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Community

Community engine

A community engine is the software layer that provides members, profiles, a feed, groups and messaging, so a site can behave like a social network.

Also called: community platform, social network plugin

The engine decides what members can do. The theme only decides how it looks, so the two choices are separate and worth making separately.

Look for an actively maintained engine, a free tier you can try, an upgrade path as you grow and clean integration with your theme.

Community engine on a Reign site

  • BuddyNext Free plugin

    BuddyNext is the community engine, with profiles, feed, spaces and moderation in the free plugin.

Our plugins are self-hosted: no per-member fee and no share of your sales. See free vs Pro for what each tier covers.

Related terms

Back to the full glossary

One theme, the whole site

See what you can build with Reign, then try it.

Reign is the WordPress theme for building a complete community site: social network, courses, member directory, marketplace and job board on one install. Start with one, add the others when you need them, and keep one login for every member. Open a live demo, or launch a sandbox and get a fresh WordPress site to click through in about a minute.

Add more when you need it

What customers say on Trustpilot

WBComDesigns is amazing!

WBComDesigns is amazing. The WP plugins and themes are of top notch quality with lots of features and updated very frequently. Supports are very responsive and helpful. I use Reign with TutorLMS, and the experience is surprisingly smooth. The recently launched BuddyNext Pro and MediaShield Pro are…

Hoang PhanVN