BuddyPress.org

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

It really depends on your site.

Creating a child theme off the default is recommended, but doesn’t give you the convenience of using an already-developed and designed WP theme / site.

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Pros of child theme

-easy upgrading when there’s a new BP release; no need to worry about breaking anything (for the most part)

Cons of child theme

-you have to create a child theme (to some this isn’t a big deal, but thought i’d list it)

–> if you’re going for a completely different design off the default theme, you’ll probably be copying a lot of templates over from the default to the point that it isn’t worth creating a child theme anymore (note that this probably isn’t the case for the majority of BP users).

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Pros of using a WP theme with BP Template Pack

-integrate BP with an existing WP theme (or site!)

Cons of using a WP theme with BP Template Pack

-using the BP Template Pack plugin requires some CSS and template tweaking to make everything look the way you want it (to some this isn’t a big deal, but thought i’d list it)

-could rely on Andy occasionally updating the BP Template Pack plugin on new BP releases (not saying that Andy is incapable of doing this — far from it — but it’s just one additional step you have to wait on)

-note you could also create your own default theme or parent-child theme structure, thekmen has implemented Hybrid as the parent theme with a Hybrid child theme designed to work with BP. This is a little bit more complex, but is doable and will probably require a bit of manual maintenance in the future as well.

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I should note that, like modemlooper, I prefer creating a child theme.

But I see you’ve already dedicated some time to get Cureuphoria up and running, so you might want to stick with what you have.