Hi all,
I'm currently looking to archive an old phpBB forum to Wordpress. The best option in my book would have been to simply convert all the threads to regular Wordpress posts with comments and then use a Wiki theme, but it seems like a (well-maintained) script to achieve this doesn't exist.
Wpforo looks fabulous, and it seems like the conversion script to migrate from phpbb is well tested, but as explained above, it's not exactly what I was looking for - still, it may be my best option to move my content to a Wordpress environment.
And I'll certainly give WPForo a try, but chances are it might not do what I want. So I guess my question is if someone has ever tried to convert their WPforo threads into regular Wordpress posts + comments?
Bonus question: Is there a way to migrate to WPForo without the user accounts, while still retaining the user names? My WP is a private multisite install with only a handful of users, cluttering that with thousands of forum users (including many spammers) would be a nightmare, especially since there's no intent to allow them to log in anyway.
Thanks so much!
Hey ElToro, good questions. There isn’t a polished script that converts phpBB directly into standard WordPress posts with threaded comments — most existing converters like WPForo or bbPress migrations focus on keeping the forum structure intact. If your goal is to treat old threads like articles with comments, your best path is usually an intermediate export. You can export phpBB threads to XML or CSV (topic title, author, body, replies), then import them into WordPress using something like WP All Import, mapping topics to posts and replies to comments. It’s a bit of a manual setup but works cleanly once you test your mappings.
As for migrating into WPForo without bringing over user accounts, yes, it’s possible. During import, you can keep usernames as plain text rather than linking them to WordPress user IDs — WPForo will show the username on each post without requiring that user to exist in your database. That’s actually a common approach for archived or read-only forums. You’ll just need to ensure your importer script skips user creation and preserves the display name fields. It’ll make your WordPress install lighter and still retain authorship context.
That's quite an awesome reply - much appreciated. I'll try as suggested, and if the outcome isn't as desired, it's cool to have a plan B in WPForo.
