Do you want to create a social network on your WordPress website? Are you wondering which plugin to choose: Ultimate Member or BuddyPress? Both plugins are popular and have many features, but they also differ.
In this article, I will compare Ultimate Member vs BuddyPress and help you decide which is best for your needs.
I will tell you how each plugin helped me succeed and let you decide which is the perfect plugin for your WordPress.
Grab a coffee because you’re about to deep dive into the knowledge of both the plugins of WordPress.
But before that, if you want more info on BuddyBoss, you can check out our detailed BuddyBoss Review.
Alright, Let’s go into the article. Now go to our in-depth comparison between Ultimate Member and BuddyPress posts.
Bottom Line Upfront: BuddyBoss helps you build a fantastic learning environment that supports your students from wherever they are in the world.
BuddyBoss allows you to build structured training, micro-learning, social learning, and gamification for an engaging learning experience. These are the reasons why Buddyboss is better than Ultimate Member.
Ultimate Member Overview
Ultimate Member was officially released for the first time in January 2015, and with the frequent features updates it has become one of the most popular WordPress membership plugins.
The main benefit of using Ultimate Member is that you can design websites and add themes to make your profile attractive and beautiful while also making it suitable for all your needs. You also get a variety of options to customize the membership features.
Unique Features: What Does Ultimate Member Offer?
Let’s talk about the community/membership features that Ultimate Member offers its users.
Only users of the Ultimate Member plugin have access to the unique feature that allows a profile header to create multiple registration forms on their website for their users.
Each user has a distinct registration form with all their entered information.
User Profile
It offers a variety of features for user profiles, the first of which is showing cover photos.
For instance, Ultimate Member offers an alternative user profile where you can remove your cover photos if you don’t want profile photos.
User Bio’s
You can show or hide the user bio feature if you want a user to draw attention to a brief description of themselves.
Important Info of User
You can highlight the user’s most crucial information; if you leave it empty, it won’t display any user data.
Benefits To Users
- The Ultimate Member plugin has a fantastic feature that lets you control whether a logged-in user goes to your home page or any other website page. You can alter this feature to suit your preferences.
- Deactivate/Delete Account: If a user wants to delete or deactivate his or her account on your website, you can choose whether your approval is required.
- Reset Password: The login form directs users to reset their passwords if they have forgotten their login information.
- View Others’ Profile: Ultimate Member allows you to restrict users’ ability to view the profiles of other users.
Classifying and Categorizing The Users
A profile header can quickly classify and categorize registered website users. The plugin gives you the option to categorize them differently. For instance, email address, newest one, older one, first name, last name, middle name.
No. of Profile Card
The number of profiles on your website can be displayed page-by-page or only be visible to website members.
The website users can choose many additional options when creating their profile cards.
Users Account
Users can choose to control the privacy of their profiles, and if they want to make them publicly visible, they can do so while keeping them hidden from member directories.
Users can update information such as their first and last names, phone numbers, and email addresses.
Permission Access
The Ultimate Member Plugin on your website allows you to make all posts and pages public or keep them private.
Access to user information can be granted so that it can be updated, altered, and made public.
Customer Reviews
You can set up a 5- and 10-star user rating and review system on your website.
Alternatively, you can use a standard review rating system to display on your website.
BuddyPress Overview
BuddyPress is one of the best WordPress plugins to build an online learning community on your website.
BuddyPress has more than 2,000,000 installations that are currently active. You only have a few options to customize it to your needs.
It is a set of free website-building tools. Users can use BuddyPress features without needing to purchase a subscription. If you use BuddyPress, you can update and create content on your website without paying anything.
Unique Features: What Does BuddyPress Offer?
Let’s discuss the unique features of BuddyPress that make it stand out from the competition.
Profile Accounts can be Created and Updated as Well
Users can easily create and update their profiles with short descriptions, profile photos, and information details on the website.
Join Group
With the BuddyPress plugin, users can create and join groups on a website because groups serve various purposes. This is a unique feature that BuddyPress makes available to its users.
Privacy of Messages
BuddyPress, like Facebook, allows users to send private messages and receive notifications from other users or when they receive a message.
Custom Themes
BuddyPress themes are available in both free and premium versions. Users can also create a custom theme that caters to their specific requirements.
Extensible
BuddyPress is an extensible plugin, and a user can customize the BuddyPress templates and add styles and fonts to create an appealing layer.
Features Comparison
Both WordPress plugins must meet a set of requirements to qualify as the best WordPress plugin. You can choose which is best for you by comparing Ultimate Member and BuddyPress based on these features in the following section.
Extension
Ultimate Member
- Ultimate Member has only a few extensions; most are paid for. Additionally, they have some amazing extensions that are limited with the 3rd party.
- Ultimate Member does not offer free extensions.
BuddyPress
- Having a greater extension, BuddyPress is the most reliable plugin and much ahead of Ultimate Member.
- It offers free extensions, and 500+ extensions are available for BuddyPress users.
Based on the comparison of extensions, BuddyPress is the clear winner and the most reliable plugin of WordPress because it offers free extensions to its users of the best quality with customized themes.
Customer Support System
Let’s compare both the plugins on their customer service.
Ultimate Member
Ultimate Member has excellent customer service because they constantly communicate with users and respond to their immediate questions and concerns.
Ultimate Member’s Customer Service has only one major flaw: they prioritize answering questions from paying customers.
BuddyPress
BuddyPress has very reliable customer service; whether you are paying customers or not, it treats all its customers equally and responds quickly to their questions.
Based on Customer Service, both the plugins provide the best service to their customers, but Ultimate Member lags in partial customer service. Therefore, BuddyPress is the clear winner.
Pricing Plans
Ultimate Member Pricing
Ultimate Member offers free to test their services and two paid plans with premium features.
Free Plan
- User profiles
- User registration & login
- Content restriction
- Member Directories
Extension Plan
This plan costs $249 a year and comes with:
- Access to all the extensions
- Unlimited sites license
- Updates for 1 year
- Email support for 1 year
- Comes with a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Theme Pass + Extension Pricing Plan
This plan costs $299 a year and comes with:
- All the features from the Extension Plan
- Ultimate Member Theme
BuddyPress Pricing
- It is a free plugin of WordPress with 500+ extensions available.
- BuddyPress offers old templates and designs to its users.
BuddyPress is your best option if you’re looking for a free option. However, if you are willing to spend some money to get a value purchase, the Ultimate Member is the best option. With the premium plan, you get access to all of the core features and extensions to meet your requirements.
Pros & Cons
Ultimate Member Pros & Cons
Pros
- Customized themes and features
- 30-day money-back policy.
- Allow you to restrict access to your website’s content and make it visible to only logged-in users.
- First name, city, zip code, last name, mobile phone number, and email address are just some of the ways that you can organize your users.
- Integrated with many payment processors, including but not limited to PayPal, Paytm, Payza, and more.
- Positive feedback from users.
- Users can quickly and easily upload new profile pictures when changing their profiles.
- A reliable customer service team to answer all your questions.
- Unique and customized themes.
Cons
- Does not offer free integration.
- Customer support prioritizes paid customers over free ones.
BuddyPress Pros & Cons
Pros
- Great customer service as they have a larger team to assist both paid and free users.
- It’s a free WordPress add-on that comes with some useful personalized themes.
- Users can create subgroups within existing groups.
- 500+ available extensions.
- A helpful community that shares tips and tricks.
- Users can communicate privately with one another via the platform.
- Can be customized to fit any purpose.
Cons
- The user experience is not good enough.
- BuddyPress is a bulky and overwhelming plugin, lacking modern design and features.
- Doesn’t come with modern customized features and themes.
- Does not allow users to add descriptions to their bio.
- Does not offer attractive email templates with the site logos.
Quick Links:
- Buddypress Woocommerce
- How to Easily Set up bbPress (Step by Step)
- Free BuddyPress Themes
- Best BuddyBoss Plugins
Conclusion: Ultimate Member vs. BuddyPress
We are at a crossroads when deciding which WordPress plugin is the best. Both plugins have their advantages and disadvantages, and both are remarkable WordPress plugins in terms of their features, pricing, usability, and customer support.
Ultimate Member offers unique features with updated and customized modern themes, but all of these features are paid, whereas BuddyPress offers unique features in its free plan but not with updated modern themes.
So, which option do you select? That is entirely your decision. You have the freedom to select the plugin that best meets your needs.
If you are willing to spend a few dollars and desire high-quality features and top-tier performance with all upgraded, custom-designed themes, you should choose Ultimate Member.
If you cannot afford Ultimate Member, select BuddyPress instead. Because you are the one who will ultimately use these services, it is crucial that the plugin you choose precisely meets your requirements.
