Wordpress Forum (BBPress) Software Opinions

Hi,
Anyone out there using the BBpress on a web site. I have used several other forums such as PHPBB which have worked out well. However, since the Wordpress Forum platform integrates users with my Wordpress blog, I have been thinking about using it on a new site that I am building.

I have seen BBpress set up over at the Wordpress site, and I must say I quite like the look of it. But it has to be functional.

For this site, less is more. I don't need a lot of features for the viewers, just the ability to register & post their opinions.

I am mainly interested in
1) Power & Speed. Is the software scalable? Anyone have experience with this with respect to lots of users?

2) Customization. Can the Wordpress blog be themed or customized easily. I have been a full time web developer / programmer for 10 years or so I should
be able to handle it, I just don't want to get into a new big can of worms.

3) Administrative Functions. Do they compare well with the other forum platforms.

Thanks in advance. Any and all comments, experiences & insights will be greatly appreciated.

 

1) Power and speed
This should answer your question: http://bbpress.org/about/examples/

2) Again refer to the above URL.

As for customization ease and availability of add-ons, I suppose bbPress is the most customizable wordpress forum software (with its closest competitors Simpleress Forum and SMF with WordPress bridge). Also, read this for first-hand customization experience:http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/blog/?p=591

3) I suppose its features are as good as its other two main competitors (SMF is a full-blown forum software, so no doubt it is good).

Anyway from the 1st URL I shared, we can deduce that bbPress has good security features, great spam protection and wonderful speed.

 

Thanks,
I am installing it now!. I'll post any good / bad / ugly here later on.

 

well? any updates?

 

Well,
I tried it out and here's what I came up with.

1) It was easy to install.
2) it configured very quickly
3) It did integrate easily / quickly with wordpress.
4) Customizing the forums look and feel was verrrrrrry easy, mostly via css. If you have ever customized PHPBB, it is a bit on the complicated side.

On the downside.

1) As far as I could see, there was no way to do hierarchical sub-forums, which I needed for my application.

2) The other thing that I didn't like was that a lot of the extras that you might need for a forum were plug ins, some of which didn't work very well. I think that some more development might be in order.

All in all, if you want a quick forum to tack on your wordpress blog to get a bit of discussion going, it would be a good option. I wouldn't use it for a full production site where a forum was the focus of the site. I think it's a bit short on features for that. And I expect that if you installed a lot of the plugins, it would slow down a bit.

Hope this was helpful to some of you.