Top 4 Shopify Forum Apps [September, 2023]
| Last updated September 26, 2023
This guide helps ecommerce store owners to compare and find the best forum app for Shopify. Forum apps are popular for ecommerce businesses that want to build relationships and loyalty and often also provides an SEO boost that can drive more organic traffic to your store. However, with the variety of Shopify apps for forums, it can be challenging to find the ideal app for store owners’ individual needs.
To help ecommerce store owners make the right choice, the attributes of available Shopify apps have been assessed considering: features, price, free trial availability, app store rating and free app options.
This guide compares four companies for merchants to review and find the optimal forum app for their needs. To help them make an informed decision, a quick comparison table of the best forum Shopify apps is shared below, followed by in-depth reviews and frequently asked questions.
Quick comparison of the best Shopify forum apps
| # | App Name | Developer Name | Pricing | Rating | Free Trial | Image | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shopicial ‑ Community Forum | app1pro | $14/month | 3.2/5 ⭐️ | yes |  | Get app |
| 2 | Social King | King Commerce | $4.99/month | 4/5 ⭐️ | yes |  | Get app |
| 3 | Xenforum | app1pro | $19/month | 3.6/5 ⭐️ | yes |  | Get app |
| 4 | Community Builder | Garner Labs | $4.99/month | 5/5 ⭐️ | yes |  | Get app |
Top Shopify forum apps reviewed
Table of contents:
Shopicial ‑ Community Forum
The Shopicial – Social Forum app is another one by the team at app1pro, who designed the Xenforum app and several other Shopify apps.
It is a more recent addition to the Shopify app store than Xenforum and, while it shares many of the same features, it should be noted that it is less well-reviewed by Shopify merchants than its older brother.
However, it does allow merchants to create paid forums – introducing an extra monetization opportunity for Shopify store owners.
- Creates a professional forum to help build your network
- Supports paid forums with one-time or recurring membership fees
- Forum members can create/reply to topics using a WYSIWYG editor, mention, search, like and upload images
- Multiple post types including image and video
- Easy to edit profiles and set notifications for users
- Easy to manage topics/posts and users from the admin page or storefront view
- Designed for easy mobile and desktop use
- Customizable colors, menus, CSS and JS
- SEO-friendly – helps you increase organic traffic to your store
- Easy to install and use
- Pro plan includes email service
- Low monthly fees
- Some historical issues with paid social ad conflicts after uninstalling – but recent reviews suggest it has been fixed
- No free version
- Short free trial (7 days only)
Social King
Social King by the team at King Commerce is another of the best-review forum apps on the Shopify app store. It provides customers with a platform to blog, connect, share, and learn – all from within your store and under the umbrella of your brand.
Store owners can promote products, encourage conversations and “buzz” and gather important shopper feedback.
Social King is a low-priced option that should suit smaller store owners who do not need some of the more advanced features of other apps reviewed here.
- Provides a platform for customer blogging, connecting, sharing, and learning
- Shoppers can create user profiles with images, create and edit posts, comment, and react with emojis
- Can upload images and embed videos
- Easy to manage/administer with tags and moderate user-generated posts
- Improves SEO with regular new content posted on your store
- SEO sitemap included – helps generate more organic traffic
- Customizable look and feel to match your theme/brand
- Integrates with existing plugins on community pages
- Supports 12 different languages
- Supports guest blogging – great for building business partnerships and user-generated content
- Includes a member news feed
- Mobile and email notifications sent to shoppers about posts
- Responsive support team
- Simple and reasonable pricing
- Free plan is only available for 15 days
- A few technical problems with formatting text in posts according to users
Xenforum
Xenforum by app1pro provides a professional forum at a very reasonable monthly fee that should be within the reach of most Shopify store owners.
Whether you need to improve customer support, run product pre-sales Q&As, facilitate general discussions, offer promotions/discounts or allow private discussion groups in related topics, Xenforum helps you achieve it with a well-established forum app.
Though there is no free version available, the 7-day free trial allows you to try before you buy.
- Build a network of loyal customers by creating a professional forum
- Forum members can create/reply to topics using a WYSIWYG editor, mention, search, like and upload images
- Easy to edit profiles and set notifications for users
- Easy to manage topics/posts and users from the admin page or storefront view
- Designed for easy mobile and desktop use
- Customizable colors, menus, CSS and JS
- SEO-friendly – helps you increase organic traffic to your store
- Easy to install and use
- Pro plan includes email service
- Low monthly fees
- No free version
- Short free trial (7 days only)
Community Builder
Community Builder is a Shopify forum app from Garner Labs. It’s a little different from the other apps reviewed here in that it is geared totally towards Facebook forums.
This app is all about adding another “touchpoint” with customers to better understand and connect with them. It allows you to discuss products and help out with customer queries on Facebook, growing relationships and building a loyal following.
However, it is done on Facebook rather than directly from your store. This may work well if you have a large customer base of avid Facebook users who won’t hesitate to join a Facebook-based forum (there are currently over 10 million groups).
- Displays a widget to invite customers to join your Facebook community
- Widget displayed from the Order Confirmation page and after checkout
- Create a new channel for customers to ask questions and interact with you
- Can create awareness of offers and gather customer opinion/feedback
- Conduct simple-to-respond-to surveys
- Generate new leads from other Facebook users
- Demonstrate additional value for customers
- Customizable with your own text and description
- Simple to install and set up an instant Facebook group community
- Easy-to-use interface
- Lack of reviews from Shopify merchants
- Takes users off your store (to Facebook)
How to Find The Best Forum Shopify App?
These four forum apps for Shopify are ranked based on the following criteria:
- Features
- Price
- Rating on the Shopify app store
- Free trial availability
- Free app options
- Compatibility with other top apps
- Number of apps the app provider operates
- Pros and cons
- Built for Shopify badge
- Reviews and assessment by AcquireConvert
What are Shopify forum apps?
Customers are already social beings. They want to be heard and chat about your products and services and ask questions. By creating a forum, you enable this from within your shop, encouraging customers to stay on your site and providing a base for your customer support operations.
The best Shopify stores don’t just sell lots of products to their customers. They interact with them, build relationships, engage them and provide opportunities to interact with other customers. As shopping and ecommerce have taken to the social channels, it’s natural for shoppers to want to discuss purchases, ask questions, get answers, provide feedback and just chat. More Shopify stores are now providing forums where customers and members can do this without even leaving the store.
But it’s not easy to achieve a successful forum – especially if you have international customers that require multilingual support. Many store owners don’t know where to start.
Like many things Shopify, it starts with an app from the Shopify app store.
How do I build customer loyalty through Shopify forum app interactions?
Ecommerce works best when you and your customers are in tune with each other. You know what their questions, concerns, and expectations are and they know what you can provide and where they can go for immediate help. Sometimes, customers can even provide valuable input into new product development or brand issues that come up – if you allow them to.
Including a forum in your store provides a channel that taps into the social expectations of shoppers and satisfies their need to voice opinions and be heard. In doing so, you build a more loyal and trusting customer base. That translates directly to sales.
Check out a Shopify forum app or two from our review and let us know how you go.
Conclusion: Best Shopify Forum Apps
It requires time and effort to compare and evaluate features of the various different forum Shopify apps to find the ideal option.
Shopify store owners must evaluate relevant information to make the optimal choice for their needs.
This guide does the challenging work for merchants by comparing and evaluating the top choices for different forum Shopify apps. The results of our analysis of the best forum Shopify apps are listed below:
Top Shopify forum apps reviewed
Table of contents:
Hi, I’m Giles Thomas.Founder of AcquireConvert, the place where ecommerce entrepreneurs & marketers go to learn growth. I’m also the founder of Shopify agency Whole Design Studios.