Description
The Groups addon adds to Ultimate Member a system of internal communities, allowing members to create public or private groups with their own activity wall, approval control for new members, and invitations among registered users. It is aimed at those who run niche social networks, educational platforms, or online clubs within WordPress and need to segment their base around specific interests, classes, or projects without migrating to another community solution.
Main Features of Groups
- Public and private groups
Members create groups with defined visibility and entry rules that are open, approval-based, or by invitation. - Per-group activity wall
Each group gets its own timeline for posts, comments, and interactions among members. - Approval of new members
Group administrators approve or decline entry requests before granting access to content. - Groups directory
Listing page displays all active groups with search by name and categorization. - Direct invitations between members
Members send invitations to other registered users from the Ultimate Member profile.
Benefits of Groups
- Segmented communities
Allows grouping your user base by interest, course, or project without splitting the site’s registration. - Ongoing engagement
The per-group wall keeps conversations alive among members, reducing platform abandonment. - Decentralized moderation
Each group has its own admin, easing the workload of the site’s main administrator. - Expansion into an internal social network
Brings the site closer to an active community, increasing session time and repeat visits.
Who Is Groups For?
- Those who run a paid members area and want to create subgroups by mentorship, course, or topic.
- Educational platforms that need to bring together students from the same class in a private discussion environment.
- Those who already use Ultimate Member for profiles and registration and want to evolve into a niche social network model.
How to Download Groups
Groups is available for download here at Ultrapack. After downloading the .zip file, install it under Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, select the file, and activate. With Ultimate Member already active, the group configuration options appear inside the plugin menu in the dashboard.
For projects that rely on Ultimate Member as the profile and registration layer, the Groups component is what turns the user base into a network of autonomous communities, with entry rules, its own wall, and distributed moderation. It works well on paid member sites, course platforms, and online clubs that need to organize interaction by themes, classes, or parallel projects.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ultimate Member Groups GPL-licensed?
Yes. Ultimate Member Groups is distributed under the GPL (GNU General Public License). You may legally use, modify and redistribute it on as many sites as you want.
Can I use Ultimate Member Groups on multiple sites?
Yes. You can install Ultimate Member Groups on as many sites as you want. Only automatic updates through Ultrapack Auto Updater have a limit: from 3 to 80 sites, depending on the plan.
How much does Ultimate Member Groups cost at Ultrapack?
Ultimate Member Groups costs US$2.99 as a single purchase, and it is also included in the subscription plans starting at US$12/mo (VIP I).
Does Ultimate Member Groups include updates?
Yes. The current version of Ultimate Member Groups is 2.5.1, published at Ultrapack on May 15, 2026. Subscribers update straight from the WordPress dashboard with UAU (Ultrapack Auto Updater).
Is Ultimate Member Groups scanned before publication?
Yes. Every version of Ultimate Member Groups goes through a malware scan (ClamAV and YARA rules, at UltraHub) before it is published.
What are the requirements for the plugin Ultimate Member Groups?
Requires WordPress 6.2 or higher and PHP 7.0 or higher. Tested up to WordPress 6.9.
What changed in this version
Version 2.5.1
- Enhancements
- Tweak: Refactored group create/update forms.
- Improved avatar upload handling with better mime type filtering.
- Enhanced security with better input sanitization and validation.
- Deprecated unused variables and cleaned up formatting for better maintainability.
- Tweak: Removed ability to change the group role by the user (group manager role) itself.
- Bugfixes
- Fixed: Misplaced `nl2br` calls to preserve content formatting. Moved the `nl2br` function call to ensure proper formatting of post content after embedding and auto-embedding processes.
- Fixed: Added User ID to the user card data for proper user actions in the members/invites group tabs.
- Templates required update
- discussion/legacy/single.php
- discussion/new.php
- discussion/single.php
- tabs/avatar.php
- tabs/single-group-tabs.php
- create-group-form.php
- Cached and optimized/minified assets(JS/CSS) must be flushed/re-generated after upgrade
Version 2.5.0
- IMPORTANT: THIS VERSION HAS BACKGROUND DB UPGRADE. PLEASE MAKE SITE'S BACKUP BEFORE UPDATE
- Enhancements
- Added: Group Discussion Posts/Hashtags list table in wp-admin.
- Added: Edit Group Discussion Post Edit link to wp-admin.
- Added: Background DB upgrade for the old discussion posts/comments. Since update to 2.5.0 version all your old posts/comments will be upgraded to the new content displaying but keep their original content in the postmeta/commentmeta.
- Added: Site Health information.
- Tweak: Updated posting group discussion wall posts and comments.
- Using WordPress native oEmbed providers for the link that can be embedded. Deprecated `_shared_link`, `_video_url`, `_oembed`, `_video_oembed_data` postmeta for the group discussion posts.
- Using WordPress native `the_content`, `the_excerpt` and `comment_text` filter hooks to prepare content for displaying.
- Using UM core function `UM->shortcodes->emotize` to convert old-style emoji, but for another use WordPress native `convert_smiles` on the hooks above.
- Updated hashtag parsing function to wrap the hashtags to proper UM links.
- Updated action hooks `um_groups_after_wall_post_published` arguments.
- Updated action hooks `um_groups_after_wall_post_updated` arguments.
- Updated action hooks `um_groups_after_wall_comment_published` arguments.
- Updated action hooks `um_groups_after_wall_comment_reply_published` arguments.
- Updated action hooks `um_groups_after_wall_comment_updated` arguments.
- Updated action hooks `um_groups_after_wall_comment_reply_updated` arguments.
- Deprecated using unsecure HTML tags in the post content. It's only possible to use the tags allowed via `wp_kses_post` function.
- Tweak: Updated the group members mention in the group discussion wall.
- New filter hooks `um_groups_insert_post_args` and `um_groups_update_post_args` for parsing mentions in the group discussion posts. Deprecated old `um_groups_insert_post_content_filter` and `um_groups_update_post_content_filter` filter hooks.
- New filter hooks `um_groups_insert_comment_args` and `um_groups_update_comment_args` for parsing mentions in the group discussion post comments.
- Tweak: Integration with Ultimate Member Extensions_Updater class. Updated packages for integration with Action Scheduler.
- Tweak: user-wall.php partially migrated to the new template discussion/single.php that has a legacy version for old group discussion posts in the `templates/discussion/legacy/single.php` path.
- Tweak: WPCS enhancements.
- Bugfixes
- Fixed: Displaying hidden profiles in the "Send Invites" group tab.
- Fixed: Using Activity wall hashtags in groups. Changed taxonomy from `um_hashtag` to `um_groups_discussion_hashtag`. Don't use `um_hashtag` in Groups anymore.
- Fixed: Recalculate and assign/un-assign the hashtags during the group discussion post/comment update/deletion.
- Fixed: `shorten_string` function to make the Group Discussion post excerpt when words count truncation setting is enabled.
- Templates required update
- discussion/clone.php
- discussion/comment.php
- discussion/comment-reply.php
- discussion/comments.php
- discussion/likes.php
- discussion/new.php
- discussion/user-wall.php
- latest-comments.php
- Deprecated
- Deprecated: `um_hashtag` taxonomy for Group Discussion posts. Use `um_groups_discussion_hashtag` after 2.5.0 upgrade.
Version 2.4.9
- Fixed: General search queries and security enhancements based on UM Core.
- Fixed: User display name on comment reply.
Version 2.4.8
- Tweak: Using `wp_is_mobile` instead of old UM core "MobileDetect" library
- Tweak: Compatibility with the future new UI
- Fixed: Comment name for a reply (when a person replies to a comment, the name of the original commenter appears instead of the replied)
- Templates required update
- user-wall.php
- discussion/comments.php
Version 2.4.7
- Added: Compatibility with Ultimate Member 2.9.0 and Action Scheduler for email sending
- Fixed: Image uploading on the wall
- Fixed: "Load textdomain just in time" issue
Release notes published by the developer.
How to install
Automatic updates: this item is updated by the Ultrapack Auto Updater. With it installed, the new version shows up in your dashboard like any other WordPress update (how to set it up).
This item is an add-on for the Ultimate Member plugin. Installed on its own it throws no error, but it does not work either.
- Install and activate the Ultimate Member plugin before this one.
- Download the file
um-groups.zip. - In the WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
- Select the file
um-groups.zip, click Install Now and then Activate.
Requirements: Requires WordPress 6.2 or higher and PHP 7.0 or higher. Tested up to WordPress 6.9.
- Both stay active at the same time. Deactivating the Ultimate Member plugin turns this add-on off with it.
- An add-on settings usually show up inside the main plugin screens, not in a menu of their own. If you find nothing new in the dashboard after activating, look there before opening a ticket.
Stuck on a step? Open a ticket telling us which one you stopped at.

UAU Ready