Best Community Platforms to Use Overview

To maintain an online presence, you can use community platforms for your brand. With this software, you can create an online community where you can engage your audience.

You might have heard about content marketing, and you can actually use community platforms to scale it up. This is where you can host a knowledge base and users can interact to support one another. Not only can you help people, but you can also help them build valuable relationships with peers using the platform.

In this article, we will talk about the best community platforms that you can use for your online brand.

Let’s jump right in!

What is a Community Platform?

A business community platform is the best online space to build strong engagement and communication among members. It comes with features, such as member profiles, discussions, content management, content posting, and perfect community-building software.

This kind of platform helps your business in a way that you can boost customer loyalty and retain them for your business. This space serves as the knowledge base where members can interact with one another. They can share knowledge and build networks in the long run.

To build a membership site or online course and achieve your business goals, you need community software. The right software must be easy to use for your members to continue using it.

It is best to have great self-service features for customers. You also have the means to get customer feedback and make improvements.

What’s more, your brand can boost more visibility online. For instance, search engines can feature content from sites.  They include Stack Overflow, Quora, and other support forums. 

Best Community Platforms

Here is our list of the best community platforms, their best features, and the price range for your easy reference.

Community Platform	Best Feature	Monthly Price Range	With Free Trial?
Tribe	Best for Software Companies and SaaS	$0 – $199	Yes
Mighty Networks	Best All-in-One Community Builder	$0 – $81	Yes
Facebook Groups	Best for Growing Audience	$0	Yes
Discourse	Best for Older Community Platforms	$100 – $300	Yes
BuddyBoss	Best Community Builder for WordPress	$19 – $27	Yes
Spectrum.chat	Best Discussion Platform	$0	Yes
Hivebrite	Best for Building Professional Network	$0 / Customized	Yes
Slack	Easiest to Use Community Platform	$0 – $12.50	Yes
Circle	Best Standalone Community Platform	$39 – $199	Yes
Panion	Best Matchmaking Platform	$39 – $179	Yes
Disciple	Best for Premium Community-Building	$55 – $549	Yes
eXo	Best Enterprise Digital Collaboration Software	$0 – $4000	No
Vanilla Forums	Best in Community Forums	$0 – $689	Yes
Khoros	Best in Building Brand Communities	Customized	No
Yocale	Best in Online Appointment Scheduling	$0 – $80	Yes

Best Community Platforms

1. Tribe: Best for Software Companies and SaaS ($0  – $199 per month)

Tribe is a cloud-based community platform where members can customize their website according to their desired business type.  Among the popular names that use Tribe are ASUS, IBM, ConvertKit, and Pipedrive.

Best For Startups, existing forums, e-commerce and retail, consumer online services, software firms, influencers, incubators and accelerators, membership associations, and alumni groups

Pros:

• Free-to-use community platform
• No use of codes
• Integrates with more than 20 third-party applications
• Offers great customer service support
• Shows activity feed for a more personalized content
• Allows media-rich posts
• Permits users to upvote, comment, and post reply
• Creates groups and topics to put the content category
• Customizable colors, brand assets, widgets, components, and theme using CSS
• Comes in more than 25 international languages
• Offers gamification systems such as reputation scores, leaderboards, and badges
• Comes with  a moderation system for moderators and automation
• Provides powerful SEO capability
• Allows export of all the member and content data
• Comes with extensive reporting capabilities

Cons:

• No mobile application
• Limited customizing options
• No built-in messaging capability – only Telegram which is inadequate

Pricing:

• $0 per month
• $49 per month
• $199 per month
• Enterprise (Customized)

Visit Tribe Now

2. Mighty Networks: Best All-in-One Community Builder ($0 – $81 per month)

Like Tribe, Mighty Networks is also a cloud-based community platform best for marketing teams. In one dashboard, you can connect with your clients with landing pages, and even track leads. One distinguishing feature of this platform is its online courses and membership sites. Whether you are an iOS and Android user, you can access Mighty Networks on the go.

Best For Marketing teams

Pros:

• Offers a free trial
• Allows you to create quick posts, articles, polls, and events
• Comes with creating sub-groups feature
• Allows you to create online courses
•  
• Provides a slack integration for community administration
• Lets you personalize notifications
• Allows access to community and courses (with additional charge)
• Compatible with iOS and Android devices

Cons:

• Comes with a transaction fee on all pricing plans
• Doesn’t support PayPal
• Offers limited design options for creating landing pages
• Lacks support for regular and live video
• Offered course builder lacks features such as certificates and quizzes 
• Does not integrate with SSO and other platforms

Pricing:

• $0 per month
• $23 per month
• $81 per month
• Pro/Customized

Visit Mighty Networks Now

3. Facebook Groups: Best for Growing Audience  ($0 per month)

Who would not have known this platform? As one of the top social media platforms, Facebook is best for reaching a big number of people. You can find different kinds of users for different sets of interests, make a group about interest and interact with members of the group. You can also choose if you want your group to be public or private.

Best For Small and big entrepreneurs, and typical community member

Pros:

• Easy search of group members
• No need to teach members on how to use the platform
• Offers a wide range of ideas from group members
• Provides social proof and encourages nonmembers to join when a group has more members
• Gives real people accessibility to your business
• Real-time chat using Messenger
• Connects the Facebook Group with Facebook Page

Cons:

• Can display plentiful and meaningless comments for business insights
• Facebook terms and conditions can be strict for a private group whose members are only those paying premiums.
• Policies can be out of hand since you do not own the platform.

Pricing:

Facebook Groups is a free online community platform and focuses on improving its functionality.

Visit Facebook Groups Now

4. Discourse: Best for Older Community Platforms ($100 – $300 per month)

Best For If you need a mailing list, long-form chat room, and discussion forum, Discourse is the best platform to go. It is a free open source forum software where you can search your discussions. This may be from team members and customers that share the same interest as you. 

Pros:

• Offers a 14-day free trial
• Displays a reporting dashboard
• Comes with a powerful API
• Available translation in 45 languages
• Enables an infinite scroll to view the conversations on one page
• Single sign-on

Cons:

• Complex setup especially for beginners
• Complicated bulk operation system

Pricing:

• $100 per month (Standard Plan): includes 100,000 page views, 20GB storage, and 100,000 monthly emails
• $300 per month (Business Plan): includes 500,000 page views, 100GB storage, and 300,000 monthly emails
• Quote-based (Enterprise Plan): includes 3 million page views, more than 200GB Storage, and 1.5 million and monthly emails

All plan inclusions:

• Full Discourse feature set
• Unlimited members
• Global CDN
• Mobile app

Visit Discourse Now

5. BuddyBoss: Best Community Builder for WordPress ($19 – $27 per month)

Best For WordPress users and beginners on a budget

BuddyBoss simply launches and manages your social network. Without any coding knowledge, you can create your website in just minutes. It is a WordPress plugin where you can configure your messaging and themes.  

Pros:

• Cheap and easy-to-use community platform
• Comes with advanced features
• Offers integrations with other WordPress plugins such as LearnDash and Elementor Pro
• Comes with WooCommerce integration
• Allows you to customize your themes with the menu, cover images, logos, sidebars, and more
• Gives you a huge online community
• Enables your learners to enjoy a social learning
• Allows you to make forums for your members

Cons:

• Limited customization features
• Few available pricing plans 
• Expensive customized plans

Pricing:

• $19 per month / $228 per year: for 1 site
• $24 per month / $288 per year: for 5 sites
• $27 per month / $328 per year: for 10 sites

Common Features:

• 1-year updates
• BuddyBoss themes
• 1-year priority support
• BuddyBoss platform Pro

Visit BuddyBossNow

6. Spectrum.chat: Best Discussion Platform ($0 per month)

Best For Freelancers, SMEs, government, and nonprofit organizations

Spectrum.chat aims to deliver a safe and successful online community. It integrates web 2.0 forums and real-time messaging apps. What’s more, you can see the high-class moderation tooling, community health monitoring, threaded conversations by default, all in one platform. The developer continues to improve the website through continuous updates.

Pros:

• Free to use
• Excellent user interface
• Good design work
• Gives you access to unlimited chat
• Allows you to add unlimited members
• Comes with a single DM inbox

Cons:

• The mobile version is not very smooth.
• Slow and unpredictable editor
• Unclear pricing options (still ongoing development)
• No self-hosted option

Pricing: Free / Contact support for pricing plans.

Visit Spectrum.chat Now

7. Hivebrite: Best for Building Professional Network ($0 per month)

Best For Professionals, supporters, campuses, and alumni

Hivebrite is a cloud-based community platform that aims to simplify databases and interactions. For instance, it can help you promote your events, enable online payments, invite community members in and out of campus, send news updates, and create different types of tickets. Here are more of its features:

Pros:

• Allows you to export member information as a file
• Comes with a powerful CSV search and targeting filters to promote events or send out announcements
• Enables you to perform mass updates
• Profile update campaign for members and track all the updates
• Allows full moderation of content posted by community members
• Integrated CMS lets you create public pages and menus
• Lets you customize the visibility of your content
• Comes with an RSS feed to automatically create content on your platform such as jobs and news

Cons:

• Not very user-friendly
• No integration with frequently-used social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook
• The design feature is a little outdated.

Pricing: Using Hivebrite is free. You can also contact the support team for the premium plan with a more advanced feature.

Visit Hivebrite Now

8. Slack: Easiest to Use Community Platform ($0 – $12.50 per month)

Known as a collaboration and business messaging tool, Slack is also intended for building communities. Though using it is free, you can enjoy its top-notch features. 

Best For Professionals and business owners/entrepreneurs

Pros:

• A free plan is available.
• File browser
• Video calling
• Offers different pre-designed themes and templates
• Allows you to create channels for discussions
• Real-time communication

Cons:

• Limited free plan
• Expensive premium plans
• You can only search for the first 10,000 messages.

Pricing:

• $0 per month (free)
• $6.67 per month (Pro Plan)
• $12.50 per month (Business+ Plan)
• Quote-based (Enterprise Grid)

Visit Slack Now

9. Circle: Best Standalone Community Platform ($39 – $199 per month)

Best For Content Creators

In any way you want, you can create your online community with Circle. You can earn while saving your members space for discussions using direct messaging. With this platform, you can choose to start coaching, product, course, or membership community. More so, you can customize it in private or public space depending on the nature of your established community.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface
• Great analytics tools
• Responsive mobile app
• Offers private community tutorials and demos functionality
• Excellent customer support

Cons:

• More expensive than other community platforms
• Does not have a course creation feature
• No “native” live program
• Takes a long time to upload a video
• Not enough presets

Pricing:

• $39 per month (Basic Plan)
• $79 per month (Professional Plan)
• $199 per month (Enterprise Plan)

Visit Circle Now

10. Panion: Best Matchmaking Platform ($39 – $179 per month)

Panion focuses on providing people with simple, fun, and efficient interaction using their technology. With its enhanced features, the platform connects the members with useful analytics, tracking, and event management tools. It also enables VAT-registered billing for organizations.

Best For Small to large groups with brand and events

Pros:

• Offers a free trial of 45 days
• Comes with a matchmaking algorithm based on common interest
• Event management, ticketing, and monetization
• Custom community branding

Pricing:

• $39 per month (Starting Plan)
• $79 per month (Growing Plan)
• Quote-based (Scaling Plan)

Visit Panion Now

11. Disciple: Best for Premium Community-Building ($55 – $549 per month)

Best For Small and large businesses, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, creators, and influencers

Disciple offers a safe space for its members who are sharing the same interests. With this platform, you can sell your courses, live stream, charge subscriptions, and more.

Pros:

• Offers a free trial
• No ads
• Allows you to customize logos and colors in your community space
• Views feed per category
• Charges subscriptions from members of your community
• Boosts and promotes your events
• Comes with powerful analytics
• Available on Android, iOS, and web
• Comes with content scheduling for your advanced posts
• Allows your members to make their own profiles, and message team members
• Outlines your content with the content library
• Allows your members to use “@” mentions and topic hashtags to search for the relevant content

Cons:

• Does not allow live stream on desktop
• Unresponsive mobile app

Pricing:

• $55 per month (Web Plan):
• $549 per month (Mobile App Plan)

Visit Disciple Now

12. eXo: Best Enterprise Digital Collaboration Software ($0 – $4,000 per month)

Exo is an exceptional collaboration tool and open-source networking solution for any type of business. With eXo, your members can upload and share documents, create groups, comment on posts, and more.

Best For Small to large enterprises

Pros:

• Easy-to-use interface
• Does not require coding knowledge
• Elegant dashboard
• Comes with efficient tools for document sharing, administrative tasks, and activity updates
• Effective chat and file-sharing functions

Cons:

• Hard to learn for beginners
• Complex addition of subsites
• Lacking gamification feature

Pricing: You have to contact customer support for a quotation based on your needs.

Visit Exo Now

13. Vanilla Forums: Best in Community Forums ($0 – Customized)

Vanilla Forums is a virtual community platform that helps businesses enhance sales and promote their brands. With this platform, you can deliver exceptional customer service using their flexible tools. The solutions offered by Vanilla Forums boost customer loyalty and increase your sales. 

Best For Small to large businesses

Pros:

• User-friendly interface
• Analytics tools
• Moderation tools
• Developer tools
• Modern usability
• Administration tools

Cons:

• Slow API development
• Lacking SEO options

Pricing:

• $0 (Vanilla OSS)
• $689 per month (Business Plan)
• Quote-based (Customized Plans)

Visit Vanilla Forums Now

14. Khoros: Best in Building Brand Communities (Quote-Based)

Khoros simplifies the current complex social marketing to build brands. It helps you stay on top of competition and excel. With Khoros, you can encourage the participation of your audience.

Best For Social media communicators

Pros:

• Best for external communities
• Excellent customization feature
• Comes with a number of integrations via APIs
• Supports SSO
• Offers built-in analytics and gamification to track and promote engagement

Cons:

• Expensive community platform
• Limited platform updates since the start of operations

Pricing: To know the pricing plans, you have to reach the Khoros team.

Visit Khoros Now

15. Yocale: Best in Online Appointment Scheduling ($0 – $80 per month)

Best For Business of any industry such as beauty and wellness, health and medical, and professional services

Pros:

• Email notifications and reminders
• Social media bookings
• Encrypted and secure lite CRM
• Offers online chat support
• Reserve with Google listing
• SMS notifications and reminders

Cons:

• Unchangeable booking hours – needs to contact support for help
• Locations not viewable in one dashboard
• Slow mobile performance
• Does not support guest add-ons

Pricing:

• $0 per month (Essential Plan)
• $25 per month (Grow Plan)
• $40 per month (Pro Plan)
• $80 per month (Ultimate Plan)

Visit Yocale Now

FAQs About Community Platforms

What do I need to look for in an online community platform?

In choosing the perfect online community platform for you, the first thing to know is the exclusiveness of the platform. Choose one where the community is open to registered users only. 

You can first join a free community platform to run a test. Usually, developers have free trials or versions to know if customers will engage with their platform.

The community platform you must choose have to serve you these:

• The first thing you need to know is if your platform is easy to use. This will give you an easy time to customize your profile and build your community quicker.
• Provides analytical tools. This tool also filters the top interests in line with yours to post more relevant content and events.
• Gives private and secure social networking to maintain community members’ trust
• Provides community news and updates about interests, hobbies, or professional experiences
• Offers flexibility to keep up with modern technology developments
• Meets your budget
• Offers monetization of your content
• Supports community for self-help and peer to expert advice
• Generates content such as community blogging
• Measures customer satisfaction
• Provides ideation
• Identifies customer advocates
• Increases employee engagement

Finally, ask yourself these questions to know if the platform caters to your needs:

1. Are my product and supplier feasible?
2. Who are my target audiences?
3. What are my community goals?
4. What type of platform do I need?
5. Does the platform have the features that I need?
6. How flexible is the community platform?
7. Does the platform support third-party integrations?
8. What kind of security does the platform offer?
9. Is the platform’s price within my budget?

What are the types of community platforms?

1. Action Community

This type creates some changes in the physical community including globally. Most of these are environmental advocates that aim to tackle climate change.

2. Discussion Community

Members of this community share their opinions and experiences about a common interest. This could be about a Netflix series or any topic or brand that interests all members.

3. Support Community

This type of community usually helps members to troubleshoot problems related to services or products. For instance, a community platform for Apple users helps one another to address issues related to the products.

What is the difference of a community platform from help desk software, CMS, and collaboration tool?

Like help desk software, a community platform has community features such as Q&A. 

It is also somewhat similar to content management systems (CMS), where experts and advocates promote moderated external communities. 

Wrap-Up

Now that you already read about our top 15 community platforms, here is a recap and summary of the platforms that you see might be best for you at a glance:

eCommerce, retail, small to large enterprises: Tribe, Mighty Networks, Facebook Groups, Hivebrite, Slack,  Circle, Panion, Disciple, eXo, Vanilla Forums, Yocale

Corporate organizations: Hivebrite, Slack, Panion, Disciple, Vanilla Forums, Yocale, BuddyBoss

Freelancers: BuddyBoss, Spectrum.chat, Hivebrite, Slack, Circle, Panion, Vanilla Forums, Khoros

After narrowing down your choices, you can list your needs and budget, and read about these platforms’ features to see which suits you best. You can also ask yourself questions from our FAQs section to help you decide.

One thing that you can also consider is the return on investment (ROI). The majority of the top suggestions have free trial offers, and others may also have a free version

If you are aiming to monetize your community, it is best to invest in a platform with a fair price based on your needs. The free trial can also help you experience the platform offers, so we suggest that you take advantage of it.

Overall, our Tribe, Mighty Networks, and Facebook Groups. These platforms all have free trial offers and have the best value in terms of features.

Final Words

We hope that this article helped you choose the best community platform for your needs. Thank you for reading!