Are you looking for the best BuddyPress themes for your WordPress website?
BuddyPress is a sister project of WordPress. It lets you build an online social network on top of your WordPress website without writing any code.
In this article, we will share some of the best BuddyPress themes for your WordPress website.
Building Your Online Community with BuddyPress and WordPress
WordPress is the top website builder on the market. It’s super flexible to create an online social community with BuddyPress.
There are 2 kinds of WordPress websites. WordPress.com, which is a hosting solution, and WordPress.org, which is a self-hosted platform. You should check out our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org for detailed instructions.
To use the BuddyPress plugin, you will need a self-hosted WordPress.org website. It gives you access to all of WordPress’s features and functionality. Plus, it works with BuddyPress straight out of the box.
BuddyPress allows users to create extended member profiles on your site, use messaging features, add one another as friends, and much more.
It’s the ideal option if you want people to be able to socialize on your site. You could also use it as part of an e-learning site with an LMS plugin such as LearnDash.
Before you start, you will also need to buy a domain name and web hosting. A domain name is your site’s address on the web, like wpbeginner.com or google.com. Web hosting is the storage for all your website files.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an official WordPress recommended hosting service.
For WPBeginner users, Bluehost offers a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a BIG discount on web hosting.
After buying hosting, you can go ahead and install WordPress. Then, you should follow our step by step guide on how to make a website.
Next, you need to install and activate the BuddyPress plugin. For more details, check out our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress themes for BuddyPress that’ll make your website look great.
1. Astra
Astra is a modern WordPress theme built with a multipurpose approach and an easy setup. It comes with multiple templates for different organizations and businesses. Each template is unique in terms of design and features.
The best part about the Astra theme is its compatibility with drag and drop page builders like Elementor Pro and Beaver Builder. The theme also supports third-party WordPress plugins straight out of the box, including BuddyPress to create an online community easily.
2. OceanWP
OceanWP is a classic free WordPress theme designed for any type of website. It includes free and paid demo sites with a 1-click importer. The theme also offers premium extensions for advanced features.
It’s super fast and easy to set up. OceanWP is well-suited for an online community website with BuddyPress integration and support for powerful WordPress page builders.
3. Divi
Divi is a popular WordPress theme that comes with a powerful built-in page builder. It’s a 1-stop package to set up an online BuddyPress community from scratch without editing any code.
The theme has a visual editor that gives you an upper hand in making changes to your website. Just click on any element and start customizing right away on the frontend. It offers hundreds of page templates available on 1-click to set up your site quickly and easily.
Divi is SEO friendly so your WordPress site will rank well in Google and other search engines.
4. Hestia Pro
Hestia Pro is a stylish and responsive WordPress theme designed for business and professional websites. It fully supports third-party drag and drop page builders for easy customization options.
The theme is compatible with the BuddyPress plugin to start an online community. Inside, you will find multiple page layout choices that you can use as a base for your website.
Hestia Pro also integrates with WooCommerce if you want to add an online store to your community site and sell products. Plus, it’s retina-ready and uses responsive design so your BuddyPress site will look great on all devices.
5. Ultra
Ultra is a stunning multipurpose WordPress theme. It comes with a few ready-made website templates for music, photography, restaurants, digital agencies, lifestyle, fashion, and other businesses.
It has a pack of addons that you can use to extend the functionality of your site. With built-in Themify Builder, it’s easier to set up and customize an online community or online courses website.
6. Magazine Pro
Magazine Pro is a fantastic WordPress magazine theme. It’s built on top of the Genesis Framework, which makes it powerful and reliable to run an online business community.
It has a spacious layout that makes your content highly readable. The theme also offers multiple ad spaces to display professional ads and make extra money online.
StudioPress is now part of WP Engine, the most popular managed WordPress hosting company. You can get this theme and all 35+ other StudioPress themes when you sign up for WP Engine hosting to build your website.
Bonus: WPBeginner users also get an additional 20% OFF. Get started with WP Engine today!
7. Noozbeat
Noozbeat is a modern WordPress magazine theme compatible with BuddyPress. It features a magazine layout focusing on keeping users engaged with your content. It has unlimited color choices, multiple category layouts, an attractive sidebar, and ready to use advertising spots.
Inside you’ll also find custom widgets for social networking, Twitter, Instagram, content discovery, and more. It has a custom theme options panel allowing you to turn elements on or off, add your logo, change backgrounds, and more.
8. Cool Stuff
Cool Stuff is a magnificent WordPress theme for BuddyPress, magazine, news, and blogging websites. It features a modern homepage with a traditional 2-column blog layout. It includes built-in sections to add a filterable portfolio, services, events, and members.
Cool Stuff is super flexible and comes with awesome features like social media sharing, image slider, contact form, and Google Maps support.
9. Compass
Compass is a customizable and sophisticated community WordPress theme. Suitable for blogs, magazines, and business websites, Compass is also fully compatible with BuddyPress. It makes a great BuddyPress WordPress theme.
Compass has a fully-widgetized homepage layout, which means you can add custom widgets to set up your homepage.
The homepage uses featured images and your content categories to beautifully curate your content. It has a mobile-friendly image slider, and all the theme options are easy to set up in the live theme customizer.
10. The Columnist
The Columnist is a free WordPress theme for magazine, news, blogs, bbPress, and BuddyPress websites. It comes with different layout choices for homepage, archives, single pages, bbPress, and BuddyPress.
It includes a responsive slider and four color schemes. Your content can be displayed in up to a 4-column layout.
11. Monochrome Pro
Monochrome Pro has an attractive minimalist design. It features beautiful typography and a spacious layout for a cleaner and sophisticated look.
It’s built on top of the rock-solid foundation of the Genesis Framework, so your site will be lightning fast. Monochrome Pro has the perfect theme options that you’ll need for creating a BuddyPress website where people can socialize.
12. Modules
Modules is a modern multipurpose BuddyPress theme that is truly flexible and easy to use. It comes with ready-made sites that you can import in 1-click and replace the content with your own to get started.
You’ll also like the built-in modules that come with the theme. The Modules theme is fully compatible with BuddyPress, WooCommerce and eCommerce plugins, and all major WordPress plugins.
13. Neve
Neve is an excellent WordPress theme with a mobile-first approach making it one of the best choices for a BuddyPress website. It’s fast and lightweight, so the page load time is minimal.
With flexible theme options, it’s easy to set up even for absolute beginners with no knowledge of code. Neve also seamlessly integrates with many page builders, including Beaver Builder, Visual Composer, SiteOrigin, and the Divi Builder.
14. Spencer
Spencer is a beautiful WordPress theme for entrepreneurs and bloggers. It fully supports BuddyPress to create an online community website in just a few clicks.
The theme has a fullscreen layout with a custom background image. It also includes multiple responsive layouts, a sticky navigation menu, call-to-action buttons, and more.
Spencer is a multilingual theme that integrates with WPML. It works with RTL languages to help you create a global community.
15. ExS
ExS is a free WordPress multipurpose theme built for any type of website. It supports BuddyPress as well as the bbPress plugin and other WordPress plugins to start your own social network easily. You could even use it for a company intranet or extranet site.
The theme features include an event calendar, header and footer layouts, blog layouts, and unlimited color options. When it comes to customization, ExS is compatible with popular page builders like WPBakery, Brizy, and more.
16. Inspiro
Inspiro is a professional WordPress theme for photo and video websites. It has a custom fullscreen video background and a video slideshow that supports YouTube, Vimeo, and self-hosted videos.
It also integrates with image gallery plugins, portfolio plugins, and so on. Inspiro also supports the BuddyPress plugin out of the box.
17. Vasco
Vasco is a travel blog theme for WordPress websites. It integrates with BuddyPress to build travel-related social networks and online communities.
It has a widgetized homepage and lets you drag and drop custom widgets to set up the front page quickly. The theme also offers customizable shapes to make a stunning logo for your website.
We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress themes for BuddyPress. You may also want to check out our guide on the best email marketing services to help you grow your online community.
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