CM Answers vs Vanilla Forums
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | CM Answers v3.4.3 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 3.8/5 Visit Details | Vanilla Forums v1.3.1 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 2.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 300+ | 100+ |
| Last updated | October 13, 2026 | July 3, 2020 |
| Editions | CM Answers · CM Answers Pro ($) | Vanilla Forums |
| Pros | Question and answer threads with voting on answers; Shortcodes to embed the Q&A index and answers; BuddyPress integration for community sites | Embeds the forum or replaces blog comments with forum threads; Forum widgets for discussions, activity and active users; Single sign-on through jsConnect |
| Cons | Categories, difficulty levels and logs need the paid Pro edition; Free version shows upgrade prompts in several admin screens; Registration screen and uninstall survey contact the vendor | Needs a Vanilla forum, hosted or self-hosted, to connect to; Last tested with WordPress 5.3 per the readme; Replaces native comments once a forum URL is set |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 1 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Question and answer threads with answers, Voting on answers, Shortcodes to embed the Q&A index and answers, Question categories (Pro, upgrade screen in free) ($), Difficulty levels (Pro, upgrade screen in free) ($), Reassign content between users (Pro, upgrade screen in free) ($), Logs screen (Pro, upgrade screen in free) ($) | Embed the Vanilla forum inside a WordPress page, Replace native blog comments with Vanilla threads, Discussion, activity and active-user widgets, Single sign-on with jsConnect, Choose forum category for embedded content and widgets |
| Integrations | ||
| Plugins | BuddyPress | — |
| Other | CreativeMinds registration API | Vanilla Forums |
| Requires WordPress | 5.4.0 | 3 |
| Requires PHP | 5.4 | — |
| Tested up to | 7.0 | 5.3 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | No |
| External services | www.cminds.com, www.paypal.com, fonts.googleapis.com | — |
| Shortcodes | 5 | — |