BLACK FRIDAY
Save 59% on PageForge Annual $191/year $485/year
Claim 59% Off →
Website Toolbox Forum icon
Actively maintained Tested with WP 7.1 #2 in discussion board

Website Toolbox Forum

Effortlessly build a beautiful discussion forum with instant setup, seamless embedding, and exceptional support.

Active installs70+10+ tier
Downloads · 30d525▲ 3.6× vs prev. 30d
Rating4.6/513 reviews
Health score78/100Good
All-time downloads66.5KSince Nov 2012
Support resolved—No recent threads
RequiresWP 3.0.0PHP any
Downloads · 7d384▲ 10.4× week over week
Our verdict

Solid choice

Website Toolbox Forum is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. It runs on 70+ sites, is rated 4.6/5 and was last updated 3 days ago, and scores 78/100 on our health check.

  • Actively developed — last update 3 days ago
  • Tested with the latest WordPress (7.1)
  • Momentum — downloads up 264.6% vs the previous 30 days
  • Small user base (70+ active installs)

How does it stack up?

Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support

Daily downloads

3570105Jul 18Aug 31Oct 15
Yesterday13
Daily average (1y)10
Peak day141Oct 13, 2026
Last 12 months3.8K

Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.

Rankings

Where Website Toolbox Forum stands today

WordPress.org search rankings

Live position in the plugin search, top 100
KeywordPositionCompeting pluginsCategory
discussion board #8 53 Best discussion board plugins →
forum #26 7,195 Best forum plugins →
group >100 6,343 Best group plugins →
message board #13 347 Best message board plugins →

Version adoption

Share of active sites per release.

  • 2.2100.0%

Rating breakdown

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 from 13 reviews

  • 5★76.9%
  • 4★7.7%
  • 3★15.4%
  • 2★0.00%
  • 1★0.00%

About Website Toolbox Forum

From the official readme · v2.2.3

Description

Effortlessly build a beautiful discussion forum with instant setup, seamless embedding, and exceptional support. Host secure, private, organized discussions in your own branded community forum.

Ranked #1 Forum Provider by StarReviews!

Not a Website Toolbox Forum owner? Create a Forum Now!

Plugin Features

  • Embeddable – The forum can be seamlessly embedded into your WordPress website or linked to as a stand-alone page.

  • Single Sign On – Users are automatically signed in to your forum when they sign in to your WordPress website.

  • Signup Integration – Forum accounts are automatically created for your existing or new WordPress users.

  • Embedded Comments – Spark discussions on your WordPress pages or blog posts by instantly creating a related topic in your forum and seamlessly embedding the comments.

  • Highlight Discussions – Use the WordPress widget to embed the latest or most popular discussions.

Key Forum Benefits

  • Instant Setup
  • Phone/Chat/Email Support
  • SEO and Mobile Friendly
  • Fully Customizable
  • Public or Private
  • White Label

Key Forum Features

  • Easy theme editor
  • Charge subscription fees
  • iOS and Android apps
  • Automatic AI moderation
  • Instant messaging
  • Chat room
  • Share files, photos, and videos
  • “Like” posts
  • User reputation
  • Announce and organize events
  • Create polls
  • Set user permissions
  • Approve posts and signups
  • Anti-spam protection
  • Import or export your data
  • …and much more!

Learn More

Installation

WordPress Admin Panel

  1. Go to “Plugins” -> “Add New” from the left menu in the WordPress Admin Panel.
  2. Search for “Website Toolbox Forum”.
  3. Activate the plugin.
  4. Click on the Settings link under the “Website Toolbox Forum” plugin.
  5. Enter your Website Toolbox account information. Create a Website Toolbox Forum if you don’t already have one.

Please contact Customer Support if you face any difficulties.

Manual Installation

  1. Download the plugin.
  2. Unzip the plugin.
  3. Upload the plugin folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  4. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  5. Click on the Settings link under the “Website Toolbox Forum” plugin.
  6. Enter your Website Toolbox account information. Create a Website Toolbox Forum if you don’t already have one.

Frequently asked questions

I don’t allow registration on my WordPress site, can I still use the forum?

Yes. If you don’t have registration enabled on your WordPress site, your users can register an account directly on the forum. If you want users to be able to post without registering, you can simply enable guest posting or you can disable the User Accounts feature entirely so users don’t even see the registration option.

What features are available?

Please take our features tour.

Is this a self-hosted forum?

You install the plugin on your WordPress website, and the forum is hosted by us at Website Toolbox. As your forum grows, you won’t have to worry about buying and maintaining overloaded servers, databases, software, backup solutions, etc. We do all the work, so you can reap all the rewards. You can easily use your current domain name for the forum and customize your forum to match your website layout. Our WordPress plugin also allows you to easily embed the forum into a page of your WordPress website. This makes Website Toolbox completely invisible to your users!

How much does it cost?

Pricing information is available here.

Changelog

2.2.3

  • Added: Log forum API/SSO account-creation errors for easier diagnosis.

2.2.2

  • Added Option: Sync WordPress roles to forum user groups — a new settings toggle that adds/removes members from the forum user group matching their WordPress role, creates/renames/deletes forum groups as roles change, and a new Website Toolbox > Roles admin page to create, edit, and delete WordPress roles.

2.2.1

  • Fixed Issue: Users were not redirected to the embedded forum page after login when the redirect URL contained a #fragment.

2.2.0

  • Fixed Issue: Add support for post excerpts when creating forum posts from WordPress.
  • Confirmed compatibility with WordPress version 7.1.

2.1.9

  • Confirmed compatibility with WordPress version 7.0.
  • Updated script loading strategy to ‘defer’ for better performance and compatibility.

2.1.8

  • Fixed Issue: Show a proper error message to the user if they try to create or update a post on the forum from the website and the user does not exist or does not have permission to create topics on the forum.

Full changelog on WordPress.org →

For developers

Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.

Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.

Active installs badge Rating badge Health score badge

Best Website Toolbox Forum alternatives

All discussion board plugins →
Alternatives
Rank Plugin Active installs Rating Updated Health
1 Discussion Board – WordPress Forum Plugin Discussion Board – WordPress Forum Plugin Discussion Board is a simple, effective way to add a forum or discussion board to your… by Marketing Fire 2K+ ★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 (43) 1 month ago 86

FAQ

Website Toolbox Forum: quick answers

Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.

Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 16, 2026

Is Website Toolbox Forum free?

Yes. Website Toolbox Forum is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.

Is Website Toolbox Forum safe to use in 2026?

Website Toolbox Forum is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. It runs on 70+ sites, is rated 4.6/5 and was last updated 3 days ago, and scores 78/100 on our health check.

How many websites use Website Toolbox Forum?

Website Toolbox Forum is active on 70+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 66,462 times since it launched in November 2012. It was downloaded 525 times in the last 30 days.

Does Website Toolbox Forum work with WordPress 7.1?

Yes. The developer has tested Website Toolbox Forum up to WordPress 7.1.3, the latest release. It requires WordPress 3.0.0 or newer.

When was Website Toolbox Forum last updated?

The latest version, 2.2.3, was released on October 13, 2026 (3 days ago).

Who makes Website Toolbox Forum?

Website Toolbox Forum is developed and maintained by Website Toolbox LLC.

What are the best alternatives to Website Toolbox Forum?

The most popular alternatives to Website Toolbox Forum are Discussion Board (2K+ installs).

Powered by PageForge

Want thousands of pages that rank like these? Build them in an afternoon.

This directory runs on the same engine as PageForge. Turn any spreadsheet, CSV or API into thousands of fast, SEO-ready WordPress pages — with schema, internal links and AI-written copy baked in.

  • CSV, Google Sheets & API data sources
  • AI content, schema & internal links per page
  • Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Yoast & Rank Math
  • Free on WordPress.org — no credit card
Sarah is here to help!
Hi there! 👋 Need help finding what you're looking for?
Sarah
Sarah
Online & Ready to Help
Hi there! 👋 Need help finding what you're looking for?

We'll use this to continue our conversation

Just now ✓ Verified

Join 500+ SEO Pros Scaling Their Strategy

Get exclusive programmatic SEO tactics, AI content workflows, and the latest PageForge updates delivered straight to your inbox. Stay ahead of the algorithm.

We care about your data in our privacy policy.