If you want to create a strong community around your brand or if you simply want a way to provide your current clients and customers with support, adding a forum or knowledge base to a site is the best way to go.
Setting up a forum or knowledge base on a site used to be a tedious process that required hiring a developer. But, with the help of WordPress and the best WordPress forum themes, you can easily do it yourself.
Where to Find the Best WordPress Forum and Knowledge Base Themes
If you’re looking for the best WordPress forum theme for your site, look no further than ThemeForest.
This marketplace allows you to quickly purchase a single-use forum website template for WordPress and install it on your WordPress website.
To make things even better, all of our WordPress forum themes have a modern design and plenty of features to boost the engagement on your site.
Best WordPress Forum Themes From ThemeForest
Take a look at some of the best WordPress forum themes that you can purchase, download, and use in 2022 and beyond.
1. KnowHow—A Knowledge Base WordPress Theme
From HeroThemes, an Envato Elite Author, KnowHow is an advanced knowledge base without the monthly subscription.
HereThemes says KnowHow helps you setup a Knowledge Base in WordPress in less time than it takes to brew a coffee. And it’s perfect for providing a support resource for your customers and is super easy to manage.
This really is one of the best forum website template WordPress themes available!
2. Disputo—WordPress bbPress Forum Theme
The Disputo theme has a clean and modern design and works beautifully with the bbPress plugin for WordPress. In addition to that, the theme also supports WooCommerce so you can sell products easily.
Visitors may register and create new topics on the forums, rate topics and replies, and even share them on social media.
3. Sentric—Support Forum WordPress Theme
If you want to create forums to provide support for your users, the Sentric theme will come in handy.
The theme has all the necessary features to create a support forum as well as a knowledge base. The theme is also fully responsive and easy to customize.
4. Tikidocs—Knowledgebase and Support Forum WordPress Theme
TikiDocs is a clean and modern knowledge base and support forum theme for WordPress.
Create a unique layout for your forums or knowledge base thanks to premade sections and your users can easily start new topics, reply to existing ones, search for answers, and more.
The theme is also fully responsive and highly customizable.
5. Vilan Corporate, Shop and Forum WordPress Theme
The Vilan Corporate is a multipurpose and versatile theme that allows you to easily add forums to your site.
Add them to your existing site as a way of providing support for your customers or to build a community around your brand.
The theme is easy to customize and has an easy to use page builder plugin.
6. Forum—A Responsive Forum WordPress Template
If you’re looking for a simple and clean theme for your forum, consider the Forum theme.
This theme is a perfect choice for anyone that wants to run a simple forum website with no unnecessary features.
The theme is fully responsive and can be used for various forum types.
7. Tessera—Knowledge Base and Support Forum WordPress Theme
The Tessera theme has a trendy design.
This theme not only works with bbPress but also the Elementor page builder plugin so you can easily create custom login and registration pages.
The theme is fully responsive and makes it easy to create forum topics as well as a complete knowledge base with the ability to submit support tickets.
8. TownPress—Municipality WordPress Theme
The TownPress theme is a great choice if you want to create a city or municipality forums.
The theme can easily be customized to match your community and make your community members feel like they have a place where they can voice their opinions and concerns.
Share news, add important community documents and announcements, and allow users to follow topics that interest them.
9. Lore—Elegant Knowledge Base WordPress Theme
The Lore is an elegant knowledge base theme for WordPress. It’s easy to use as it comes with support for Gutenberg and Elementor page builder plugin.
It also has plenty of customization options.
Translate it into your own language, create a knowledge base, FAQ pages, and add a blog for even more in-depth explanations.
10. Youplay—Gaming Forum WordPress Theme
Consider the Youplay theme if you want to create a gaming forum. This theme supports bbPress as well as BuddyPress so you can easily create a feature-rich and engaging community for your gaming clan.
The theme comes with an easy to use page builder plugin and a powerful theme options panel so you can customize every aspect of your site.
11. SquadForce—eSports Gaming WordPress Forum Theme
SquadForce is another great choice for a gaming forum site built on WordPress.
The theme makes it easy to create a community and forums where users can start topics, rate them, and mark them as important.
Customize the look of your forums and the theme is fully responsive.
12. HelpDesk—WordPress Support Center And Forum Theme
The HelpDesk theme is a modern theme that has full support for bbPress and comes with Ajax-powered live search so your users can easily search for topics that interest them.
The theme is fully responsive and can be customized to match the rest of your site.
13. Mingle—Multi-purpose WordPress Forum Theme
The Mingle theme is a multipurpose WordPress theme that can be used to create a regular website as well as add forums to your existing site.
The theme has a modern design and can be completely customized to match your brand. It’s also fully responsive.
14. eGovenz—City Government Forum WordPress Theme
The eGovenz theme is another great choice if you want to create a forum for your local community.
The theme makes it easy to create forums where users can stay on top of community news, engage in discussions, and download important documents. eGovenz is fully responsive, optimized to load fast, and SEO-friendly.
15. Manual—Multi-Purpose Online Documentation, Knowledge Base and Creative WordPress Theme
The Manual theme is perfect for creating online documentation websites and it has a forum component so your users can engage in discussions and socialize with others.
The theme is responsive, highly customizable, supports extended search, and comes with prebuilt pages that you can use to set up your forums.
17. Knowledge Base—A Forum WordPress Theme
The Knowledge Base theme stands out with its live search ability and easy to use interface.
The theme supports creating a knowledge base as well as user forums. This theme is fully responsive.
19. Salutation—Forum WordPress Theme
Salutation is a user-friendly WordPress theme designed with bbPress and BuddyPress in mind.
This means you can easily create a powerful and engaging community with this theme and WordPress.
The theme is fully responsive and makes it easy for your users to find what they’re looking for.
20. InfoCenter—Knowledge Base and Q/A WordPress Theme
The InfoCenter is a feature-rich knowledge base and forum theme with a modern and responsive design.
The theme makes it easy for users to register and create their profiles as well as find topics that interest, engage in discussions, and mark topics as important.
Free Forum Themes for WordPress
Premium WordPress forum themes are a great choice when you want a professional and polished design. But if your budget is limited, a premium theme might not be the best choice. Or if you’re not sure that adding forums to your site is the best course of action, it makes no sense to invest in a premium theme.
Luckily, there are plenty of free forum themes for WordPress that you can download and experiment with before committing to a premium theme.
And don’t forget to check the free forum WordPress themes on Themeforest, which change every month. Get notified of new free WordPress themes by signing up for the Envato Market newsletter.
1. Square—WordPress Free Forum Theme
This theme is a solid starting point if you want to create business forums. It’s responsive and supports both bbPress and BuddyPress.
Customize fonts and colors and make the forums match the rest of your site.
2. Mags—WordPress Free Forum Theme
Try this theme if you want to create forums to accompany your online magazine.
This will make it easy for your readers to take the discussion further and build a sense of community around your brand.
3. Inc—WordPress Free Theme For Forums
If you want to create professional or corporate forums, try the Inc theme. It has a professional design and integrates with bbPress as well as BuddyPress.
5 Quick Tips for Forum Websites
Finding the right forum website template for WordPress is the first step towards adding forums to your site. Here are five more tips that will help you create an engaging community or provide your customers with stellar support.
1. Decide the Purpose of the Forum
The first tip is to decide on the purpose of your forum. Do you want to make it easier for your clients and customers to engage with your brand?
Or do you want to make sure they get the needed support for your products and services? Knowing this will make it easier to plan and decide on how you’re going to structure the forums and engage your users.
2. Choose the Right Theme
Based on the focus of your forums, you’ll need to select the right WordPress forum theme.
The forums should blend in with the rest of your site and the theme should make it easy to create new topics, respond to them, and organize the discussions in your forums.
3. Don’t Go Overboard With Sub-Forums and Topics
While creating multiple topics and sub forums is a great way to organize your forum, it can also result in your forums being difficult and confusing to use.
Be careful when creating new sub forums and topics.
4. Be a Present Admin
Keep in mind that building an engaging community takes time. As such, it’s your job as the forum admin to be there for your members and show them that they won’t be left to their own devices.
5. Encourage Discussion
Lastly, encourage discussion between your members by asking questions, prompting them to reply, and encouraging them to start their own threads.
This helps you create momentum as well as ensure that your community is active and engaged at all times.
Launch a Forum Quickly With the Best WordPress Forum Theme
Thanks to beautiful and feature-rich WordPress forum themes from ThemeForest, you can quickly and easily launch your forums. Visit ThemeForest today and browse our selection of website forum templates for WordPress.
Editorial Note: This post has been updated with contributions from Johnny Winter. Johnny is a staff writer with Envato Tuts+.
