Kunena is the most widely used forum component for Joomla. It provides a full-featured discussion board with categories, topics, replies, private messaging, user ranks, subscriptions, and attachment support — fully integrated with Joomla's user and ACL systems and optionally with Community Builder profiles.

Forum Structure

Kunena organises discussion into a two-level hierarchy:

  • Categories — top-level groupings (e.g. General Discussion, Support, Announcements)
  • Topics (Threads) — individual discussions within a category
  • Replies (Posts) — responses within a topic

Categories can be public, registered-only, or restricted to specific Joomla user groups via the ACL integration.

Initial Setup

  1. Install Kunena and create a Kunena Forum menu item
  2. Go to Admin → Components → Kunena → Categories to create your forum categories
  3. Configure global settings in Kunena → Configuration — posting permissions, attachments, RSS, avatars
  4. Enable the Kunena plugins: plg_finder_kunena for Smart Search indexing, plg_kunena_community for CB integration

Moderation

Assign moderators per category in Kunena → Moderators. Moderators can delete, edit, move, lock, and unstick any topic or post in their assigned categories. Global moderators have these rights across all categories.

Key moderation tools:

  • Soft delete — hides posts from regular users but retains them for admins
  • IP banning — block a specific IP from posting
  • User banning — block a specific Joomla user account from the forum
  • Report system — users can flag posts; reports appear in the Kunena admin panel

Community Builder Integration

With the plg_kunena_community plugin enabled, Kunena uses CB profile data:

  • CB avatar shown alongside forum posts instead of the Kunena avatar
  • CB profile link on post author names
  • CB activity entries created for new topics and replies (requires CB Activity plugin)

Kunena Modules

ModuleShows
mod_kunenalatest Most recent posts — good for sidebar or homepage
mod_kunenastats Forum statistics — total posts, users, categories
mod_kunenalogin Kunena-specific login/registration panel
mod_kunenasearch Dedicated forum search box
Tip: Enable the Finder plugin for Kunena so forum topics are indexed by Smart Search — users can find both article and forum content from a single search box.