Are you thinking of creating a social networking website like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram? This list of the best free social networking WordPress themes will definitely help!

These free social networking WordPress themes can be used for various purposes, and they all consist of several social networking features and integration options. 

Pros Of Using Free Social Networking WordPress Themes

There are several reasons why an individual may choose to use a free WordPress theme. The reasons include: 

• The most obvious benefit of a free WordPress social networking theme is that it is free of cost. This is always a good thing for new website owners.
• Majority of the free WordPress themes are built while keeping beginners in mind. Therefore, they are straightforward and easy to use. 
• Free themes are compatible with most WordPress plugins as well.
• Since most free themes have a minimalist design, this could result in a speedy WordPress website and improve the website’s SEO rankings.
• Site layouts can be changed frequently as users will never lose the content while using free themes.
• Free WordPress themes are held to a high-quality standard. What this means is that all themes in the WordPress directory undergo a strict theme review process. 
• If there is a website you saw and ever wondered what theme the site owner is using check out Gochyu.

What Are The Best Free Social Networking WordPress Themes?

Following are some of the most popular free social networking WordPress themes:

Community Theme

Community Theme is a versatile theme that enables users to sell courses, membership, and online communities. This is ideal for any type of business. 

Features

• This theme is integrated with all the major WordPress plugins such as Elementor and LearnDash. 
• Community theme supports BuddyPress, as well as the BuddyBoss platform.
• This theme comes with a feature that allows private messages to be sent from one member or group of members to another member or group. 
• With this theme, you can give your users the power to express themselves with a unique membership profile page.
• Members are provided with a forum discussion where they can discuss topics that they care about.
• This theme comes with multilingual support and RTL.
• There are numerous customization options available to match your brand identity.

Pricing

Once you have set up your account, you can get free access to this theme. 

Click here to read more. 

BuddyX

Wbcom Designs develop BuddyX. It is an ideal WordPress theme for community and membership websites. More specifically, BuddyX is a good option for creating social learning and blogging websites with the help of BuddyPress integration. This theme has around 3000+ active installations. 

Features

• BuddyX allows users to create member profiles and send messages, as well as create groups.
• It is easy to use and understand.
• BuddyX is fully responsive.
• This theme is SEO optimized by default. 
• BuddyX is RTL and translation ready. 
• This particular theme provides support for WooCommerce, WC Vendors, LearnPress, and GamiPress plugins.
• BuddyX is highly customizable and can be personalized according to your website’s needs.
• Page builders such as Elementor and Gutenberg are supported.

Pricing

BuddyX is a free theme that can be downloaded from the WordPress theme directory.

Click here to read more. 

Membershiply

Membershiply has been developed and supported by SuperbThemes. This is also a popular responsive and SEO-friendly community and membership WordPress theme. 

Features

• Membershiply is compatible with Beaver Builder and Elementor. 
• It works on every mobile device, such as Windows, Android, as well as Apple devices.
• This theme is ideal for beginners and new website owners.
• Some customization features include changing the color, creating your own header, selecting your own header image and many others.
• Membershiply is compatible with most WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce.
• This theme can be used with some plugins such as bbPress to create forums to allow users to have discussions about topics of interest.
• ProfileGrid is a known plugin that can be used with this theme for individuals to create user profiles, groups, messaging, as well as communities. 

Pricing

Membershiply by Superb Themes can be downloaded for free. 

Click here to read more. 

AssociationX

AssociationX by D5 Creation is designed for multi-purposes. It is a CSS3 powered and WordPress latest version ready responsive theme. 

Features

• BuddyPress plugin can be used along with AssociationX to develop a community site.
• This theme is an ideal option for personal blogs, travel blogs, association websites, alumni websites, and E-commerce websites.
• AssociationX is a fully responsive theme.
• It can be smartly decorated and customized with all devices.
• It includes a drag and drop page builder.
• AssociationX is SEO optimized.
• No coding knowledge is needed to use this theme.
• It supports WooCommerce so users can easily sell their products online.
• Page builders such as Elementor can be used with this theme to design and customize pages.

Pricing

AssociationX can be easily downloaded from the WordPress theme directory.

Click here to read more. 

Responsive Community

Responsive Community is another popular theme by SuperbThemes. It is a responsive and SEO-friendly membership and community theme for WordPress. This theme is good for beginners.

Features

• Responsive Community is SEO optimized by default.
• This theme has a fast loading time.
• The ProfileGrid plugin can be used to enable individuals to create user profiles, groups, memberships, and messaging. 
• Responsive Community includes widget areas that you can use to insert Google Adsense, as well as other types of ads in order to monetize your website.
• It is compatible with well-known WordPress page builders such as Elementor and Beaver Builder.
• It works on Apple, Android, as well as Windows devices.
• There are 600+ active installations of this theme.

Pricing

Responsive Community can be downloaded for free.

Click here to read more. 

Which Social Networking WordPress Theme Should You Use?

One of the best ways to decide which social networking WordPress theme is optimized for your website is to understand your objective in advance. You should select a responsive theme so that the website building process is manageable. 

In my opinion, you can use Community Theme or BuddyX. Despite being free social networking themes, they provide a solution to all kinds of communities and include advanced features. 

We hope the above-listed free social networking WordPress themes assist you in deciding what the best option for your website is. 

The post Best Free Social Networking WordPress Themes appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

If you want to add a discussion forum for your website, you must also know that traditional WordPress themes do not work exceptionally well with forums. If it does, then you are lucky!

If not, then bbPress theme is your best bet.

Having a dynamic website comes with several perks. To boost discussion on your site, you might be looking to add a forum to generate more leads, solve people’s problems and drive traffic.

If you have the bbPress plugin, then integrating a forum is super easy. However, for it to run smoothly, you need a theme that does not add on to your expenses and simultaneously serves the purpose without further ado!

If you are looking for a free bbPress theme, then we have prepared a list for you. Pick the right one after reading what we have to say about them.

bbPress Themes

bbPress allows you to add forums to your WordPress website easily. However, it’s always essential to select a theme that works best for creating an online form. Since many WordPress themes are not compatible with bbPress, so you should choose wisely.

bbPress is a simple, free yet intuitive solution that helps you add a forum to WordPress websites using other WordPress features.

Since your forum is the original part of your WordPress site, you can easily get the benefits of the WordPress user registration system and the massive selection of WordPress plugins available to you.

Overall, bbPress is an open-source system that aims to be a lightweight and user-friendly solution that won’t slow your website down.

 9 Best Free bbPress Themes

1. CommunityTheme

If you want a sleek and minimal design for your forum, then have a look at CommunityTheme. It is an excellent bbPress theme that is easy to set up and comes with minimal setup.

It is a professional theme with great functionality, having most features built-in. The best aspect of CommunityTheme is its compatibility with most platforms, like mobiles and iPads.

In addition to this, it comes with a built-in social interface that allows your customers to log in to your portal using their social media handle.

Furthermore, its E-commerce support is excellent, allowing people to discuss their issues on forums. With most WordPress plugins working seamlessly on this theme, WooCommerce is at the core of its prized possessions.

With active support from the dev, this theme has a wide range of customization options that will suit most of your needs.

Features

• Minimal design with sleek UI to improve user experience on the website
• Wide range of customization options suitable for almost all the projects.
• Features a powerful admin panel to manage fonts, colors, cover photos, etc.
• Multilingual support to translate it into your own language.
• Built-in social login integration allows you to integrate with 26+ sites, including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
• Best for eCommerce stores and supports integration with WooCommerce.

Pricing

CommunityTheme for bbPress will cost you:

• Free to download and use

Link to CommunityTheme for bbPress

2. ForumPress bbPress Theme

The first one on our list is ForumPress. It is a bbPress theme that is made for adding, customizing, and editing forums. It has a predefined layout that works best for most forums.

If you have a gaming community website or a product solution page where the forum is the first thing you might want people to see when they arrive, then ForumPress will work best for you.

It has many features that allow convenient customization. With almost every possible quality for a forum built-in, bbPress is excellent when it comes to a quick setup.

If you want a hassle-free and straightforward bbPress theme free of cost, then ForumPress is your best bet. It works perfectly with most WordPress plugins and can easily be translated too.

Features

• Simple focussed design with great functionality.
• Looks great on tablets, desktop, laptop, and phones.
• Multi-forum support that can manage topics, conversations, and replies easily.
• Users can create their own profiles, content, and dedicated pages.
• Featured with a live search option to allow users to find and search quickly.
• Translation is convenient, allowing you to translate your theme easily and quickly.
• Active support from developers
• Most features are built-in and ready
• SEO friendly to showcase your content and optimize your ranking.

Pricing

ForumPress WordPress theme will cost you $99 with a 1-year license for expert support, theme updates, and 14-days money-back guarantee.

Link to ForumPress bbPress Theme

3. Boss bbPress Theme 

If you are looking to increase traffic on your website through forums, then Boss is a great theme to have. Boss is a free bbPress Theme with a premium feel to it, with an excellent range of customization options.

Starting with color schemes, the theme has several options to add a custom logo, have classic widgets, cool navigation icons, and much more!

If you want your website to have a professional outlook, changing the layout the way you want it, then Boss bbPress theme is best for you. It has a fluid design that allows you to quickly set up your own layout for the forum.

It has a powerful control panel that allows you to maneuver your way around the forum at ease, changing most features as you go.

Its most salient feature is its Social Learner Add-on, which allows you to reap the most out of your e-learning platform.

Features

• Ability to create a social interaction website from the beginning within a few minutes.
• Award-winning bbPress theme that took the social network to a whole new level.
• Gutenberg ready and suitable for e-learning portals.
• Quick setup with a flexible layout that allows you to switch between fluid design and standard layout.
• Easily controls all your widgets, logo, cover photos, and navigation. Thanks to the visual customizer.
• Features a powerful admin panel to add import/export, custom code, and optimize scripts.
• Translation is convenient as it supports multilingual and RTL layout.

Pricing

Boss bbPress Theme will cost you:

• $129 for a single site license
• $179 for 5 site license
• $229 for 20 site license

Plus regular updates and support for one year.

Link to Boss bbPress Theme

4. bbPress Theme 

WordPress has its own handful when it comes to bbPress themes. With its own sister project in the making, bbPress is a standard and minimal theme run by WordPress.

If you are looking for just the basic features of bbPress with not much customization, then have a look at this theme. Although customization options are limited, bbPress is a clean theme with minimal design.

Its clean layout makes your website light and super fast. With a single-click installation, its step-by-step guide allows you to integrate the theme well.

The admin panel is also unified, allowing you to work your way throughout the forum. Its unique section divide feature allows your customers to create their own sections and content.

Features

Minimal and basic design

Easy, single click installation

Active support

Translation is convenient

Compatible with most WordPress plugins

Responsive UI

Pricing

A free version is available.

Link to bbPress theme

5. Noozbeat bbPress Theme 

If you are planning to add a modern theme to your forum, Noozbeat will serve your purpose. It is a modern-age theme ideal for your cooking website or your travel blog, where you want people to have discussions.

Noozbeat is an eye-catching theme with everything in place, starting from the forum’s layout to its customization.

It has a unique drag and drops feature that allows you to customize your design. Noozbeat has a wide range of color options, allowing you to change the color of your slider, navigation buttons, logo, and almost everything on your forum.

Noozbeat is compatible with most WordPress plugins, having its own page builder that can easily work on the admin panel.

Features

• Wide range of customization options to modify various aspects of the website.
• 30+ different coloring options to tune every single part of your website.
• Multiple category layouts for category pages and homepage.
• Customized widgets to support more functionality such as handling Twitter, Instagram, content widgets, etc.
• Compatible with many popular plugins such as YoastSEO, Pods, WPML, WPForms, Mailchimp, Elementor, etc.
• SEO optimized to provide a solid foundation for your SEO strategies.

Pricing

Noozbeat bbPress theme will cost you:

• $34.30 for WordPress theme only
• $48.30 with complete access to all plugins and themes 
• $62.30 with complete access to all the products
• $174.30 with lifetime support and updates.

Link to Noozbeat bbPress Theme

6. Astra Theme

Astra is a lightweight WordPress theme with a multipurpose style that can build any type of website. It also includes several pre-installed templates that work with the bbPress forum plugin.

You can totally change the colors, fonts, background, and other elements of your forum website using a drag-drop builder like Beaver Builder. Astra works with WordPress membership plugins to allow users to sign up.

Astra also includes a fantastic admin panel with direct links to major options in the live customizer. Thus making it simple to install free plugins. You also have a lot of more customizing choices with Astra Pro.

Features

• Equipped with powerful design options such as layouts, header and footer options, sticky header, transparent header, colors, typography, etc.
• Easily customized without any coding knowledge.
• Fastest, lightweight, and highly customized WordPress theme.
• Drag and drop builder to drag elements and place them as required on your website.
• Follows best SEO practices using Astra’s codebase architecture.
• RTL and translation ready with .po and .mo files.
• Complete seamless integration with Elementor, YoastSEO, LearnDash, WooCommerce, BeaverBuilder, etc.

Pricing

Astra Theme will cost you:

• $47 (Astra Pro) with 100+ customization options
• $169 (Essential Bundle) with premium website templates
• $249 (Growth Bundle) with a complete suite of tools to grow your business

Link to Astra Theme

7. Turnkey bbPress by WeaverTheme

If you want to have a tremendous bbPress theme with almost every feature-packed in, then have a look at Turnkey bbPress. Without the need for any programming language, Turnkey bbPress allows you to have a forum curated to your style without any hassle.

Its package has inbuilt features needed by most forums, like widgets, layout, and an admin panel.

Working efficiently with most WordPress plugins, Turnkey is light and fast, allowing you to have many customization options. Its unique ‘Avatar’ option helps users get their own avatar on the forum.

Turnkey is SEO optimized, with an added login widget for your users to log in. With ample features like best answers, private replies, and creating new topics, it is an excellent theme for most websites running today.

Features

• Pre-designed sub-themes designed to work with any WPTheme.
• New and advanced usability features for participants.
• Allows you to add custom CSS to add your own tweaks with customized CSS rules.
• No prior programming knowledge required.
• Compatible with other bbPress plugins.

Link to Turnkey bbPress (Weaver)

8. NewsCard bbPress

NewsCard is another multipurpose bbPress theme that is best suited for magazines, blogs, or news articles. It is a custom-designed bbPress theme that works best on any platform, be it mobiles, tablets, or a personal computer.

With a wide range of customization options, NewsCard is compatible with most plugins, especially WooCommerce.

Its customized sliders, icons, and widgets allow you to have the best possible design for your forum.

NewsCard has many features packed for forums, be it contact forms, layout changes, and even adding a login widget for customers.

Features

• Feature-packed bbPress theme crafted using Bootstrap 4 framework.
• Specially designed for magazine sites such as fashion, health, food, travel, music, sports, photography, personal blogs, shopping sites, news sites, etc.,
• Supports famous plugins such as Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, bbPress, etc.
• Compatible with WooCommerce giving you the complete control to sell anything anywhere.
• Other valuable features include social profiles, threaded comments, custom widgets, cross-browser support, and more!

Pricing

NewsCard Theme will cost you:

• $55 for a single theme
• $99 for the themes bundle pack

Plus, 1 year of theme updates, dedicated support, and anytime cancellation.

A free version is also available.

Link: NewsCard bbPress Theme

9. ShoppingCart bbPress Theme

Online forums can be adapted by businesses. If you’re seeking a free bbPress theme, ShoppingCart is one of the most outstanding options. It’s designed specifically for eCommerce websites that focus on shopping and have ready features to help you grow your business. There are many categories, navigation choices, and a social menu included.

This free bbPress theme allows you to make use of the existence of popular plugins to enhance its functionality.

It supports the Breadcrumb NavXT for Google bots to better understand the website hierarchy; Contact Form 7 for handling multiple forms on your website, and the Breadcrumb NavXT for Google bots to better understand the website hierarchy. WooCommerce allows you to easily create an online store, while the bbPress plugin enables you to create forums and bulletin boards.

The theme also includes a customizer, which allows you to alter the elements on your website and see which ones work best for your business.

Features

• Modern and responsive design optimized to work on iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone.
• Integrated with Social media to position social media icons wherever necessary.
• SEO optimized to easily discover your website high in the search engine results.
• Compatible popular plugins such as WooCommerce, bbPress, Breadcrumb NavXT, Contact Form 7, WP-PageNavi, Jetpack by WordPress.com, etc. 

Pricing

ShoppingCart Theme will cost you:

• $59 for personal use
• $79 for business use
• $99 for a developer

A free version is also available.

Link to ShoppingCart bbPress Theme

Conclusion

Most bbPress themes listed have minimal design and layout that do not require much setting up. Adding a custom bbPress is ideal if your WordPress theme is not compatible with your forum.

Also, the features that come along with bbPress themes make your forum easy to navigate and use for customers. If we choose the best of the lot, then the clear winner is CommunityTheme.

Let us know what works best for your forum!

The post 9 Best Free bbPress Themes appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

Delete any extra sites you may have created. Move the content and users to the main blog or wherever you desire.

Remove the lines we added in the wp-config.php file.

Restore the .htaccess file to the default. One the multisite lines are gone from the config file, you can usually restore these by resaving the permalinks.

Drop these global tables in the database:
wp_blogs
wp_blog_versions
wp_registration_log
wp_signups
wp_site
wp_sitemeta

This is an excerpt from the free ebook Create a Network in WordPress.

The post How to disable multisite appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

If you were using WPMU, not only did Site Admin change to Super Admin, the location of adding another one changed as well, so heads up.

Under the Super Admin -> Users menu, find the user you wish to promote. Hover over their username and a small “edit” link will appear beneath it. Click it. This will lead you to the user’s profile page.

Scroll down to the “Name” section.

I’ve obfuscated the username in this case, but here you can see the checkbox selected to make this user a Super Admin on my site. Hit the update button to save the chage, and the user now has access to the Super Admin menu.

The post How to add a new Super Admin appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

Over the last year plus, I’ve been collaborating with the BP core development team to add the ability to have multiple separate BuddyPress social networks in the same WordPress install. Over the last week, a number of changes have been rolled into BP trunk to support separate networks. However, by default, BP will continue to function as a single network across WP networks consistent with the current behavior. A plugin is required to enable multiple distinct BP networks.

Note: check out these BuddyPress examples to see what you can create. You might want to add a forum to your site via bbPress

You also need to have a plugin to create multiple WP networks in your install. For that, you can use either WP Multi Network or Networks+.

You can download an alpha version of my BP multi-network plugin below. This is currently only for testing and should be used on a test site. Once BP 1.3 is released I’ll be adding this to the plugin repository at wordpress.org. Instructions for using this are:

• install the latest version of BuddyPress trunk http://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk. You need at least revision #4392.
• install bp-multi-network.php in the mu-plugins folder (must be installed there to work correctly)
• create your second WP network with one of the plugins above
• activate BP on the sub network and go through the installation wizard
• for forums you need to tweak your bb-config.php a bit – see below

Download the plugin here.

bb-config.php changes

Your bb-config.php has a line similar to

$bb_table_prefix = 'wp_bb_';

Change that line to

if( function_exists( 'bp_core_get_table_prefix' ) )
	$bb_table_prefix = bp_core_get_table_prefix() . 'bb_';
else
	$bb_table_prefix = 'wp_bb_';

A few lines below that you’ll see a line similar to

$bb->uri = "http://domain.com/wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-forums/bbpress/";

change that line to

if( function_exists( 'get_current_site' ) ) {
	$current_site = get_current_site();
	$bb->wordpress_mu_primary_blog_id = $current_site->blog_id;
	$bb->uri = BP_PLUGIN_URL . '/buddypress/bp-forums/bbpress/';
} else
	$bb->uri = "http://domain.com/wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-forums/bbpress/";

The post Multiple BuddyPress Social Networks appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

Upgrades with multiple databases have always been more work and many people running multiple databases typically did not upgrade until the .1 release of whatever version of MU. When I upgraded Homeschool Journal to MU 2.7.1, it was two weeks before I had found and repaired all of the database issues (via several plugins). I decided I wasn’t going to go through that again.

With the number of blogs at WordPress.com, Automattic must be using a database plugin that supports WordPress MU better. So, over a couple of weekends, I tweaked HyperDB to use the same MD5 hash based sharding structure that we were using.

I released SharDB (Download) last week as a beta release intended for larger WordPress MU installs using an existing 1-3 character MD5 hash (by blog id) based multi-database sharding structure. (Other structures will be added in early 2010.) The alpha testing of SharDB was carried out this fall with the help of a few people who I knew were using the same multi-database that we were. SharDB has been powering live sites since early October.

SharDB has been tested with over 50 plugins including BuddyPress 1.1 through 1.1.3, domain mapping (both Donncha’s and my version) and my multi-site plugin. I have not found any issues with any of the tested plugins. It should support any plugin that accesses data via the $wpdb object. It has been used to upgrade live sites from 2.7.1 through to 2.8.6 and I’ve upgraded a test site to the WordPress MU 2.9 release candidate tagged 2009/12/21. (Note: I used the plugin in this post to create the commentmeta tables before updating MU from 2.8.6 to 2.9RC.)

One of the features that I really like about SharDB is that I don’t need to edit the database config when adding plugins (a feature inherited from HyperDB). Also, I haven’t had issues with plugins failing to create tables. As an added bonus, I added a handy column to the site admin blog screen so that you can see which database a blog’s tables are in.

The post Scaling WordPress MU with multiple databases appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

The magic line is this in your config file:

define('WP_DEFAULT_THEME', 'theme-folder-name');

In this example, the classic theme is used as the default when a site is created, or when a theme in use is removed. If you are starting fresh with 3.0, the default is the new TwentyTen, so this override is handy.

Added tip: if you have a lot of blogs using the Kubrick theme and wanted to remove it and set the other blogs, do this define first with your new default theme, then remove or rename the Kubrick theme folder (in my it was simply “default”). On a refresh, all blogs using the Kubrick theme will be switched to your new default.

If you just wanted the Kubrick theme to go away and have twentyten show up, you won’t need to do the define above. Just rename the /default/ theme folder. It’ll kick in.

(thanks to Ron for reminding me & MichaelH for the codex note I missed)

EDIT: if you are setting a CHILD THEME as the default, you’ll get some errors. Place this line in your wp-config.php file as well, right under the line I gave above.
define( 'TEMPLATEPATH', '/path/to/themes/folder/name-of-parent-theme');

Further amendment: if you really want a child theme set as default, but still have the ability to switch to other theme (standalone or child of another parent) then you will HAVE TO use a plugin to set the default theme.

The post Change the default theme for sites without a plugin appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.

Support for this folder has actually been in single WordPress since 2.8.

In WPMU, you never saw any reference to this folder from the backend at all. Just drop the code in, and the plugin was already running.

In 3.0, support for this is naturally still there, but the folder isn’t created for you. If you do encounter a plugin (like domain mapping) that needs to run in this folder, simply create it via FTP or through your web host’s control panel.

Also in the backend, if you are using the mu-plugins folder, is this:

A listing! You’ll note on this example site (other than we really need to clean out the plugins we were testing), must-use plugins are now listed. This will only be visible to Super Admins – regular administrators, even with access to the Plugins menu, will not see this.

While you may be tempted to toss all your plugins in there – don’t. Like stated above, the code placed in here runs automatically and (depending on how the plugin is coded) on every single page load. Also, any files in folders will not be seen. There must be a physical php file there to be read.

Popular plugins that do belong in this folder are ones like Domain Mapping and New Blog Defaults. Please make sure to always read the readme.txt included with any plugin, as it will specifically state if it should be installed in this folder.

The post What is the mu-plugins folder? appeared first on WPMU Tutorials.