The best online community platforms have become a fundamental part in many business strategies. Consumers are increasingly searching for deeper relationships with brands, built on a sense of trust, affinity, and respect. Community platforms can help with forming these long-lasting connections.
These tools provide an environment where online educators can bring students together to discuss courses, or business leaders can form tribes of dedicated advocates. The right tools provide access to resources for community members, as well as helping them form relationships connected to the brand.
According to studies, online communities improve engagement by 21%. Plus, 68% of businesses say their communities help generate new leads, while 66% say it improves customer retention.
To help you discover the benefits of communities for yourself, we’ve tracked down some of the best online community platforms for 2024.
Mighty Networks is more than just one of the best online community platforms, it’s actually an all-in-one solution for content creators and entrepreneurs looking to strengthen relationships with customers. The solution includes an online course builder, a website builder, editor, and content management system, as well as a membership and community platform.
The intuitive toolset comes with a range of ways to customize your experiences with communities. You can create member categories, sub-groups, and chat boxes. You’ll also be able to monetize you’re your platform in a variety of different ways. Thanks to an integration with Zapier, it’s also easy to link in a range of other tools.
Mighty Networks offers a free trial to begin with, and discounts on annual packages. The annual packages include:
Like Mighty Networks, Thinkific is a lot more than just a community platform. If you’re a teacher, or you have something valuable to share with your target audience, Thinkific will help you monetize your knowledge. The solution comes with a drag-and-drop editor for creating courses, a learning management system, and payment tools.
With Thinkific, you can create and share any kind of content you want, from videos to articles. Plus, there are templates to get you started, so you don’t need a lot of prior course creation knowledge. As an added benefit, you can customize every touchpoint, from course data, to chat boxes. The Thinkific system even integrates with tools like Shopify, Salesforce, and Mailchimp.
There’s a free trial available for Thinkific. You’ll also have access to a full “free” package with one site admin account and limited courses for unlimited students. Paying for an annual plan gives you 20% off a month, with prices like:
Tribe is an online community software solution designed specifically for audience relationship building, and nothing else. The solution is highly customizable, allowing for a completely white-labelled experience, where you can add all of your brand colors and logos easily. There are also tons of tools for customer engagement, including omnichannel notifications for members.
The communities you build will be able to log into their account using social media credentials, access self-service, and support tools, and provide feedback to your brand. There are options for implementing custom code scripts and tracking insights with Google Analytics. You can even build your own apps within Tribe.
You can start for free with Tribe for up to 100 members, with no credit card required. After this, annual packages are offered at a discount rate:
While it’s tempting to look for the best online community platforms with a focus on feature richness, it’s worth valuing ease of use too. Circle, though not as advanced as some other options on this list, is ideal for beginners who want to make life easier. You can easily set up discussion boards, facilitate private messaging, and manage content.
Circle’s simplistic and modern design means administrators can moderate their communities, connect with their audience, and deliver a better overall experience for their members too. There’s a native app for the Apple ecosystem. You can also integrate your community into an existing website, product, or online course page.
Circle’s pricing starts with a 14-day free trial so you can test the solution’s functionality. There’s no credit card required to get started. Paid plans include:
If, like many entrepreneurs, you already have a website you want to embed with community features, it makes sense to choose a solution that integrates into your existing investment. BuddyBoss is a plugin for WordPress which brings community functionality into your WordPress portal. Though the solution isn’t as advanced as some options, like Might Networks, it has a lot of functionality.
You can use BuddyBoss to set up personalized activity feeds and notifications for members, as well as group and private messaging. There are member directories, social groups and posts, and even access to live event hosting via Zoom. Buddy Boss is also one of the few community platforms to support other WordPress-based LMS (Learning Management Systems) through integrations with tools like LearnDash.
The pricing for BuddyBoss will depend on whether you want to create a website or app. You can design 1 site for $228, 5 sites for $288, or 10 sites for $388. All packages come with the same key features. For app design, prices start at $179 per month when paid yearly, and you can even have the app creation done for you.
One of the easiest options for online community software on the market, PeerBoard allows companies to create forums, online groups, and other forms of community in no time. You can create an environment where customers can find content like articles, show personalized feeds to users, and even create private spaces for discussions.
PeerBoard also ensures you can design your community to suit your needs. You can choose between different colors and fonts to match website branding. There are also moderation tools for managing members. As an added bonus, PeerBoard naturally integrates with a range of popular tools, including WordPress, Thinkific, and Shopify.
PeerBoard is one of the best online community platforms for those in search of a generous free package. You can use the system with comprehensive privacy controls, custom domains, plugins, and theme customization for free. Paid packages include:
Discourse is phenomenal tool for creating online forum experiences with endless creativity. The 100% open-source platform means you can maintain complete control over your community directory and membership lists. You can create discussion boards and run and manage a forum easily within a convenient backend.
The Discourse ecosystem is designed to be easy-to-use and user-friendly, with a range of features like spam blocking, moderation, and notifications. There’s even an automatic trust system, which helps to ensure your conversations are beneficial, and keeps spam to a minimum. The open-source environment also integrates with tools like Slack, Zendesk, and WordPress.
While the software itself is free to use, you’ll still need to pay for hosting and maintenance for your forum. The prices for these services include:
Vanilla Forums is similar in a lot of ways to Discourse, with an open-source version you can use to create solutions from scratch. The features you’ll get here are a little more comprehensive, however. You can create a knowledgebase help center within your community so customers can more easily serve themselves. There are also discussion and Q&A boards available.
Vanilla Forums takes extra steps to make companies as successful as possible when they’re creating new communities. There’s a dedicated customer success team on-board to guide you through the launch of your community, and help you set strategic paths for the future.
Vanilla provides flexible packaging and plans for mid-sized companies, up to larger enterprises. There’s also the option to access a dedicated success team manager. However, the company doesn’t provide any transparent pricing on the website.
Slack is one of the most well-known environments for community building in the modern world. The solution has quickly emerged as a go-to environment for professional collaboration and communication in recent years, particularly during the pandemic. Slack allows companies to organize users into channels, where they can have public and private discussions, huddles and more.
You can set up video meetings in slack, share content and links, and even design workflow automations to make teams more productive. There are also in-built security solutions like enterprise key management to keep conversations secure. Slack also integrates with a wide variety of other tools, such as Google Drive, Office 365 and Zoom.
Slack’s pricing options start with a free package for unlimited private and public channels, 10k of searchable messages, voice and video, and file sharing. Paid packages include:
Probably one of the simplest solutions for online community building, Facebook Groups has been helping companies to connect with their communities for years. This environment allows entrepreneurs and other business leaders to create a space where like-minded people can talk, browse through content, and discover new insights from your brand.
Facebook Groups are great for boosting awareness about a company, as well as for gaining insight into customer needs and preferences through social listening. You can even assign roles like “mentor” to your most loyal members.
Facebook Groups is free to use, but you might need to pay if you want to create ads within the Facebook landscape to promote your group. You won’t be able to customize your environment much for branding purposes either.
There are a handful of online community software options on the market today you may be able to access for free. Many solutions come with free trials, so you can test the functionality of the service before you sign up for a paid package, this is the case with brands like Thinkific and Mighty Networks.
Free forever plans are less common, but they are out there. There’s a free package for Tribe for up to 100 members, and PeerBoard has one of the most generous free packages on the market, with access to unlimited usage and a range of features.
However, while you might be able to get some functionality for free, the options available will be very limited. There’s a good chance you’ll need to compromise on the number of people who can join your community, as well as how much content you can share and store.
Free packages may also limit your branding capabilities, and prevent you from removing a community builder’s own logo from your environment. Generally, you’ll get far more advanced functionality and freedom from a premium package.
The best online community platform is a solution which allows business leaders and course creators to create a safe, secure online space where members can interact with each other and the company. Some solutions come with simple forum and chat features, while others have member directories, content sharing, and a range of engagement options, like polls and quizzes.
The exact functionality of your online community software will depend on which solution you choose. Tools like Thinkific focus more on creating communities for students of online courses, with tools for building your course built-in. Solutions like Discourse provide a more basic forum environment for community chat.
An online community platform provides businesses with all the tools they need to build a dedicated tribe of followers and advocates for their companies. There are tools for facilitating engaging discussions around your brand, and boosting your chances for customer loyalty.
Customer brand communities can help with social listening, so you can learn more about what your audience needs from your company, as well as self-service thanks to knowledgebases.
The more engaged your customers become in your community, the more connected they’ll feel to your business overall. With an online community platform, you can:
The exact features you’ll need from your online community platform will depend on what you want to accomplish with your new ecosystem. In general, the most important features will revolve around engaging and managing your community members.
Some of the most important tools to look for include:
A community platform is committed to helping companies build social sites which bring individuals together to discuss common topics. A membership platform is more focused on controlling access to certain content. There are fewer features in a membership platform to help members form relationships with each other.
Companies can use online communities to build better relationships with customers and members. This translates into better brand loyalty, greater customer lifetime value, and more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.
The best way to grow your community platform is to make it as engaging and valuable as possible. Measure analytics regularly, and make sure you adopt a strong community culture. Go above and beyond to make sure your members feel included.
The best online community platforms come in a range of shapes and sizes to suit different needs. Finding the right option for you means exploring all of the different products out there, and deciding which features you need to prioritize. Some great options include:
Which are your favorite community platforms? Share your experiences in the comments below.