Last updated on June 26th, 2022 at 11:41 am
BuddyPress is a package that adds social networking features to your WordPress site.
With BuddyPress, you can turn your WordPress site into a fully functional social network. It is currently owned by Automattic and it has nearly 200,000 installs so far.
BuddyPress is one of the fastest growing social network platforms worldwide. In this article, we will have a look at the most popular BuddyPress themes for your WordPress site.
BuddyPress as the best choice to make an Online Community on a WordPress site
It is a really cool addon to WordPress.org type of sites.
BuddyPress just makes your site look like a professional social networking place. BuddyPress allows both profit and non-profit companies to have a custom communication tool for social networking.
Combined with the unlimited potential of WordPress, BuddyPress is the best option for enabling social features for your WordPress site. BuddyPress integrates with specifically designed themes, plugins and widgets.
All you need is to install the BuddyPress plugin on your self-hosted WordPress site.
In case you want to use BuddyPress, you will need to have a WordPress.org type of site as sites built on the WordPress.com platform don’t support BuddyPress.
If you’re not sure about the type of WordPress site you have, then have a look at our article about the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org sites.
If you’re on a WordPress.com site, in order to use BuddyPress, you’ll need to start hosting your site with one of the managed WordPress hosting providers.
To create your self-hosted WordPress website, you need to have your own web space to host your site.
Once you purchase your web hosting account, all you need is to install your WordPress.org site.
If you’re not sure how to do this, have a look at our guide on how to install a WordPress.org site from your hosting provider. Most of the hosts provide a single click installation for WordPress.org sites. The new site is usually installed in 2 less than minutes.
I’d recommend InMotion, Bluehost or GoDaddy as they provide a one-click WordPress install with their managed hosting plans for WordPress.
After the installation for your new WordPress.org type of site, you can go ahead and install the BuddyPress plugin.
As every new WordPress installation comes with default themes such as the 2017 Twenty Seventeen theme, it is a good idea to choose a theme that fully integrates with BuddyPress. Here’s the list with some of the best BuddyPress themes so far.
As we strive to provide fair reviews of the BuddyPress compatible themes, our list of recommended themes is in alphabetical order. And the themes in it aren’t ordered by importance.
Top 10+ WordPress Themes
Anybuddy BuddyPress Theme
Anybuddy is a flexible WordPress theme that will help you build your online community like never before. It is 100% compatible with BuddyPress.
It is a fully responsive theme and it supports many social networking features. These features include Members’s activity page, Members’ subscription page, Search page for BuddyPress and many more.
Beatrix BuddyPress Theme
Beatrix Theme is a theme that is designed especially for e-commerce websites, but BuddyPress works perfectly with this theme as well.
The theme is ideal for online digital stores or clothing stores that need the extended social networking power of BuddyPress.
The Beatrix BuddyPress Theme is fully responsive which guarantees the stunning look of your site on both desktop and mobile devices.
Besocial BuddyPress Theme
Besocial is a fully responsive WordPress theme that works equally great on both BuddypPress and bbPress. It is fully compatible with WooCommerce which guarantees the seamless integration of e-commerce features of your social networking site.
When integrated with BuddyPress, Besocial provides many options for your audience. These include BuddyPress navigation menu, friend connections, user private messaging, notifications and more.
Boss BuddyPress Theme
The Boss Theme is one of the best BuddyPress themes available so far. It has all the tools that will help you launch a world class social network site. The theme provides a flexible layout which can help you switch from its unique design style to a more standard layout.
One of the main advantages of the Boss Theme is that you can customize your site without the need of modifying your source code. There are graphical tools that can help you control your photos, logos and widgets on the site.
The Boss Theme has an integrated Admin panel for easily managing your colors, fonts, layouts and more.
There are some additional features such as the Social Learner Addon which transforms your social networking site into a learning platform.
Boss theme is fully compatible with the Paid Membership Pro plugin. This is the ideal combination if you’re planning to charge for membership at some point.
The Boss Theme fully supports social login integration. All of the most popular plugins for social login are fully operational with the theme. Your users can log in to your site by using their profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.
Buddy BuddyPress Theme
Buddy is a WordPress theme that is lightweight and 100% responsive. It works perfectly with or without BuddyPress integration.
Once Buddy is installed, all of your posts and pages will be organized just like the demo without the need of any additional tweaking. The same applies to all menus and categories on your site.
The use of shortcodes is already integrated in the Buddy theme.
SEO is one of the top priorities of the Buddy theme developers – they used HTML5, CSS3 and schema markup for all of the content on your site.
The Buddy theme offers the option to use a child theme in case you’re worried about losing any code that has been added to the site.
BuddyApp BuddyPress Theme
BuddyApp theme is one of the most intuitive BuddyPress themes out there. It offers cool features like:
Live notifications so that you don’t miss any instant message from your groups and teams.
Live customizer is another feature of BuddyApp that gives you the possibility to preview the settings such as colors for your site in real time.
Last but not least, BuddyApp’s Live Chat functionality is an integral part of the theme. It lets everyone express themselves easily on the instant live chat of your site.
BuddyApp is a theme that offers Knowledge Base functionality. If your social networking site relies on sharing knowledge between its members, then BuddyApp is the social theme to go with.
In addition, its File Management feature give your users the option to share files on the site without the need to use any external service for this.
Similarly, to BuddyPress, bbPress works with it as well.
Cinematix BuddyPress Theme
Cinematix is the BuddyPress theme that provides more flexibility and fresher design when compared to the others themes from the list. It is one of the most popular themes for entertainment.
Cinematix places brand recognition on top as it offers an excellent user experience and usability.
When combined with BuddyPress, Cinematix becomes a registration-ready site for making new social connections for your users.
The theme is based on a modular design system which lets you change the location of the blocks on your homepage as per your own preference.
Cinematix fully supports Visual Composer meaning that you can easily create your homepage by yourself with the help of the most popular page builder.
You can further customize your pages by changing the content of your blocks depending on the type of membership your users have. Creating Intranet or Extranet groups with Cinematix has never been easier.
CommunityJunction BuddyPress Theme
CommunityJunction is one of the latest BuddyPress themes for WordPress. It is the ideal theme for brand awareness and recognition, providing a neat user experience through detailed perfection on every page. CommunityJunction theme brings BuddyPress to a new level – it uses flexible layout modules.
CommunityJunction works with both BuddyPress and bbPress. Using shortcodes is another fearure of the theme. It offers a powerful page builder which gives you the option to make pages and posts with their own unique style.
Private Live Messages on CommunityJunction provides a unique online private chat messaging system.
CommunityJunction has a 1280 px wide layout for better user experience. The theme is fully responsive providing drop-down menus on three levels.
