Introducing Jetonomy: A New WordPress Forum Plugin Built for Scale
Today I’m releasing Jetonomy – a WordPress forum plugin I’ve been building from scratch. It’s free, open-source, and designed for communities that actually need to scale.
Try the live sandbox demo | GitHub | Documentation
The problem with existing WordPress forums
I’ve spent years building WordPress community tools. Every existing forum plugin has fundamental trade-offs that become deal-breakers as your community grows:
bbPress
Pros: Simple, lightweight, backed by Automattic, huge ecosystem of add-ons.
Cons: Stores everything in wp_posts and wp_postmeta. Works fine for small communities, but queries degrade badly past a few thousand topics. No trust levels, no Q&A mode, no idea boards, limited REST API. You end up needing 10+ add-on plugins to get basic forum features.
wpForo
Pros: Uses custom database tables (good for performance), multiple layout options, built-in user profiles.
Cons: No trust system for self-moderation, fights your theme with aggressive CSS, partial REST API coverage, closed-source Pro features. Customization requires constant CSS overrides.
Discourse / Circle / Tribe
Pros: Excellent UX, trust levels (Discourse), real-time features, modern design.
Cons: Not WordPress. Discourse requires a separate server (Ruby). Circle and Tribe are SaaS with per-user pricing. Your data lives on someone else’s server. No integration with your existing WordPress users, membership plugins, or theme.
What Jetonomy does differently
Jetonomy takes the best architectural ideas (Discourse’s trust levels, wpForo’s custom tables) and builds them natively for WordPress:
- Dedicated database – 22 custom MySQL tables designed for forum query patterns. Denormalized counters mean no COUNT queries on page load. Your wp_posts table stays untouched.
- Trust levels that automate moderation – 6 levels (inspired by Discourse). New accounts are rate-limited and link-blocked. Members earn abilities as they contribute. The community moderates itself.
- Theme-adaptive design – CSS custom properties inherit from your theme.json. No CSS overrides needed. Works with any block theme or classic theme out of the box.
- Full REST API – 61+ endpoints with cursor-based pagination. Build mobile apps, headless frontends, or custom integrations.
Free features (everything included)
Four space types
- Forums – Threaded discussions with replies and nested comments
- Q&A – Questions with accepted answers (like Stack Overflow)
- Ideas – Feature voting and roadmap boards
- Social Feed – Activity-style posts for announcements and updates
Trust levels and reputation
- Level 0 (New): Rate-limited to 3 posts/day, no links, CAPTCHA required
- Level 1 (Active): 10 posts/day, links allowed
- Level 2 (Regular): 25 posts/day, can edit own posts, no CAPTCHA
- Level 3 (Trusted): Can edit others’ posts, close topics
- Level 4 (Expert): Full moderation abilities
- Level 5 (Moderator): Admin-assigned
Reputation points: +10 per upvoted post, +15 per accepted answer, -20 for spam. Trust levels auto-promote based on reputation, days active, and contribution quality.
User profiles and leaderboard
Every member gets a profile page with reputation score, trust level badge, post history, and activity timeline. The leaderboard ranks top contributors by reputation – filterable by all-time, monthly, or weekly.
Search
Full-text search with results grouped by posts, spaces, and tags. Date range filters, author filters, and sort by relevance or recency. The search backend is swappable via the adapter pattern – plug in Meilisearch or Elasticsearch without changing any code.
Everything else
- Voting (up/down) on posts and replies
- @mentions with notifications
- Branded email notifications with unsubscribe links
- Per-space and per-post subscriptions
- Content flagging and moderation queue
- Space-level access rules and join policies (open, approval, invite-only)
- Tags, bookmarks, post pinning
- Schema.org structured data (DiscussionForumPosting, QAPage)
- Open Graph and Twitter Cards
- MemberPress and Paid Memberships Pro integration
Migration
Built-in importers for bbPress and wpForo. Auto-detect your existing installation, preview everything with a dry run, and resume on failure. No record limit.
Admin experience
Clean admin interface with tabbed settings (General, Permissions, Email, Appearance, SEO, Anti-Spam). Space management, content moderation, user trust levels, and import tools – all from wp-admin.
Setup in 5 minutes
Install the plugin, activate, and the setup wizard walks you through creating spaces, choosing types (Forum/Q&A/Ideas), and seeding demo content. Your community is live at yoursite.com/community/ in under 5 minutes.
For developers
- 61+ REST API endpoints – Full CRUD with cursor-based pagination and JSON schema validation
- 45+ hooks – Actions and filters for every lifecycle event
- Template overrides – Copy any template to your theme’s
jetonomy/directory - CSS tokens – 40+
--jt-*custom properties that inherit from theme.json - Adapter pattern – Interface-based backends for search, email, membership, and realtime
- 194 PHPUnit tests, PHPStan Level 5, GitHub Actions CI
- Developer wiki – Hooks reference, REST API docs, architecture overview
Jetonomy Pro – 13 modular extensions
For growing communities, Jetonomy Pro adds 13 independent extensions you enable only when you need them. Disabled extensions load zero code.
| Extension | What it does | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Emoji Reactions | Slack-style reactions on posts and replies | Starter |
| Private Messaging | 1:1 and group conversations | Starter |
| Polls | Community voting within posts | Starter |
| Analytics Dashboard | Engagement graphs, user growth, CSV export | Starter |
| Email Digests | Daily/weekly activity summaries | Starter |
| Web Push | Browser notifications for replies and mentions | Starter |
| Webhooks | HTTP POST to Zapier, Slack, n8n on forum events | Starter |
| Reply by Email | Reply to notifications without logging in | Starter |
| Custom Badges | Auto-award badges based on activity | Growth |
| Custom Fields | Profile and post custom fields | Growth |
| Advanced Moderation | Keyword filters, regex, spam scoring | Growth |
| SEO Pro | Per-space meta, Schema.org, sitemap controls | Growth |
| White Label | Replace all Jetonomy branding | Agency |
Pro pricing
- Personal (1 site) – $69/year or $199 lifetime
- Developer (5 sites) – $99/year or $299 lifetime
- Agency (unlimited) – $199/year or $499 lifetime
Use code Jetonomy30 for 30% off lifetime plans. 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans.
Comparison: Jetonomy vs bbPress vs wpForo vs Discourse
| Feature | Jetonomy | bbPress | wpForo | Discourse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custom database tables | Yes (22 tables) | No (wp_posts) | Yes | Yes |
| Trust levels | 6 levels, auto-promote | No | No | 5 levels |
| Q&A with accepted answers | Yes | No | Yes | Plugin |
| Idea/voting boards | Yes | No | No | Plugin |
| REST API | 61+ endpoints | Limited | Partial | Full |
| Theme-adaptive CSS | Yes (theme.json) | Basic | No (overrides) | N/A |
| Self-hosted WordPress | Yes | Yes | Yes | Separate server |
| Built-in importers | bbPress + wpForo | N/A | bbPress only | Multiple |
| Membership integration | MemberPress, PMPRO | Limited | Limited | No |
| Price | Free (Pro from $69/yr) | Free | Free (Pro $$$) | $50/mo+ hosting |
Screenshot gallery
Click any image to view full size.
Get started
- Live sandbox demo – spin up a full instance in seconds
- Download Jetonomy free – no credit card, no license key
- Star on GitHub – open issues, contribute, follow development
- Read the docs – installation, settings, developer guides
- Jetonomy Pro – 13 extensions for growing communities
Jetonomy is GPL v2+ and fully open-source on GitHub. I’d love to hear what you think – open an issue, star the repo, or just try the sandbox demo and let me know.
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