Forum to use with Wordpress

I'm working on a site using the FastNews Light theme. I'm trying to set up a forum for the site, but I'm having some difficulties.

I was going to use Simple Machine Forums, but there is no working bridge so that would require two separate log in's (my site and forums). I do not like that.

I have tried setting up bbPress, but I can't get [bbp-forum-index] to display the forums (yes, I created a page with the proper slug). I think bbPress may not like my theme, or perhaps there's a setting I have missed within my theme? I've also read some people hate bbPress once it starts to become bigger/more popular.

So, where to next? Simpleress, Vanilla, or? It needs to integrate well with Wordpress.

Thank you for your time,

King

Good luck. I have tried just about every forum option out there and have yet to find an elegant solution. I honestly don't believe there is one. On a few sites I had to resort to using PHPBB (cringe, but they wanted it), and styling both the forum and blog then using a bridge that worked half-assed.

I have been looking for such a solution for years for my personal site, if you find anything, please share it here.

I've had luck in the past using Simple Machines Forum and not using Wordpress but instead using SimplePortal plugin to do the blogging stuff. Keeps everything within one database without the need to bridge the two platforms.

The last time I looked at Simple Portal it was not being actively developed, but I think they were maybe waiting for SMF v2 to be released...

I'll have to take another look, but I am a huge WordPress fan and was thinking of just disabling comments and linking each post to the forum as a single registration / login cure like [H] does. I dislike WP comments, they just fade into the past vs. allowing discussion to stay interesting.

Care to compare?