In reply to Nomad Skateboarding.

Hi Nomad,
No, I didn’t account for it simply because it isn’t BuddyBoss that is making that claim as the article implies, but rather is a BuddyBoss user named Vito Peleg (creator of the WP FeedBack plugin) giving his review of the two platforms. You can blame BuddyBoss for including it in the video, but they don’t double down on that claim anywhere else and, even so, the context of Vito’s statement was that, compared to BuddyBoss, BuddyPress is a “wonky, kind of a 90’s tool at the moment.” That is likely partly comparing the BuddyBoss theme to the core BuddyPress plugin because the BuddyBoss Platform plugin is very basic as well in terms of design, but the Vito’s user review also points out that as a feature-rich platform the BuddyBoss Platform plugin does significantly save on development time.

You can take my critique to be biased, but I really do wish BuddyPress all the best. It’s just that nobody has pointed out any legitimate reason to prefer BuddyPress over BuddyBoss here. Rather, the argument against it tends towards ad hominem attacks. That is what inspires me to reply, where I otherwise wouldn’t have. The BuddyBoss Platform plugin is free and licensed under GPLv3. The BuddyBoss theme and app is what is what is advertised – and their slick-looking theme is not at fault.

I can see a potential argument in a claim that BuddyBoss is bloated with unnecessary features that slows down the sites that use it compared to BuddyPress, but that would have to be proven by 1) Demonstrating that many of the features that BuddyBoss has included are not necessary for the majority of users, and 2) that BuddyBoss is demonstrably slower as a result. I can at least tell you that most BuddyBoss users are not only happy with the features included with BuddyBoss, but often demand that they include even more features. I do not know how it compares to BuddyPress in terms of site speed, but BuddyBoss has done considerable work on improving load times in any case.

A single user review is not akin to a company-wide position, and a clarification does not imply a fanboy…