Are you a business owner looking for new and innovative ways to expand the services of your business? Do you want to do so without emptying your savings account for startup funds? If so, then online communities are the place for you. Online Communities are trending up in today’s business market.

Using an online community platform to grow your business is the best way to attract a new audience, improve customer satisfaction, gain customer reviews, capitalize on customer feedback, provide customer support, and decrease the overall cost of startup. If you are unfamiliar with online community platforms, you may have heard of them referred to as “SaaS,” or online vendor platforms.

What is “SaaS”?

“SaaS” stands for “Software As A Service”. In simpler terms, SaaS is an all-inclusive software system in which a business can access all of its data through one user-friendly online platform. Not only can the business itself access the data through the platform, but so can its users. This is a one-stop shop for businesses and consumers, allowing for greater efficiency in a business transaction. Businesses provide the data to the software, consumers access the data from the software, and consumers can then pay right there on the software platform.

There are several online community platforms to choose from, so it can be to know which one is the right one for your business. The following descriptions will help you to better understand the best community platforms available right now, the key features they offer, and which have the qualities needed to better your business as a whole.

Here are the Best Community Platforms of 2021:

  1. Mighty Networks
  2. Tribe Community Platform
  3. Circle
  4. eXo
  5. BuddyBoss
  6. Vanilla Forums
  7. Facebook Groups
  8. Hivebrite
  9. Discourse
  10. Slack

So which one is the best one for you? Let’s Find Out!

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1. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks has been described as the best all-in-one community platform for brands and successful creators. Mighty Networks allows you to build an online community on your website. It is a user-friendly platform that is used specifically to improve community engagement. Mighty Networks brings together the community, online courses, sales pages, etc., of a business’ brand and shares it across the web, and IOS and Android apps. Mighty Networks embraces community when it comes to design and engagement, you can create “Quick Posts,” or a status update that you can share along with a single image, video, link, or file attachment. You can also create polls, quizzes, and full-written articles.

Pros

  • Powerful Community Features
  • Native Zoom Integration
  • Ability to create online courses
  • Free iOS and Android Apps
  • Inbuilt monetization tools

Cons

  • No support for SSO integrations
  • Charges a transaction fee

Special Features

Event management feature: This feature allows one to create one event or a recurring event. These events can be in-person, zoom, or webinar events, all organized in one online place.

Pricing: $0-$81 per month.

Free: Subscription-based community(members pay a fee to be a part of the community)

Community: $23/month- allows you to point your community to a custom domain.

Business: $81/month- allows you to host online courses

Pro: TBD by contacting the Mighty Networks Team- Get access to native mobile apps, mobile notifications, and app store marketing all under your brand.

All plans include:

  • Personal website
  • Unlimited members
  • Access to Mighty Networks Mobile apps
  • Direct messaging
  • SEO Features

Don’t miss out on your 14-day Free Trial when you sign up today!

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2. Tribe Community Platform

Tribe is a community platform that was inspired by today’s popular social media sites. It’s an easily accessible platform that allows members to use the same social login systems that support Facebook, Slack, Linkedin, Google, and Twitter. In this way, consumers are most likely already familiar with this website, making them feel more comfortable when using it.

Tribe Community is a platform entirely focused on community-building features. Its name practically says it all. It integrates other platforms, such as WordPress, for easy access for users with existing credentials. Tribe Community Platform has made it possible for businesses to have complete control over customization, everything from the logo and widgets to colors and domain.

Pros

  • Activity feed similar to popular social media websites for personalized content
  • 25+ international languages
  • Powerful SEO
  • 20+ popular third-party tools

Cons

  • Price- a bit costly compared to other platforms
  • No native live stream functionality
  • Lack of availability to integrate live streaming solutions

Special Features

Native gamification features, or the application of gaming techniques to something which is not generally a game, allows the community platform to become more active and increase the engagement rate of consumers.

Gamification techniques include things such as the number of connections, followers, and friends that a person who is using a particular platform has . As one who actively uses social media would know, the higher the numbers are on any of those categories, then the more popular the user is perceived on the social network.

Pricing: $0-$199 per month.

Free: Comes with content posting, groups, and topics, but has a limit of 500 members

Plus: $49 per month- allows for unlimited members along with additional apps (Zapier Integration and SEO)

Premium: $199 per month- offers SSO, additional apps, white-label, and better support.

Enterprise: For price contact sales- For large businesses and regulated industries (Data residency, uptime SLA, Migration assistance, and enterprise-grade security)

All plans include:

  • Theme customization
  • Analytics
  • Moderation
  • Social Login
  • Custom Domain

A 14 day Trial on Premium with no credit card required!

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3. Circle

Circle is a community platform like no other. It prides itself on its ability to transform a passive audience into passionate superfans for life. Circle gives businesses the ability to bring together community discussions, memberships, and content. Circle attracts its users with its sleek and modern design. It sticks to the simple side of things, creating a platform that is more user-friendly to navigate through. However, its simplicity does cause a lack of necessities for businesses when it comes to choosing a community platform.

Pros

  • Ability to embed a widget
  • Simplicity
  • User friendly
  • Direct integration with WordPress
  • Custom SSO integrations

Cons

  • Doesn’t offer the ability to create online courses
  • No inbuilt monetization tools
  • Does not have an Android App

Special Features

On Circle, you can create private spaces. Spaces are used to keep conversations organized by topic. They are where you will find access to member discussions, files, and anything else shared by members. You can also organize your spaces by creating space groups. Space groups are used to segment important information and topics.

Pricing: $39-$199 per month.

Basic: $39 per month- A simple community with bare essentials

Professional: $79 per month- Unlock key features and higher usage limits

Enterprise: $199 per month- 100,000 members, 1,000 spaces, 3 communities, custom SSO, account manager

All plans include:

  • 10-1,000 spaces
  • SSO
  • Custom Domain

Every plan includes a 14 day trial with no credit card required!

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4. eXo

eXo Platform allows businesses to connect, engage, empower, and reward teams. It is described as a holistic solution that combines social, collaborative, gamification, and reward features to enhance the work experience, achieve higher engagement rates, and boost overall productivity. eXo provides a compelling employee experience through its feature-packed digital workplace.

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Social design
  • Fast document management
  • Easy Community building
  • Customizable personal dashboard
  • Integrate with external apps

Cons

  • Not the most user friendly
  • Customizing features can be time-consuming
  • The server is slow due to the high volume of features

Special Features

eXo offers three different modes in which you can tailor your services to fit your needs. The three modes include self-care mode, Assisted mode, and Delegated Mode.

Pricing: $5- Quote per month.

Professional: $5 per month- Ideal for small companies in all industries

Enterprise: $6 per month- Ideal for medium-sized companies in all industries

Ultimate: Quote-based price- Ideal for governments or private corporations keen on remaining in control of their data and their IT stack.

All plans include:

  • Cloud-hosted
  • Ready to go digital workplace software

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5. BuddyBoss

Buddyboss is a community platform created entirely by WordPress and BuddyPress experts. This highly educated team specializes in community platform products, while also being familiar with E-Learning, Marketplace, Directory, and other platforms. This small yet highly skilled team has the skills and the platform that you need to help and grow your business!

Pros

  • Most Flexible Community Builder
  • Ability to Gamify your community
  • Integrates with LearnDash & LifterDashLMS

Cons

  • Not so easy to use and set up
  • More expensive option
  • Ability to get a white-label mobile app

Special Features

Gamification features, or the application of gaming techniques to something which is not generally a game, allows the community platform to become more active and increase the engagement rate of consumers. Gamification techniques include things such as the number of connections, followers, and friends. BuddyBoss uses a gamification feature called GamiPress. GamiPress is a free plugin that lets you recognize members with points, ranks, rewards, and badges based on their activity in the community. This feature works perfectly for Boosting Engagement within your community. This increases interaction amongst your consumers, in turn increasing satisfaction from your consumers.

Pricing: $228- $328 per month.

1 Site: $5 per month- License for 1 site

5 Sites: $6 per month-License for 5 sites

10 Sites: Quote based price- License for 10 sites

All plans include:

  • Buddyboss Theme
  • Buddyboss Platform Pro
  • 1-Year Priority Support
  • 1-Year Updates

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6. Vanilla Forums

Vanilla Forums is a Canadian Software Company founded in 2009. It is both a cloud-based community forum software and an open-source community forum software.

Vanilla Forums prides itself on making your business successful. Their growing team of customer success managers and professional service staff are there to help you implement, launch, and grow your community through their tailored onboarding process and periodical improvement checkpoints.

Pros

  • Gamification capabilities
  • Customization options for discussions, questions, polls, etc.

Cons

  • Lack of SEO options
  • Some plugins are not available for download
  • Unable to discard a post without posting it
  • Speed

Responsive and helpful customer support team

Special Features

Vanilla Forums features WordPress Integration, which extends the functionality of your WordPress websites while also adding new features to them. This allows you to add forums, videos, a paywall, and event management systems directly into your WordPress site.

Pricing: Determined by Sales Team

Essential: Includes 250,000 pageviews, 5 staff users, and 1 SSO Connection

Corporate: Includes 1,000,000 pageviews, 10 staff users, and 2 SSO Connections

Enterprise: Includes 10,000,000 pageviews, 50 staff users, and 3 SSO Connections

Enterprise Plus: Includes 50,000,000 pageviews, 100 staff users, and 5 SSO Connections

*All prices determined through consultation

All plans include:

  • Community Essentials Bundle
  • Integration Bundle
  • Developer Bundle
  • Analytics

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7. Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are the best community platforms for acquiring new members because they are easy and they are free. Facebook groups are used to connect people with similar interests.

In this way, it’s almost impossible not to find a decent number of people who have similar interests as you, especially when using a platform as large as Facebook. Facebook has over 2.6 billion monthly active users, allowing the Facebook group you’ve created to gain access to a large audience.

For a business, Facebook groups can be a great tool for discussing your offerings with consumers and boosting awareness about your company

Pros

  • Great for member engagement
  • Native Facebook mobile Apps
  • Free to use

Cons

  • Lack of ownership and control
  • Privacy and distraction concerns
  • No way to charge for access

Special Features

Integrated Facebook Live Functionality allows you to bring your business to life through the use of live streams and live video chats.

Pricing: Entirely Free

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8. Hivebrite

Hivebrite is a completely customizable all-in-one- community platform. It is specifically built for professional networks. Hivebrite empowers organizations to launch, manage, and grow fully branded private companies.

Hivebrite has all the important features a business should need to make its community grow and thrive. It encompasses all of the essential features from being able to create, update and moderate content to being able to sell tickets and send out notifications via email.

Pros

  • Powerful community management tools
  • Job board functionality
  • Inbuilt monetization tools

Cons

  • Suitable only for professional networks
  • Expensive pricing plans
  • Branded Mobile Apps

Special Features

Unlike many other community platforms, Hivebrite gives consumers the ability to create a job board where people can post employment opportunities. Interested users can also post their resumes and be contacted by others within the community platform.

Pricing: $500 per month with the basic plan

All plans include:

  • Powerful search and targeting features
  • Profile Update Tracker
  • Social Networks Integration
  • Integrated CMS
  • RSS Feed
  • Ability to develop a mobile app

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9. Discourse

Discourse is an open-source forum-based platform. It can be used as a mailing list, discussion forum, long-form chat room, and more. Discourse is available on any Android or iOS device and incredibly simple to use. It is recognized for its great design and simple layout, and also for the easy ability to navigate the site.

Pros

  • Mailing List Mode is very powerful
  • User Privileges: Teams, Trust Levels, Moderation, Private and Public Threads

Cons

  • Bulk Operations are difficult to figure out
  • Mailing List Mode is confusing to set up
  • Gamification Tools

Pricing: $0-$300+

Standard: $100/month Includes 100,000 pageviews, 20GB Storage, and 100,000 Monthly Emails

Business:$300/month Includes 500,000 pageviews, 100GB Storage, and 300,000 Monthly Emails

Enterprise: Contact Sales for pricing- Includes 3 Million+ pageviews, 200+ GB Storage , and 1.5 Million + Monthly Emails

Every plan includes a 14 day trial with no credit card required!

All Plans Include:

  • Unlimited members
  • Mobile App
  • Global CDN
  • Full Discourse Feature Set

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10. Slack

Slack is a business tool primarily used for messaging and collaboration. Slack is an attractive community platform for businesses since it is free, has top-notch usability, and the app has been distributed widely amongst consumers. It gives businesses the chance to grow their platform without putting in too much effort. However, because it is free, users often end up hitting the limits of their free plan.

Pros

  • Ability to create channels within the company
  • Easy to share and collaborate with others
  • Data is protected

Cons

  • Minimum file storage
  • Conversations get deleted after 14 days
  • Mobile App

Special Features

Slack sorts specific conversations into channels. Slack believes channels bring order and clarity to work. Having a specific channel dedicated to a certain topic allows for sharing of ideas, making decisions, and forward progression.

Pricing: Determined by Sales Team

Free: Includes 250,000 pageviews, 5 staff users, and 1 SSO Connection

Pro: $6.67/ month– More power for small teams

Business+: $12.50/month– Scale business, increase productivity, keep teams connected

Enterprise Grid: Contact sales for pricing- All the flexibility to meet regular requirements and all the power to match growth.

All plans include:

  • Access to 10,000 of your team’s most recent messages
  • 10 integrations with other apps like Google Drive, Office 365, and many more
  • 1:1 voice and video calls between teammates

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After reading this list, it is your job as a business to sit down, consider what your goals are, and decide which community platform is going to maximize your growth and expand your whole potential as a business. The options are endless, but luckily you have many free trials to test them out!