BuddyNext - community engine for WordPress

The free, self-hosted community engine · Now live

The complete community platform for WordPress.

Ready on day one. Feed, forums, courses, events, jobs and a marketplace, all built in-house by one team, with nothing to stitch together.

Get BuddyNext free Try the live demo →

Free forever. You download the zip and upload it in Plugins › Add New. The demo hands you a real community for four hours and asks for an email.

The BuddyNext Explore screen, showing the Feed, Explore, Members, Spaces, Explore Media, Gamification and Discussion modules in one community.

From visitor to member

From first visit to the top of the board

Eight real screens from a BuddyNext community, in the order a new member reaches them. Pick a stop to see it.

01Visitors

Join in one short form

Email, name and password on your own branded sign-up page. A quick question keeps automated sign-ups out.

  • Branded sign-up
  • Email verification
  • Spam check
1 / 8

The difference that matters

Everyone else hands you a feed. Then a shopping list.

A social feed is where most community products stop. To add forums, courses, events, or payments you go hunt down third-party plugins from different makers and hope they fit. With BuddyNext every one of those is already in the box, built by the same team.

The usual way

  • Social feed plugin Vendor A
  • Forum plugin Vendor B
  • Courses / LMS Vendor C
  • Events & RSVPs Vendor D
  • Payments & memberships Vendor E

Five makers, mismatched interfaces. You wire it together and hope they get along.

BuddyNext

  • Community & social layer Wbcom
  • Forums & Q&A Wbcom
  • Courses & LMS Wbcom
  • Events & RSVPs Wbcom
  • Jobs, marketplace, gamification, media Wbcom

One maker, one language, one support desk. It just works together.

The complete community stack

Not just a plugin. A complete community platform.

The engine at the core runs your feed, spaces, members, and messaging. The full ecosystem of apps plugs straight in - forums, courses, a job board, a marketplace, and more - all built and supported by one team. You get a complete community platform on day one, not a pile of plugins to assemble yourself.

See the engine → Browse the apps
  • The apps 12+ Wbcom plugins extend it - forums, an LMS, a marketplace, directories, media, ads.
  • The engine Feed, Spaces, members, profiles, messaging, moderation - the core that runs your community.
  • Your WordPress It all lives on your server, in your own database. You own the whole stack, members included.

Your choice, plug and play

Install BuddyNext. Add any capability when you're ready.

You install BuddyNext and a complete community works from day one. When you want more, plug in any of these capabilities - forums, events, courses, a job board, a services marketplace, and more. Each one is fully functional, free to start, and built by the same team, so it just works with your community. You pick what you want, nothing to stitch together.

Grow engagement

Build a business

All from Wbcom Designs - one team, one roadmap, one support desk. No stitching together strangers’ plugins and hoping they get along.

Why one in-house platform wins

Built by one team, so the whole platform just works together.

One team builds all of it

The social layer, forums, courses, events, jobs, a marketplace and more are all made by Wbcom Designs. No third-party vendors to coordinate, no plugin roulette.

Everything speaks the same language

Because one team wrote it all, a paid plan, a moderation strike and a space ban work together out of the box. Nothing to glue, nothing to hope about.

One roadmap, one support desk

One place for updates, one place for help, for the whole platform. Not five vendors pointing at each other when something breaks.

Spaces

Rooms for every corner of your community.

Open, private, or secret. Members find their people and owners keep the right doors locked.

Design Critique

open

Share work in progress and get honest, kind feedback.

248 members

Frontend Guild

open

Everything CSS, a11y, and the modern web platform.

412 members

Book Club

private

One book a month. Request to join and pick up the read.

86 members

Trail Runners

open

Routes, gear talk, and weekend meetups.

159 members

Founders Lounge

secret

Invite-only room for the core team to talk shop.

12 members

Photo Walks

private

Monthly city photo walks. Share your best frame.

134 members

Why BuddyNext over the rest

Four reasons people pick BuddyNext.

Plenty of ways exist to run a community. Here is where BuddyNext is genuinely different, and honest about it.

One maker, not fifty strangers

Forums, courses, events, jobs, a marketplace and the social layer are all built by Wbcom Designs. Everything interoperates because one team wrote it, not because you got lucky wiring third-party plugins together.

Others hand you a feed, then a shopping list

Most community products give you an activity feed and stop. Forums, courses, events, payments come from other vendors you have to find, buy, and pray work together. Here they are already in the box.

You own the whole stack

Your community lives on your own WordPress, on your own server. Nothing rented from Circle, Skool, or Mighty Networks, and nobody can switch it off.

Fast, modern, and yours to extend

Built from the ground up for speed and an app-like feel, with a real REST API, hooks on every event, and Gutenberg blocks. Shape any direction you like without forking the core.

What's inside

Everything a community needs, in the box.

The free plugin already covers the essentials. Pro layers on monetization, AI, and real-time delivery when you are ready to scale.

  • Activity feed & posting A real-time stream with reactions, comments, and hashtags people actually open.
  • Spaces Open, private, or secret rooms so every topic gets its own home.
  • Members & profiles Rich profiles, connections, and a directory members can search.
  • Messaging Private one-to-one chats, right inside the community.
  • Notifications & email On-site alerts and email digests that keep people coming back.
  • Moderation & trust Reports, a review queue, and tools to keep things kind.
  • Engagement & gamification Points, badges, and ranks that reward the people who show up.
  • MonetizationPro Paid plans and members-only content, gateway-agnostic.
  • AIPro Smart assists for writing, moderation, and discovery.
  • Real-time & pushPro Live updates and push notifications for that instant feel.
See all features → Read the docs

Watch it in action

See every feature, in 123 short videos.

Start with one community from end to end, then pick a series: step-by-step tutorials for every part of the platform, and case studies of what people build with it.

Build an Online Community You Own: Feed, Courses, Events and Forums4:05Chapters and transcript

1 11 videos Tutorials: Start Here Set up BuddyNext from a fresh install: the admin, the setup wizard, branding, your first space, first post and first members. Watch series → 2 19 videos Tutorials: BuddyNext Pro Paid plans, gated spaces and posts, email campaigns, analytics and the rest of BuddyNext Pro, one task per video. Watch series → 3 10 videos Tutorials: Spaces Create and run spaces: privacy types, members, moderators, bans, forums, media, featured spaces and space numbers. Watch series → 4 24 videos Tutorials: Members Profiles and profile fields, the member directory, login and onboarding, privacy, messages and notifications. Watch series → 5 35 videos Tutorials: Community The feed, posts, reactions, polls and search, then moderation, rewards and the companion plugins. Watch series → 6 2 videos Tutorials: What's New Short walkthroughs of what changed in the latest BuddyNext releases: Stripe membership payments and spaces linked to courses, events and forums. Watch series → 7 6 videos Community Case Studies Six real communities, each running on one WordPress site you own: a members community, a creator academy, an association, a local community and a team space. Watch series → 8 11 videos Build an Online Community You Own How to plan, build, run and charge for a community on your own WordPress site, from first idea to a branded app. Watch series → 9 5 videos Community Platform Alternatives Circle, Mighty Networks, Skool, Patreon, Facebook Groups and Squarespace, compared with a community you own on WordPress. Watch series →

Open the video library → Or try the live demo

How it stacks up

They built a feature. We built the whole platform.

Most alternatives cover one slice and send you assembling third-party plugins for the rest. With BuddyNext every capability installs free and switches on like a module - one platform, one team, all built to work together.

  • Activity feed & community A typical stack Built in BuddyNext Included
  • Member profiles & directory A typical stack Built in BuddyNext Included
  • Forums & discussions A typical stack Built in BuddyNext Included
  • Private & group messaging A typical stack Built in BuddyNext Included
  • Courses & LMS A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
  • Events & RSVPs A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
  • Job board & resumes A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
  • Services marketplace A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
  • Directories & listings A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
  • Gamification & leaderboards A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
  • Moderation suite A typical stack Built in BuddyNext Included
  • Memberships & paywalls A typical stack Separate plugin BuddyNext Included
A typical stack 5 of 12 built in 7 more you’d bolt on or can’t get
BuddyNext 12 of 12 included every base included; a few have an optional Pro tier
Compare the alternatives → Free vs Pro
All-in-one The work of a dozen tools Community, forums, events, courses, jobs, a marketplace and more, in one platform instead of a dozen separate products to buy and wire together.
Fair price Free to start, Pro from $149 A single fair price for BuddyNext Pro, not a separate plan for every feature, and no per-member SaaS bill that climbs as you grow.
Try it live A real sandbox, not a tour Your own throwaway BuddyNext site with full admin, yours for four hours. It asks for an email. See what you get →
Fast Built for performance Modern and self-hosted, engineered to stay quick from fifty members to fifty thousand.

Loved by community builders

From the team behind BuddyX, Reign, and Jetonomy.

Wbcom Designs' verified Trustpilot standing, the team that builds BuddyNext. BuddyNext itself is newly launched, so these reviews are for the team and its wider plugin family.

4.8 / 5 96 reviews on Trustpilot
I wanted to build a community website and these guys created the perfect plugins for me. To be honest, I want to buy every single one of their plugins.
Sora Seaton · Trustpilot
We use BuddyPress with several free plugins from Wbcom Designs and we are extremely satisfied. They add real value for our community, are updated regularly, and continuously improved.
Peter Gibson · Trustpilot
After 16 years of buying WordPress themes and plugins, I know exactly what bad support looks like, and Wbcom Designs is the polar opposite.
Duston McGroarty · Trustpilot
I have been frustrated by slow support for most themes and plugins, but they are helpful and quick to reply. Highly recommend.
Woods · Trustpilot
Read all reviews Leave a review

A Wbcom Designs product, led by vapvarun.

13+ years and 50+ BuddyPress add-ons of community-building experience, distilled into BuddyNext.

Read our story →

The next generation

Built for what communities are becoming.

Premium UX on par with the apps your members already live in, on a platform you own. An installable PWA ships today, so members can add it to their home screen right now - native iOS and Android apps are on the roadmap for next quarter.

  • Membership communities
  • Brand & fan spaces
  • Cohort & course groups
  • Creator audiences
  • Support communities
  • Internal teams

From the blog

Building the future of community.

All posts →

Guides

Run an announcement-only community on your own site

Set up a community where you post and members react, vote and comment: owner-only posting, pinned announcements, polls, and joining by invite link or a QR code you make yourself.

Read →

Guides

Start a book club community: free first, paid later

Start a book club community on your own WordPress site: a space per book, polls to pick the next read, meetings with RSVPs, spoiler warnings, and paid tiers added only when members ask.

Read →

Guides

Discord vs Substack for a paid finance community

An honest comparison of Discord, Substack and a site you own for a paid investor or finance community: fees, member discussion, who owns the list, and when each one wins.

Read →

Common questions

Questions people ask first.

Is BuddyNext really free?

Yes. BuddyNext Free is a complete, self-hosted community platform you can run forever at no cost - feed, spaces, members, messaging, and moderation. Pro is an optional upgrade for monetization, AI, real-time, and priority support.

Is BuddyNext self-hosted or a hosted service?

Self-hosted. BuddyNext installs on your own WordPress site, so your members, content, and data live in your own database on your own hosting. There is no platform in the middle and no monthly per-member fee.

Do I have to buy separate plugins for courses, events, or a job board?

No. Courses, events, forums, a job board, a marketplace, and more come as free modules from the same team (Wbcom Designs), built to work together. You switch on what you need instead of assembling third-party plugins from different makers.

Does BuddyNext work with a page cache plugin?

Yes. It was tested with WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket and LiteSpeed Cache. BuddyNext marks the community pages a logged-in member sees as uncacheable by itself, so there is no exclusion list to keep. Guest views of public pages stay cached.

Is BuddyNext a BuddyPress or BuddyBoss fork?

No. BuddyNext is a fresh, modern community engine built from the ground up, not a fork. That means a lighter, API-first codebase rather than years of legacy carried forward.

Can I move an existing community to BuddyNext?

Yes, planned as a real project rather than a one-click switch. If you are already on WordPress your data is in your database, and there are migration guides in the docs; from a hosted platform you export, rebuild on staging, and cut over.

Be part of what’s next.

BuddyNext is live. Install the free plugin and launch your community today, or try the live demo first.

Get BuddyNext free Try the live demo →

What customers say on Trustpilot

WBComDesigns is amazing!

WBComDesigns is amazing. The WP plugins and themes are of top notch quality with lots of features and updated very frequently. Supports are very responsive and helpful. I use Reign with TutorLMS, and the experience is surprisingly smooth. The recently launched BuddyNext Pro and MediaShield Pro are…

Hoang PhanVN