How to Create Chat Rooms in WordPress for Your Users (2 Methods)

Adding a chat room to your WordPress website is a great way to increase engagement and build a community around your brand.

Unfortunately, a lot of chat software is sold as a monthly service, so you need to budget for this expense indefinitely or risk losing everything you’ve built.

Some chat services even ask you to register with a third-party website, so you’re never fully in control of your chat rooms. Even worse, some tutorials simply tell you to forward your users to an external chat client like Slack or Discord.

In this article, we will show you how to add a self-hosted chat room to your WordPress website. This means you don’t need to pay expensive monthly subscriptions, rely on third-party services, or drive visitors away from your site.

Why Add a Chat Room in WordPress?

If you run a membership website or an online forum, then you may want to create an instant messaging chat room for your users.

Some website owners choose to use a third-party service like Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook groups, or Discord. However, these methods drive people away from your site, so they’re bad news for your pageviews and bounce rate. Plus, you don’t have full control over the chat experience.

By embedding a chat room in your website, you can keep people on your site for longer and build a stronger sense of community. Even better, by creating a self-hosted chat room, you can often avoid costly ongoing subscription fees.

Note: Chat rooms tend to work best for small communities of users. If want to offer live customer support, then check out our list of the best live chat support software.

That said, let’s take a look at how to add a chat room to your WordPress blog or website. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use:

Method 1. Using Simple Ajax Chat (Free WordPress Plugin)

Do you want to add a simple chat room to your site without having to budget for a premium WordPress plugin or ongoing subscription? Simple Ajax Chat lets you add a simple, self-hosted chat room to any page, post, or widget-ready area without having to pay a cent.

It also lets you restrict access to logged-in users or even create a chat room that’s completely open to the public. For more details, see our Simple Ajax Chat review.

Note: In this guide, we are using the free Simple Ajax Chat plugin, as it has everything you need to create a single chat room. However, if you want to create multiple different chatrooms, then you’ll need to upgrade to Plugin Planet Simple Ajax Chat.

Step 1. Set up Simple Ajax Chat

First, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Settings » Simple Ajax Chat to set up your chat room.

To start, click to expand the ‘Plugin Settings’ section and then change the ‘Default name’ to anything you want.

You can also type in a ‘Default message’, which will appear the first time someone visits your chat room.

Next, you can decide whether users need to be logged in to use the chat room. Requiring user registration can help you combat spam and trolls, but a public chat room may get more users.

To make this decision, either check or uncheck the box next to ‘Require users to be logged in to view and use the chat box.’

You may also want to check the box next to ‘Logged-in username’ so that WordPress shows the person’s username in the chat.

Another option is to allow non-registered visitors to read the chat but not interact. People who like what they see might create an account in order to join the conversation, so you may want to check the box next to ‘Display chat messages as read-only.’

Step 2. Customize Your Chat Room

With that done, you can customize the chat room. For example, you might add your own logo, custom colors, and branding. This is a big benefit to choosing a self-hosted solution like Simple Ajax Chat, compared to a separate platform like Discord.

To make these changes, simply use the settings in the’ Times and Colors’ and ‘Appearance’ boxes.

You can also replace the default notification icon with your own image. For example, you might use your logo, icon, or any other image you’ve created using web design software such as Canva.

To add your own graphic, find the ‘Default notification icon’ field and click on ‘Upload.’

You can now either choose an image from the WordPress media library or upload a file from your computer.

If you make any changes in this section, then don’t forget to click on ‘Save Settings.’

Step 3. Add Moderation Features

After that, you can click to expand the ‘Banned phrases’ section and then type in any words that should never appear in your chat. This might be the name of a competitor, offensive words, or anything else that could damage the visitor experience and your reputation.

Since it’s a self-hosted solution, you have complete control over the words you want to see and words that have no place within your community.

Simply separate each word with a comma.

Again, don’t forget to click on ‘Save Settings’ to store your changes.

There are lots more settings to explore, so it’s worth looking through them and seeing what changes you can make. However, this is all you need to create a simple chat room, so let’s see how you can add it to your WordPress website.

Step 4. Display Your Chat Room in WordPress

Simple Ajax Chat lets you control exactly where you display your chat rooms so you can add them to any page, post, or widget-ready area.

When you are happy with how the chat room is set up, scroll down to the Shortcode & Template Tag area and click to open it. Here, you’ll see the shortcode that you can use.

To add the chat room to a page, simply go to Pages » Add New in the WordPress dashboard.

You can now type in a title, upload a featured image, add categories and tags, plus any other content that you want to show on the page.

You might even go one step further and add a user experience feedback survey to get valuable suggestions and ideas on how to improve your chat room. This flexibility is another reason why we always recommend using a plugin such as Simple Ajax Chat, compared to rigid third-party software.

To embed your chat room, click on the ‘+’ sign and then type in ‘Shortcode.’ You can now select the right block when it appears.

After that, just add the [sac_happens] shortcode to the Shortcode block.

You can now click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to make the chat room live.

Another option is adding the chat room to a widget-ready area. This is an easy way to show the chat window across multiple pages.

If you are using one of the newer block-based themes, then you can even add the chat room to areas of your site you can’t edit using the standard WordPress content editor.

For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to add and use widgets.

No matter how you add the chat room to WordPress, it’s important to check that it looks good and works correctly across all devices by testing the mobile version of your website.

For more on this topic, please see our expert tips on creating a mobile-friendly website.

Method 2. Using BuddyBoss (Best For Building Online Communities)

Want to create a thriving online community that keeps people coming back for more? Chat rooms are a great start, but they’re just one part of building a successful digital community.

That’s where powerful features like member profiles, searchable directories, forums, social groups, and activity feeds come in.

The good news? You don’t have to cobble together a bunch of different plugins to provide this kind of experience. BuddyBoss has all these features – and more. 

BuddyBoss is the best WordPress community-building platform on the market. In fact, we even have a complete BuddyBoss review that outlines all the reasons why it’s our favorite community plugin. 

In this guide, we’ll show how to add live messaging to your site using BuddyBoss. For more information on how to use its other social features, please see our guide on how to create your own private community with WordPress.

Step 1. Create a Pusher Account

BuddyBoss can add live messaging to your site using Pusher Channels, which is a service that lets users communicate in real time. 

Before we get started with BuddyBoss, you’ll need to create a Pusher account. Thankfully, Pusher has a free plan that lets you send up to 200k messages per day, which should be enough for most WordPress blogs and websites. However, if you need to upgrade, then you can send up to 1 million messages per day for $49 per month.

To get started, head over to the Pusher website and click the ‘Sign up’ button.

You can then follow the onscreen instructions to create your free account. 

With that done, you’ll get redirected to the Pusher dashboard automatically. On this screen, go ahead and click the ‘Get started’ button under ‘Channels.’

You can now type in a name for your Pusher app. This will represent the app in your Pusher dashboard, so it’s a good idea to use something descriptive.

You can also select a Cluster, which is the physical location of the servers that’ll handle requests from your Pusher app. When choosing a location, keep in mind that European data protection regulations specify that personal user data cannot leave the EU borders. 

It also makes sense to choose a location that’s geographically close to either your users or your own servers. This will reduce the delay that can occur when sending and receiving messages. 

To choose a location, open the ‘Select a cluster’ dropdown and choose an option from the list. 

With that done, click on ‘Create app.’

To finish configuring the app, select ‘App Settings’ from the left-hand menu. Then, scroll to the ‘Enable client events’ section and click to enable its switch.

Next, scroll to the ‘Enable authorized connections’ section.

Once again, click to enable this switch.

Your app is now up and running, so click on ‘App Keys’ in the left-hand menu. This contains all the information that you’ll need to add to your BuddyBoss plugin.

With that in mind, leave this screen open in a separate tab throughout the next few steps.

Step 2. Install the BuddyBoss Plugins and Theme

To set up live messaging, you’ll need the core BuddyBoss plugin, BuddyBoss Platform Pro, and the BuddyBoss theme. That said, head over to the BuddyBoss website and either sign up for the Web package or a Bundle.

After completing your purchase, you’ll need to install the BuddyBoss and BuddyBoss Platform Pro plugins on your site. For more details, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

When prompted, enter your product license key. You can find this information in your account on the BuddyBoss website.

Next, you’ll need to install the BuddyBoss theme that comes included in all the Web and Bundle packages. 

For detailed step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress theme. 

Step 3. Enable Private Messaging 

BuddyBoss has a ton of features, so to make things easier, the plugin separates these features into different Components. You can enable or disable these Components, depending on the features you need.

To do this, head over to the BuddyBoss » Components page. 

Here, you’ll see all the different Components you can use.

Since we want to add live messaging to WordPress, find the Private Messaging component and click its ‘Activate’ link.

Step 4. Integrate with Pusher Channel

Now, you’re ready to link your WordPress website and Pusher account by going to BuddyBoss » Integrations. Here, click the ‘Pusher’ link. 

You’ll now see an area where you can add your Pusher ID and keys. 

Simply copy each piece of information from your Pusher tab and paste it into the corresponding field in your WordPress dashboard.

You may also need to change the ‘Pusher Cluster’ field so that it matches the cluster selected in your Pusher account. 

Once that’s done, click ‘Save Settings’ in your WordPress dashboard. If everything is working fine, then you’ll see a green ‘Connected’ message towards the top of the screen.

You’ll also see a new ‘Live Messaging’ field.

Go ahead and check the box next to this option.

Finally, click ‘Save Settings’ to store your changes. 

Step 5. Test Your Live Chat 

It’s a good idea to test the new chat feature just to confirm that everything is working fine. To do this, you need to log into two different member accounts using incognito mode in your browser.

Then, head over to the ‘Members’ page that BuddyBoss creates automatically. If you’re unsure where to find this page, then BuddyBoss typically creates it at your-website-url/members.

On this page, find the other member account you’re using in your test and click the ‘Send Message’ button.  

You should see a green icon indicating that this person is online.

Go ahead and type in a message, then click ‘Send.’

Now, if you switch to your other browser window, you should receive this message immediately without having to refresh the tab.

Bonus Guides

Now that you’ve learned how to create chat rooms on your website, you may wish to learn more tips for improving your online community and the user experience:

• How to Offer Cohort-Based Online Courses — WordPress Group Learning
• How to Create Your Own Private Community with WordPress
• How to Track User Engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics
• What Is Google Lighthouse? How Can It Improve Your Site’s UX?

We hope this article helped you learn how to create chat rooms for your WordPress users. You can also see our guides on how to add reaction buttons to boost engagement and how to do a UX audit of your WordPress website.

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