The ability to hide and show content to certain users is helpful on many kinds of sites, from forums and community sites to news sites and even event calendars. WordPress actually has a lot of options for controlling access to certain pages and posts on a site.
So let’s look at several of them and how they can be used for online calendars. We’ll go into great detail for each plugin in separate articles while providing a high-level comparison of them here.
What we’re looking for
Before jumping in, let’s consider what it is we’re looking for. If the goal is to control access to the calendar and certain events, then these are things we want to be able to do:
- Limit access to the calendar as a whole to members
- Limit access to certain events and event categories to members
- Display content on a page that is only visible to members
- Limit who can submit events to the calendar based to members
- Create tickets that only members can purchase (availble with some integrations with this handy extension)
There are probably other requirements we could dream up, but what we have here should account for the bulk of many community and membership sites that use calendars.
The contenders
There are more plugins that meet at least some of our requirements that we have time to cover. So, let’s look just at some of the most popular solutions:
Each of these plugins are powerful and awesome in their own right. While some cater to specific use cases (e.g. BuddyPress for creating community groups), they all deal with members in some way, shape or form.
👋 Hey, already using one of these plugins and looking for how to use them with our products? Start with this article outlining how our products can be used with membership sites.
The comparison
| BuddyPress | Woo Memberships | Restrict Content | MemberPress | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limit access to the calendar | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Limit access to certain events | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Shortcode to display event details to members only | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Limit who can submit events to the calendar | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Create tickets only members can purchase | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ (Pro) | ✅ |
| Special ticket pricing and discounts for members | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ (Pro) | ✅ |
| Custom messaging for no access | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |