Community

Community platforms

Community platforms give creators the tools they need to start and run their own online communities. Building an online community lets creators connect with their audience in an exclusive, dedicated online space. Communities can also generate recurring income through paid membership subscriptions.

Slack

Score: 75.81

Slack is an instant messaging program. Used by startups and large corporations alike, Slack mainly functions as workplace chat software but can be repurposed for online communities.

Slack earns points by being free and making it easy to migrate lists to and from the platform. It loses points by not taking payments and having unclear support hours.

Mighty Networks

Score: 59.74

Mighty Networks is a membership platform where creators can create free and paid communities with unlimited members. Users can also sell online courses on more expensive plans.

Mighty Networks earns points for creator education resources, taking payments, and the ability to migrate lists. It loses points for the lack of a free plan, the high starting price of its paid plan, lack of language support, and inability to remove transaction fees.

Discord

Score: 58.06

Discord is an instant messaging platform that lets users communicate via voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".

Discord earns points by being free, having creator education documentation, and having language support. It loses points due to limited support and an inability to migrate lists into and out of the platform.

Circle

Score: 49.35

Circle is a dedicated community platform that lets users monetize their audience, create subscription tiers, engage members in discussions, and create private online events.

Circle earns points for its support documentation and creator education resources. It loses points for the lack of a free plan, the high starting price of its paid plan, limited support resources, lack of language support, artificially limiting what creators can do on plans, and inability to remove transaction fees.

Facebook Groups

Score: 44.44

Facebook Groups are discussion spaces on the social platform for friends, acquaintances, or people with similar interests.

Facebook Groups earns points by being free. It loses points by promoting other content to a creator’s audience, lacking support, and making it difficult to migrate audiences into and out of the platform.

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See how each company scored across every ranking factor

Sources

Click through to see the source materials for our scoring — like information about pricing, support, fees, and other factors.