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Are you looking to build your own social networking site on WordPress? Many site owners opt to go with BuddyPress as a solution. It’s a plugin that allows you to create custom social networking sites. While it’s a helpful solution, you’re still going to need a theme that is designed for this plugin. The right theme can help you achieve your ideal look and save you a lot of time in building out your site. Here are some of the top BuddyPress-powered WordPress themes to consider.
1. KLEO
KLEO is one of the top selling themes for BuddyPress in the ThemeForest marketplace. This is a multi-purpose theme that allows you to set up a forum, integrate shops, set up membership sites and of course, set up all the social networking features you want. You can have members set up profiles, add each other as friends and bring together people based on location as well as other criteria.
The theme is very easy to set up. It’s a one-click install. The developers really focused on creating a strong user interface. The admin panel is very organized and straightforward. It takes you through the site creation process step by step so that you cover all the bases. It also has a drag and drop site builder which makes it even easier. And if you want a pre-built solution, there are many different templates you can use.
One of the big selling points of KLEO is the huge support the creators offer. The tech team and support staff are very responsive and there is a dedicated forum to help you get the most out of this theme.
2. Boss
Boss is a theme that’s sold by a developer that specializes in BuddyPress. Boss also is a multi-purpose theme. You can build blog sites, integrate eCommerce, set up a membership site or build a social networking site. The design of Boss right out of the box looks very similar to Facebook. They’ve taken the best elements of what makes Facebook work and put that into their templates.
You can quickly customize everything from the layout, logo, widgets, to the navigation so that you can build a unique looking site. Some popular features include social login integration, membership tiers and compatibility with many platforms/plugins like Sensei, LearnDash, WooCommerce and a large list of BuddyPress-centric plugins. The theme also is designed so that beginners can build without having much HTML knowledge.
This theme has a lot of support backup. The creators update the theme frequently, provide you with narrated video tutorials and have reliable support staff waiting to help you. The only downside to this theme may be that you need to add a lot of plug-ins to make it run the way you want it to.
3. Klein
Klein is another solid choice for building your own social networking site. It’s mostly focused on building community sites, so the theme is a great choice if that’s your primary goal but just average if you want something more multi-purpose oriented. This theme focuses on simplifying the site building process. It offers fewer choices template-wise than the other two themes that were mentioned, but has enough features to keep most people happy.
Klein’s website building tool is similar to the tools supplied by web hosting companies (in a good way). It’s a visual composer with a drag and drop feature. You simply pick which element you want to put onto your page and you’re given options on customizing this element. This make it drop dead simple to build a site from zero to done. The developers made their theme beginner friendly which is what differentiates it from other themes.
The support for this theme is above average but is lacking in several areas. You get documentation but no video tutorials. There isn’t any forum that you can go on to interact with other Klein users.
4. WOffice
WOffice is a community theme specifically designed for businesses and organizations. It provides many business-centered features such as project management, time tracking, calendar, eCourses and more. Most of the customers are made of businesses that want to set up their own private network. However, it is also used by schools and general communities to bring people under one platform.
It comes with many of the standard features that you’d expect from an expensive custom solution like member permissions/rankings, web hosting style file management, local network setup, high security settings, web-app support, active feeds, live chatting and more. They offer video tutorials to help you set it up and ticket support. They are constantly updating and improving the theme as well.
5. NRGnetwork
NRGnetwork is a theme designed to help you build community and social networking sites with the focus put on artists. That’s why there are many features on how individual users can display and customize their portfolio on their profiles. This is a very straightforward theme that doesn’t offer much design and customization options. However, it’s perfect if you are building a site for artists, musicians, collectors, photographer, etc.
There are some templates that help you customize the overall look and the pages but it is very limited compared to the other popular themes. They offer support through a ticket system but do not offer video tutorials or a private forum. It’s a great niche-focused theme when you consider the price.
Those are some of the top BuddyPress-powered WordPress themes that are on the market. It can be confusing as to which theme to go with since they have many similar features. Just look through each theme and figure out if it has the perfect combination of templates, features and technology you’re looking for to make the right purchase decision.