Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots

Yes — install the free version from WordPress.org. It supports private and group conversations, chat rooms, file sharing, oEmbed previews, smart-batched email notifications, role-based access, guest chat, and the standard messenger feature set. The WebSocket version is paid and unlocks instant delivery, one-on-one and group voice / video calls with backgrounds, noise removal and recording, Better Messages Cloud AI (content moderation, message translation and voice message transcription with no API key of your own), web push, end-to-end encryption, and your own iOS and Android apps.

35+ native integrations across community platforms (BuddyPress, BuddyBoss Platform, PeepSo, Ultimate Member, FluentCommunity, SureDash, ProfileGrid, UsersWP, WP User Manager), LMS (LearnDash, LearnPress, Tutor LMS, MasterStudy LMS), e-commerce (WooCommerce — pre-sales and order support chat with contact buttons on product, cart, checkout, and order pages), multi-vendor marketplaces (Dokan, WCFM, WC Vendors, MultiVendorX), listings and directories (HivePress, Directorist, GeoDirectory, Classified Listing, Motors, WP Job Manager), real estate themes (Houzez, RealHomes), forums (wpForo, bbPress), gamification (GamiPress, MyCRED), automation (Uncanny Automator, AutomatorWP), page builders (Crocoblock JetEngine), push / PWA (FluentNotify, OneSignal, Progressify), and multilingual sites (GTranslate, Weglot). If your plugin isn’t listed, the built-in visual Shortcode Builder lets you add a Live Chat Button to any custom post type without writing PHP. See the full list of integrations .

Yes — first-class group chats with shared history, mentions, reactions, file uploads, replies, edit / delete / forward, and group voice / video calls (WebSocket version). Group chats can be auto-paired with BuddyPress / BuddyBoss / PeepSo / Ultimate Member / FluentCommunity groups, with members joining and leaving the chat in sync with the source community group.

Yes — Guest Chat lets unregistered visitors join chat rooms, message vendors on marketplaces, ask questions on directory listings, or chat with site support. Guests enter a display name (and optionally an email), then participate as a guest user. Their thread history is preserved if they later register.

Yes (WebSocket version) — one-on-one and group voice / video calls live inside the messenger thread, not as a separate Zoom / Whereby integration. Hosted media relay is included with the WebSocket license, no separate Twilio account, no Daily / Whereby subscription, no Zoom developer plan. Group calls have no fixed size: each site includes 32 people on video or 50 on audio at once across its group calls, and more join with WordPlus Cloud credits. Calls have device settings, background blur and virtual backgrounds, AI noise removal, screen sharing, host controls and picture in picture, and group calls can be recorded with a transcript.

Yes. All message data is stored only in your WordPress database. The WebSocket cloud relay is blind to message content — it routes encrypted events and keeps only the last few minutes of each conversation, still encrypted, but cannot read or inspect what passes through. Better Messages also integrates with WordPress’s built-in Personal Data Export and Erasure tools. Call recordings, when an administrator turns them on, are kept on your site or in your own cloud storage. For sites with stricter data-sovereignty requirements (GDPR Article 9, HIPAA-adjacent, regulated-data workloads), a self-hosted plan is available — contact support.

Yes. AI Chat Bots (OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini) work in the free version with your own provider API key. They act as full participants in any thread, with custom system prompts and per-bot points charging via GamiPress / MyCRED. Better Messages Cloud AI (WebSocket version) provides AI Content Moderation (23+ categories including spam, scam, doxxing, contact sharing), AI Message Translation (53 languages with auto-detection), and Voice Message Transcription (99+ languages) — all included with the WebSocket license, no third-party API key required.

Yes (WebSocket version) — Better Messages makes native iOS and Android apps for your site, on Capacitor, with push notifications, real-time delivery, native voice / video call screens, website sign-in with your two-factor authentication, an app lock with Face ID or the fingerprint, and the messenger’s features. You build your branded app from WP Admin and publish it on the App Store / Play Store under your own developer accounts.

Yes — Better Messages is fully translatable through standard WordPress translation tools (Loco Translate, WPML, Polylang) using the bp-better-messages text domain. Ships with 30+ community translations. Contribute or improve a translation at translate.wordpress.org .

Yes (WebSocket version). End-to-end encryption is enabled per thread — messages and file attachments are encrypted in the sender’s browser with AES-256-GCM before transmission, stay encrypted at rest in the database, and decrypt only in the recipient’s browser. The server stores ciphertext only, no admin, host engineer, or attacker with database access can read the message content of an E2E thread.

The complete documentation, integration guides, REST API reference, hooks reference, video tutorials, and 80+ blog posts are at www.better-messages.com .

The plugin connects to WordPlus Cloud, the plugin author’s service that sells and licenses the WebSocket version, only when an administrator uses one of these features:

• Plans, prices and reviews. When an administrator opens Better Messages → Upgrade, the site asks WordPlus Cloud (api.wordplus.cloud) for the current plans, prices and customer reviews, and keeps the answer for an hour. No personal data is sent, only the request itself, which WordPress makes with the site’s address. The administrator’s browser then loads the reviews’ photos from WordPlus Cloud.
• Contact form. When an administrator sends a message from Better Messages → Support, the plugin sends what they wrote, their name and email address, any files they attach, any access details they choose to share, and the site’s address and technical details (the WordPress, PHP, database and web server versions, the theme and the active plugins), which the form shows before sending.
• Better Messages Assistant, only after you press Start. The AI assistant on Better Messages → Support sends nothing until an administrator presses Start under the list of what it sends. Start registers the site with WordPlus Cloud (its address, the plugin version and whether it is the free or the WebSocket version). Then each question goes to WordPlus Cloud’s assistant service (rest.wordplus.cloud) with the site’s address, the plugin’s settings (without keys or passwords), the plugin, WordPress, PHP and theme versions, the active plugins and the administrator’s language, and the answer comes back to the page. Questions and answers are stored and read by the plugin’s team to improve the assistant. Visitors’ data is never sent. “Turn off the assistant” under the chat stops it, and the wordplus_sdk_assistant_enabled filter hides it.
• Buying. Buying happens on the WordPlus Cloud website (www.wordplus.cloud), never inside WordPress. The Upgrade buttons open it with the site’s address. After paying, the plugin sends WordPlus Cloud the one-time code it came back with, the site’s address, the plugin version and a random identifier of the site, and gets the licence key.
• Installing the WebSocket version, only when asked for. If the buyer asks for it on the WordPlus Cloud checkout page, WordPlus Cloud contacts the site, and the site downloads the WebSocket version from WordPlus Cloud and installs it. Nothing is installed unless the buyer asks on that page.
• Licence check. Once a licence key is saved, the site sends the key, its address and the plugin version to WordPlus Cloud once a day to confirm the licence.