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Hi all, I am trying to create a forum style website on a budget. I wanted to purchase a theme (I tried etsy and themeforest but if you have other suggestions please let me know). However I am confused and can’t find the functionality I want in the aesthetic that I like.
I am new to wordpress and my question is: should I prioritise the functionality and change colours/shapes etc later to suit my desired design? Or should I buy a theme based on design and then play around with the functionality?
I don’t need anything too complicated, just member sign up and login and members creating posts within different categories and other people leaving comments.
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Theme = how the site looks (btw I wouldn’t recommend buying themes from Etsy).
Plugin = functionality. In your case, you’re looking for a plugin – there are several free ones in the repo that will do the job, like [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpforo/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpforo/)
Simple Machines is free forum software. So are phpBB, vBulletin, XenForo, and a bunch of others. You’re much better off using one of them than trying to create something out of WordPress. Your webhost should have several of them available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software
Do you aware that wordpress is a blog, meaning something you can create categorized posts (like forum threads) and others who registered can write comments under that (like messages)?
bbPress, Buddypress, WPforo