Empower your community, your way. No policing, no restrictions, no limitation. Drive conversations, fuel brand loyalty, and build closer relationships with your customers.

Gather members of your faith online for prayer meetings, worship events and education. Reach people 7 days a week from anywhere in the world.

Social Network | BuddyBoss — Social Network

Empower your community, your way. No policing, no restrictions, no limitation. Control your privacy, data, and users.

Bring people from any industry together inside a private network to learn and connect together. Fuel the careers of your community with online courses, exclusive events, jobs boards, and much more.

Build an online coaching business that gives clients exactly what they need, when they need it. Grow engagement, retention, and results with powerful online learning and community features.

Bring people of similar beliefs, ethnicities, genders, goals, or life stages together to make a positive impact in your community.

Reward your members with an exclusive community to collaborate together. Customize your platform your way. Manage membership benefits, payments, and more.

Translation Copy | BuddyBoss — Language Learning

Deliver language learning courses with a collaborative learning experience on Web, iOS & Android. The only web/mobile platform to bring language learning and scalable communities to course creators. No matter how big your knowledge business grows, BuddyBoss grows with you.

TESTIMONIALS