At WPBeginner, we believe that a strong community is at the heart of any successful website. We love interacting with our readers and helping them connect with each other – that’s why we launched our WPBeginner Engage Facebook group, which currently has over 98,000 members.
That said, we’re always on the lookout for plugins that can help foster a vibrant online community.
One plugin that’s caught our attention is Simple Ajax Chat. We’ve heard from many readers who are interested in adding chat rooms to their sites, and we wanted to see if Simple Ajax Chat lives up to the hype.
In this Simple Ajax Chat review, we’re sharing everything you need to know about this popular plugin, including its features, ease of use, and whether it’s the right choice for you.
Simple Ajax Chat: Why Use It in WordPress?
Simple Ajax Chat is a user-friendly plugin that can add a simple chat room to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
With this plugin, you can make your chat rooms public or private, so users need to register in order to join the conversation. No matter what option you choose, a busy chat room can encourage people to stay on your website for longer, and reduce your bounce rate.
It can also create a sense of community, which can keep people coming back to your website and increase your blog traffic.
If you’re just getting started or have a limited budget, then you can download the lite version of Simple Ajax Chat from WordPress.org.
With this free plugin, you can create a single chat room and then add it to any page, post, or widget-ready area across your WordPress website.
However, if you want to create multiple chat rooms then you’ll need to upgrade to the premium plugin. After upgrading, you can create an unlimited number of chat rooms covering unique topics, and with different settings.
You can also protect your chat rooms with Google reCAPTCHA, mute or ban unwanted users, and set up browser alerts for new chat messages.
Simple Ajax Chat Review: Is It the Right WordPress Chat Room Plugin for You?
Want to add live chat to your WordPress site, and keep your visitors engaged?
In this Simple Ajax Chat review, we’ll explore this popular plugin to see if it can help you build a thriving online community.
1. Easy to Set up and Use
Simple Ajax Chat is designed with ease of use in mind. To start, you can install and activate it just like any other WordPress plugin.
With that done, you can configure your chat room in the plugin’s settings.
When you’re happy with how the chat room is set up, you can add it to any page, post, or widget-ready area using a WordPress shortcode that Simple Ajax Chat generates automatically.
And that’s it! Visitors can now send you messages in real time, or even chat with other users.
2. Unlimited Chat Rooms and Users
If you upgrade to the premium plugin, then you can create as many chat rooms as you want, with unique settings.
Simple Ajax Chat also doesn’t limit the number of users who can chat at the same time. In fact, the number of users you can support solely depends on your web host provider, and the amount of traffic and data it can process.
3. Display Anywhere on Your Website
After configuring a chat room, you can add it to any WordPress page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode.
Simple Ajax Chat creates this shortcode automatically so you can simply copy and paste it into the desired location, and the plugin will handle the rest.
You can even display the same chat room in multiple locations across your website, simply by using the same shortcode.
If you’re pasting the shortcode into a page or post then you can add extra content using the WordPress content editor. For example, you might add categories and tags to help visitors find the right chat room.
You can even go one step further and add a user experience feedback survey so visitors can make suggestions on how to improve the chat experience.
Are you using one of the newer block-based themes? Then you can add the chat room to areas of your site you can’t edit using the standard WordPress content editor. For example, you might add chat to your site’s 404 page template so visitors can notify you about the error in real time.
4. Self-Hosted Solution
Unlike some other live chat software, Simple Ajax Chat is a fully self-hosted solution that doesn’t require any third-party services. You can simply install and use the plugin, without having to register with a third-party provider.
Simple Ajax Chat does collect voluntary chat data such as the username and messages. However, you can decide whether to collect the user’s IP address or not, which can protect the visitor’s privacy and may help you comply with certain data protection laws, depending on your location.
5. Works with All Browsers and Devices
Simple Ajax Chat works with all the major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. It’s also compatible with all mobile devices.
With that said, you can be confident that your chat rooms will look great and function correctly, no matter what device and browser the visitor is using.
6. Optimized for Performance
Simple Ajax Chat is optimized for performance and written in vanilla JavaScript to keep it as lightweight and minimal as possible.
It will also only load JavaScript when the chat box is visible. However, just be aware that it will run jQuery if you enable the Emoji Picker feature.
7. Greet Users Automatically
With this plugin, you can create a default message that will appear the first time someone visits your chat room. This is perfect for displaying a welcome message, or even sharing useful information such as your community guidelines.
8. Create a Private Chat Room
Sometimes, you may want to create private communities for your members, customers, or other registered users. In that case, Simple Ajax Chat can require users to log into their account, before accessing your chat room.
Do you want to monetize your chat rooms? Then you can charge a subscription fee or membership fee for creating an account on your website. In that way, your private chat rooms become an exclusive, members-only perk.
Even if you don’t want to charge a fee and make money online, requiring user registration can help combat spam and trolls who may try to join your chat rooms.
If you do require user registration, then you can display the person’s WordPress username in the chat, so they don’t have to choose a new username. This can also make your site completely transparent, since chatters can see exactly who they’re talking to.
9. Public Chat Rooms
With Simple Ajax Chat, you can create public chat rooms that anyone can join. This can get you more participants and create lively chat rooms that people will want to join.
However, just be aware that public chat rooms can attract spammers and trolls, so it’s important to use Simple Ajax Chat’s security and moderation features.
10. Encourage Signups with Display Mode
As already mentioned, there are positives and negatives no matter whether you create a public or private chat room.
To balance this out, Simple Ajax Chat gives you another option: display mode.
When enabled, non-registered visitors can read the chat but not interact. People who like what they see might then decide to create an account, so they can join the conversation.
In this way, you can encourage more people to register and chat, while still protecting your site against spammers and trolls.
11. Customizable Chat Rooms
No matter whether you create a public or private chat room, you can control exactly how it looks. To start, you can choose between 6 unique themes and then go further by adding your own custom logo, branding, and colors.
You can also replace the default message notification icon with your own image. For example, you might use your logo, icon, or any other graphic you’ve created using web design software such as Canva.
More advanced users can add their own custom CSS, and get complete control over how the chat box looks.
You can also use CSS styles to add and remove certain content. For example, you might hide the default ‘Last message: X minutes alert’ text or display the date and time next to each message, using custom CSS.
12. Set Chat and Username Limits
To keep conversations flowing smoothly, you can limit the number of characters that are allowed in each chat message. You can also specify the maximum number of chats that are allowed in the chat box.
Going one step further, you can limit the number of users and how many characters are allowed in each username.
Finally, you can enable or disable the URL field for chat names. This allows users to enter their own URL, or Simple Ajax Chat can automatically use the ‘Website’ URL from their user profile if they’re logged into an account.
13. Display Additional Information
If you upgrade to a premium Simple Ajax Chat plan, then you can display more information inside the chat window. This includes displaying the avatar and user role next to each message.
In addition, you can enable and disable inline images in chat messages, to create a more engaging multimedia chat.
14. Support For Emojis
If you upgrade to the premium plugin, then you can add an emoji picker to the chat room window. This allows visitors to express themselves using a whole range of emojis.
15. Banned Phrases List
To help you create a safer, more welcoming chat room, Simple Ajax Chat lets you create a list of banned words and phrases. These words might be the name of your biggest competitor, offensive words, or anything else that could damage the visitor experience and your reputation.
Even better, Simple Ajax Chat will use the banned phrases list for both public and private chats. In this way, you can offer a level of protection even when you’re creating public chat rooms.
When Simple Ajax Chat discovers forbidden words, it can either remove the word or block the message completely.
16. Security Settings
To help protect your users, you can control exactly what kind of content participants can share in your chat rooms. For example, you may want to disable link sharing in order to protect your users from spammy links and malicious code.
You can also prevent Simple Ajax Chat from collecting sensitive information such as the user’s IP address, just by checking a box in the plugin’s settings.
17. New Message Alerts
Simple Ajax Chat can display a browser notification whenever the user gets a new chat message. This can keep people coming back to your website and make sure they never miss another live chat message.
Even better, you can customize the notification’s title, icon, and URL inside the plugin’s settings.
Simple Ajax Chat can also play an optional sound every time the user gets a notification.
The plugin comes with six built-in notification sounds, or you can replace these default with your own audio files.
18. Anti-Spam Features
WordPress security is a big problem for websites of all sizes. The good news is that Simple Ajax Chat’s forms are designed to stop automated spam, and all its sensitive data is encrypted and processed with a unique secret key.
You can also enable Google reCaptcha for all chat forms, to help protect your chats against spambots. If people or bots do manage to get through these defences, then you can mute or ban any user from the WordPress dashboard.
19. Chat Moderation Tools
To make your chat rooms safe and welcoming for all users, it’s important to moderate those conversations. To start, Simple Ajax Chat has a built-in control panel where you can edit and delete individual chats.
You can also view the IP address and host name attached to each chat message, which can help you identify trolls, spambots, and other malicious users.
Here, you can also mute and un-mute individual users, along with banning and un-banning any chat participant. Banned users can’t see the chat room or send any messages, while muted users can still see the chat but are unable to post messages.
Alternatively, you can bulk delete messages or even delete entire chat rooms if you no longer need them.
Don’t have the time to moderate every chat room manually? Then you can configure the plugin to clear all your chat messages automatically at a specified interval.
20. Current Online Users
Simple Ajax Chat has a ‘current online users’ widget that lists all the chat participants and displays their status as Active or Inactive. By default, this widget will mark users as ‘Active’ if they’ve posted in the last 5 minutes, but you can change this interval using code.
By showing real time online users in WordPress, you can encourage more people to join a chat room, so this widget is a great way to boost engagement.
21. Easily Export Chat History
Sometimes, you may want to share chat records with people who don’t have access to WordPress. You may even need to import this information into another program. For example, if you’re offering customer support via Simple Ajax Chat, then you might want to import the chat history into your customer relationship management (CRM) app.
In that case, you can export all your chat messages as a CSV file. Just be aware that this file will contain all the chat data, including user IPs.
These CSV files can also make it easier to moderate a chat room with lots of messages. Loading a ton of messages inside WordPress may take a lot of time, especially if your WordPress server has limited resources.
Instead, you can simply export the entire chat history as a CSV file and then analyze it locally using your favorite spreadsheet program.
22. Community and Professional Support
Simple Ajax Chat is designed to work out of the box, with default settings that are a good fit for most WordPress blogs and websites. However, you may still want to learn more about the plugin’s more advanced features and settings, in order to get the most from Simple Ajax Chat.
To start, there’s detailed online documentation that you can access 24/7. Here, you’ll find step-by-step tutorials plus guides on how to troubleshoot common WordPress errors you may encounter when using Simple Ajax Chat.
There’s also a library of tutorials covering a range of topics, such as how to set up email notifications, and how to protect your chat room and forms against spammers.
Do you prefer one-on-one help? Then all the Simple Chat Ajax licenses come with professional support. You can either submit a support request or contact the developer directly.
Are you using the free Simple Ajax Chat plugin? Then you can post to their forum on WordPress.org, and get answers to basic questions.
When posting to public support forums, try to include as much information as possible so the experts can understand your problem fully and post a helpful response. For more on this topic, please see our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support.
Simple Ajax Chat: Pricing and Plans
If you’re just getting started, then you can download the lite version of Simple Ajax Chat from WordPress.org. With this free plugin, you can create a single chat room and then add it to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
However, if you want to create multiple chat rooms with unique settings, then you’ll need to upgrade to the premium plugin.
There are 4 plans to choose from. Unlike some other WordPress plugins, you can access the full range of features no matter what plan you buy. However, the number of websites where you can use Simple Ajax Chat will vary, depending on your plan.
- Personal. For $90 year, you can install Simple Ajax Chat on a single website, blog, or online store.
- Business. Priced at $200 annually, you can use this plugin on 3 websites. This is a good choice if you run multiple sites, such as several blogs in an affiliate marketing network.
- Advanced. For $430 per year, you can use Simple Ajax Chat on up to 10 websites.
- Developer. For $880 annually, you can install Simple Ajax Chat on 300 websites. With that said, Developer is a great plan if you run a WordPress development agency.
Simple Ajax Chat Review: Is It the Right WordPress Chat Room Plugin for You?
To sum up this Simple Ajax Chat review, we think it’s a great live chat plugin. It can add an unlimited number of chat rooms to your website, and supports as many users as you want, depending on what your WordPress hosting company can handle.
In this way, you can encourage visitors to chat with you and connect with each other. Ultimately, this can help you build a thriving online community.
The free version has all the core functionality you need to get started, including real-time chat, customizable chat interfaces, and a mobile-friendly design. However, you are limited to a single chat room, so we recommend upgrading to the premium plugin if you want to create multiple rooms with their own settings.
We hope this Simple Ajax Chat review helped you decide whether it’s the right chat room plugin for you. Next, you may want to see our guide on how to track website visitors to your WordPress site, or check out our expert pick of the best AI chatbots for your website.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Simple Ajax Chat User Reviews
Please share your Simple Ajax Chat review to help others in the community.