This question seems to pop up frequently in VA, web development and related sites so why not share my experiences here – in case you too were wondering.

A few years ago when I re-designed BloggingStarterPack, this question plagued me too. I went for bbPress, a little reluctantly but my reasons were,

• bbPress was part of the WordPress family which I trusted
• It’s simple, clean, not bloated
• I figured, eventually it would get the attention it needed, be better integrated with WordPress etc etc.
• I was worried about the Simple:Press project then because at that time, development seemed to have slowed too

It’s been several years now and I’m not ashamed to say I bet on the wrong horse. Sure bbPress has improved but not for what I need it to do. It still doesn’t have proper email notification and from my experience, users will not be happy with that. I’m not happy with that because who wants to check a forum everyday for new posts?

I love bbPress’ simplicity but I can’t wait around forever. The fact that development is stop/start, let’s face it. Right now, it is WordPress’ step child.

I put Simple:Press on a test site and have decided to go with it if my plans for a forum pan out. Even so, I’m a little nervous because the project is only handled by two people and for a project of that size, it’s kinda scary you don’t know when people will leave and you’ll be holding the bag.

That said, it has been around for some time, the development seems to be strong and steady, the community seems active too, it has improved so much in the same time frame and more importantly, tests show it to  work with paid membership options (like Wishlist).