BLESTA CLIENT FORUM
A support forum that lives inside your Blesta client portal.
Client Forum is a Blesta forum plugin that adds a real community to your client portal: categories, boards and threads, with boards you can limit to the packages your clients already own. Clients post with the Blesta login they already have. No new accounts, no separate forum software, no second password.
Tested on Blesta 6.0.3 · Installs from Settings → Plugins · Uses the client’s existing login · Zero new client accounts · English + Spanish included
Who this Blesta forum plugin is built for
Hosting companies on Blesta
Give shared, reseller and VPS clients one place to find answers, instead of opening the same ticket again and again. Package-restricted boards keep each plan’s questions in the right place.
Software & license sellers
Selling licenses or a SaaS product through Blesta? Give paying customers a support and feature-request community without running a separate forum and syncing accounts to it.
Agencies & service businesses
Your forum stays inside your own branded client portal. Clients never leave your site or meet a third-party tool with your logo pasted on top.
Why use a Blesta forum plugin instead of a standalone forum?
Forum software like Discourse, Flarum or phpBB works well on its own, but bolting one onto a billing system means running a second login system, keeping a separate database in step with your client list, and hand-maintaining who should see which areas as clients buy and cancel services. Every one of those jobs becomes another thing to patch, back up and troubleshoot.
A Blesta forum plugin skips all of that. Client Forum runs inside Blesta itself, signs clients in with the session they already have, and reads package ownership straight from the services Blesta already tracks. When a client upgrades, cancels or gets suspended, their board access follows automatically. There is no sync job, no single sign-on bridge to configure, and nothing extra to host.
The tradeoff is scope. This Blesta forum plugin is built for the relationship between you and your paying clients, not as a public community for anonymous visitors. If you need public, search-indexed discussions open to anyone, a standalone platform is still the better fit. If you want your existing clients helping each other inside the portal they already use, this is the simpler path.
A typical use case
Picture a hosting company running Blesta with a few hundred clients across shared, reseller and VPS plans. Every week the same questions land in the ticket queue: how to point nameservers, why email forwarding stopped, how to restore a backup. Each one gets answered privately, then answered again the next time another client hits the same problem.
With the Blesta forum plugin installed, staff promote one of those tickets into a public thread on the shared-hosting board. The next client with the same question searches the forum first, finds the answer, and never opens a ticket. Over a few months the boards fill up with answers to the questions your clients actually ask. It is a knowledge base shaped by real support, not one written in a vacuum.
Reseller and VPS clients get their own restricted boards, so shared-hosting customers never wade through server-administration threads, and technical clients get a space suited to them without basic setup questions in the way.
Everything a client forum needs
This Blesta forum plugin covers the parts your clients use every day, done properly, and all of it is in the free version.
Sign in once
Clients post with their existing Blesta login. A Forum link appears in the client portal menu automatically.
Boards for the right people
Restrict any board to clients with an active or suspended service on the packages you choose.
Turn tickets into answers
Promote a Support Manager ticket into a public thread in two clicks. The original message carries over and the ticket gets an internal note linking to the thread.
Write with Markdown
A formatting toolbar with Write and Preview tabs: bold, italic, code, links, lists and quotes, without touching HTML.
Karma, best answers, leaderboard
Points for threads, replies and accepted answers, one-click best-answer marking, and a leaderboard of your most helpful clients.
Search that works
MySQL full-text search across thread titles and posts. It only shows results from boards the client is allowed to see.
Moderation tools
Pin, lock and delete threads, and post announcements with a Staff badge. Staff access is controlled by a Blesta staff-group permission.
Slack & Discord alerts
Get pinged in Slack or Discord when a new thread is posted, with a test button in the settings.
Built to hold up
Blesta’s own CSRF tokens on every form, all content escaped before display, and per-client rate limiting against spam floods.
How ticket-to-thread promotion works
From the staff area, open Forum → Promote Tickets. The Blesta forum plugin lists your Support Manager tickets, filtered by status or searched by subject. Pick a board and click Promote. The ticket’s original message becomes the opening post of a new thread under the client’s name, and an internal staff note is added to the ticket linking to the thread. The ticket itself is not closed or changed, so your normal support workflow carries on as usual.
Tickets opened by email from someone without a client account can’t be promoted, because every thread needs a client author. The plugin marks those tickets clearly so there are no surprises.
Package-restricted boards, explained
Any board can be open to every client or restricted to chosen packages. A restricted board is only shown to clients holding an active or suspended service on one of those packages. It doesn’t appear in their board list, in search results, on the dashboard card or anywhere else. Because the Blesta forum plugin checks live service data every time, access updates on its own as clients order, upgrade or cancel. A restricted board with no packages selected stays hidden from everyone, so a half-finished board never leaks.
Does it slow down Blesta?
No, not noticeably. This Blesta forum plugin adds a handful of its own database tables and a few client and staff pages. It doesn’t touch billing, invoicing, provisioning or Support Manager’s own workflows. Forum pages load quickly because each query is limited to one board or thread at a time and uses indexed columns, and search runs on MySQL’s built-in full-text indexes rather than scanning every post.
Get this Blesta forum plugin live in three steps
1. Install
Upload the plugin to plugins/client_forum/ and install it from Settings → Company → Plugins. Database tables are created automatically.
2. Set up boards
Give your staff group the Client Forum permission, then add categories and boards from the Forum menu.
3. Open to clients
The Forum link and an Active Forum Threads card appear in the client portal. Nothing for clients to install or register.
Requirements:
- Blesta: 6.0 or newer (tested on 6.0.3)
- PHP: 8.1 or newer
- Database: MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB with InnoDB
- Optional: Blesta’s Support Manager plugin, for ticket-to-thread promotion
Questions Blesta admins ask first
Do clients need to create a new account?
No. This Blesta forum plugin uses the client’s existing Blesta login, the same one they use for invoices and support tickets.
Can I restrict a board to clients with a specific package?
Yes. When you add a board, tick “Restrict” and choose the packages. Only clients with an active or suspended service on one of those packages can see it.
Do I need Support Manager?
Only for promoting tickets into threads. Everything else in the forum works without it.
What languages are included?
English and Spanish, covering every screen and the editor toolbar. More languages can be added with a new folder under the plugin’s language/ directory.
Does it work with multiple companies in one Blesta install?
Yes. Categories, boards, settings, the leaderboard and ticket lists are kept separate for each company.
What happens to forum content if I disable or uninstall it?
Disabling the plugin hides the forum and keeps all content. Uninstalling removes the forum’s tables and content, so disable it instead if you might want it back.
Is the Blesta forum plugin really free?
Yes. Every feature on this page is in the free version: boards, package restrictions, the Markdown editor, karma and best answers, search, ticket promotion and Slack/Discord alerts. A Pro version with extra moderation and community features is planned for later.
How does the Blesta forum plugin handle spam and abuse?
Only logged-in clients can post, every form carries Blesta’s CSRF token, and each client is limited to five posts a minute. Staff can lock or delete any thread from the Forum menu.
Can staff take part in threads?
Yes. Staff logged in to the client portal as a client get a Staff badge on their posts, and staff can post announcements on a client’s behalf from the Forum menu. Staff can also mark or change the best answer in any thread.
How do I update the Blesta forum plugin?
Upload the new files over the old ones in plugins/client_forum/, then click Upgrade on the Plugins page. Your boards, threads and settings are kept.
Is there a WHMCS version?
Yes. Client Forum started as a WHMCS addon. See the WHMCS Client Forum page.
Client Forum is a Blesta plugin by K & K Web Services. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Phillips Data, Inc. or Blesta.
