Circle.so Alternatives Unveiled: 10 Powerful Community Platforms for Creators and Brands

If you’re looking for a community platform but find that Circle doesn’t quite meet your needs, you’re not alone. While Circle offers a solid set of features for building online communities, it may not provide everything you're looking for in terms of customization, engagement tools or scalability.

That’s why we’ve rounded up the 10 best Circle.so alternatives, each offering unique features and advantages to help you find the perfect fit for your community-building goals. But before diving into the list, let’s take a look at some eye-opening statistics on community engagement.

As of early 2023, a survey showed that 40% of respondents share content online at least once a month, highlighting the importance of creating engaging communities.

These figures highlight the increasing importance of community platforms in building meaningful connections between community members and boosting user participation.

What's an online community platform?

Community platforms (community software) give you all the tools you need to provide a unique public or private space where members share content, ideas, and experiences. The sharing component is vital. In online communities, both the founders and community members share.

A community is an epicenter for engagement rather than having to go to several places for information and affirmation. Another perk is that the communities and content appear in search results, making them discoverable.

Who uses community platforms?

These community engagement tools have become popular among creators, brands, businesses, and professional and private organizations.

• Creators like coaches, masterminds, and other thought leaders, use communities to share online courses and rally members around their shared interests.
• Branded communities leverage the common interests of their remembers through discussion forums, content, events, and more.
• Support communities center on knowledge bases, self-service customer support, and crowdsourcing answers as inroads to greater retention.
• Public and private organization membership sites become central bases for engagement and communication.

What's Circle?

Circle (Circle.so) defines itself as an “all-in-one community platform for creators and brands.” Some of Circle's most recognizable users include SPI Pro, GrowthDay, and Makerpad. Creators and influencers who want to monetize the content and experiences choose Circle community so they can drive paid subscriptions and memberships as part of their community building.

Circle's ideal use case:

Circle is a fit for creator communities, especially those with a training or learning component.

Circle's top features

• Teachable integration—Since Circle was the brainchild of Teachable employees, one of the main uses is building e-learning communities. This integration is available on all paid plans for Circle and Teachable.
• Unlimited in-person and virtual events—Create a space for each event type and let members RSVP with one click.
• Access levels and monetization—Gate or ungate different areas of your community, collect subscription fees, accept payments, and offer upsells and trials.
• Group chat—Invite up to 50 members into a group chat room. You may also assign admins and moderators to each chat room.
• White-label customization—Apply your brand look and feel to your community. Your community will also have its own custom domain. Levels of customization increase with each paid plan.

Circle's pricing and plans

Circle offers four monthly plans: Basic $49 USD, Professional $89 USD, and $399 USD Enterprise $360 USD. Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial and there's also a 30-day money-back guarantee.

The top Circle.So alternatives to check out

If you're searching for top alternatives to Circle, you're in the right place! There are plenty of powerful community platforms available, each offering community features tailored to various needs.

Whether you're focused on community engagement, course creation or team collaboration, these platforms provide valuable tools to help you build and nurture your online community. Here are some of the top alternatives to consider:

Bettermode: a customizable and unified community platform for businesses

Bettermode is a full-fledged community platform popular for its customizability using a block-based builder, premade templates, and an app ecosystem to enhance the community, direct third-party integrations, and tools to embed the community into products and websites.

Inspired by popular social networks, Bettermode leverages the engagement and networking tools popularized on social media sites to improve customer engagement and retention.

Businesses in the software and tech industry, e-commerce, internet, and education space build communities with Bettermode to create brand communities. Top customers building community with Bettermode include ConvertKit, UXPin, Shell, ASUS, IBM, Motorola, and more.

Bettermode's ideal use case

Suitable for mid-market and enterprise companies. Bettermode is perfect for brand-led communities that want to engage customers, drive customer education, improve customer success and build thought leadership.

Bettermode's top features and functionalities

Find out what makes Bettermode stand out:

• Premade templates: Get started easily with best practices for different community spaces using templates for discussions, Q&A, events, resource center, and more! Of course, you can further customize based on your unique needs. For example, if you want to create your own community of creators and artists CreativeHub template will be of great use.

• Customization: Bettermode Platform offers advanced features such as community building blocks to visually build every aspect of your community without touching a line of code. Select, arrange, and configure the Blocks such as accordion, rich text, quick links, members, iFrame, call to action, and more to create distinct communities. Customize everything from the layout and sidebar options to header and footer options.
  
  

• Embed tools: Bring community experience to your mobile app, web app, and website with powerful embed tools. Improve member engagement and grow your community!
• App Store: The Bettermode App Store features a growing list of apps so you can install the apps that are right for you and add new functionality to your community.
• Integrations: Integrations with third-party tools are also offered as apps. Connect your community to the tools you already use with a continually increasing set of integrations. Since Bettermode is focused on businesses, the integration roadmap features software such as Salaforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, ActiveCampaign, etc.
• Developer Portal: Bettermode offers a robust developer portal with API, Webhooks, and a template engine. This enables Bettermode's customers to extend the functionality of the community any way they like by building custom apps. Using Bettermode SDK it is also possible to fully customize the user interface and build a community with Bettermode Platform as the backend.
• Best practices: Enjoy an extensive library of pre-built space templates inspired by successful communities. Kickstart your community with best practices using flexible space templates as a foundation, then customize them to fit your specific needs.

Bettermode's pricing and plans

Bettermode has the following subscription plans: Lite (starts from $19 USD/month), Pro (starts from $49 USD/month), Business plan (starts from $99 USD/month) and Enterprise. These rates apply when you pay annually. The Enterprise plan requires custom pricing based on the customers' needs and offers data residency, enterprise-grade security, audit log, and uptime SLA.

Where can I learn more about Bettermode?

See Bettermode's website and online community.

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks has made a name for itself by helping more than 10,000 influencers, masterminds, coaches, entrepreneurs, and individual content creators of all kinds build personal communities with paid memberships.

Mighty Networks' ability to create online courses and charge for content makes it a good alternative to Circle.

Mighty Network's ideal use case

Mighty Networks is best for individuals, solopreneurs, and smaller organizations with communities that feature events.

Mighty Networks' top features

• Personalization—Each community member has a unique activity feed.
• Welcome, and discovery areas—These sections help members get to know the communities.
• Unlimited events—Build deeper relationships with members through live-streamed or virtual events. Select plans also offer a native online course builder.
• Unlimited hosts, members, and moderators—Available on every plan.
• iOs and Android mobile apps—Let users and members access communities while on the go.

Mighty Networks' pricing and plans

Mighty Networks has five plans: Community $41 USD, Courses $99 USD, Business $179 USD, Path-to-Pro $360 USD and The Mighty plan with custom pricing. These rates apply when you pay annually. Each plan also includes a free trial.

GroupApp

GroupApp is a newer entry into the community platform market for knowledge creators, like instructors, authors, coaches, and organizations. Knowing its audience, GroupApp also has a native drag-and-drop course builder.

If monetizing is a priority for your community, Group-App may be a good solution.

GroupApp's ideal use case

GroupApp is best for individuals, solopreneurs, and smaller organizations who want to monetize content.

GroupApp's top features

• Plug-and-play community builder—Choose a name, determine if you'd like your community to be public or private and then pick a template and color palette.
• Dedicated channels—Create different streams for key topics.
• Instant messaging—Host group chats and send direct messages.
• Membership subscriptions—Monetize the knowledge you share with paid access. This also requires a Stripe integration and subscription.
• Paid downloads—Charge for content, like e-books and guides, and subscriptions.

GroupApp's pricing and plans

GroupApp has a Starter $39 USD, Pro $99 USD, Business $249 USD and Enterprise plan with custom pricing. These rates apply when you pay annually. A 14-day free trial is also available for each plan.

Kajabi

Like Mighty Networks and GroupApps, Kajabi is inspired by creators and entrepreneurs. Its communities are designed to help these individuals build paid membership communities around the courses, ideas, and services they provide.

Kajabi's ideal use case

Kajabi is best for individuals, solopreneurs, and smaller organizations who need a native course builder.

Kajabi is designed to help individuals build paid membership communities around the courses, ideas, and services they provide.

Kajabi's top features

• Content creation—Produces course creation, coaching programs, podcasts, blog posts, etc.
• Marketing—Leverage a full suite of marketing tools and templates from emails to offers.
• Customer relationship management—Also built into the platform.
• Discussions and events—Get members talking, sharing, and connecting.
• No outside apps or plugins—Kajabi either provides you with the tools or gives you the ability to build them yourself.

Kajabi's pricing and plans

Kajabi has a Kickstarter $55USD, Basic $119 USD, Growth $159 USD, and Pro $319 USD plan. These rates apply when you pay annually. A 14-day free trial is also available for each plan.

Hivebrite

Professional and educational alumni groups, volunteer organizations, and non-profits use Hivebrite for their community portals. Notable clients include the World Wildlife Fund, University of Notre Dame, Columbia Business School, American Heart Association, and CERN lab.

Hivebrite

Professional and educational alumni groups, volunteer organizations, and non-profits use Hivebrite for their community portals. Notable clients include the World Wildlife Fund, University of Notre Dame, Columbia Business School, American Heart Association, and CERN lab.

NPOs and Educational Organizations are among the top users of Hivebrite.

Hivebrite's ideal use case

Hivebrite offers member communities for professional and educational organizations.

Hivebrite's top features

• A building-block approach—Choose your signup mode, member profiles, access rights, features, and branding.
• Information- and event-centric—Designed to meet the needs of the communities it serves specifically.
• Job board—Share employment, volunteer, and professional opportunities.
• Monetization—Collect membership and event fees.
• iOs and Android mobile apps—Provide community access from mobile devices.

Hivebrite's pricing and plans

Hiverbrite offers custom pricing based on the client's needs.

If you want to learn more check out 10 top Hivebrite alternatives.

Discourse

True to its name, Discourse is all about real-time conversations, which are the heart of this community platform. Car Talk, Frostbite, Western Digital, and CCP Games use Discourse communities.

Discourse is well-suited for companies looking for open-source community software.

Discourse's ideal use case

Discourse is a forum software primarily used by organizations. There are both cloud-hosted and self-hosted versions.

Discourse's top features

• Single-page format—Because it's a forum, Discourse conversations are contained within one page for simplicity.
• Just-in-time loading—Automatically loads the newest conversations to the top of the page.
• Dynamic notifications—Let members know when someone has replied or tagged them.
• Standard and advanced plugins—Integrate chat, subscriptions, and other features.
• Open source—Lets you customize and even self-host if needed.

Discourse's pricing and plans

Discourse has a Starter $20 USD, Standard $100 USD, Business $300 USD, and Enterprise plan. The Enterprise plan has custom pricing and all plans start with a 14-day free trial. Educational and non-profit discounts are also available.

The following tools are used like community management platforms, either in place of or alongside full online communities.

Discord

In their own words, Discord is “a place dedicated to talking and hanging out with your friends, family, and communities.” Not a social media platform with an algorithm deciding what you'll see, Discord is more like Slack for individuals and the unincorporated set. School clubs, gaming groups, and enthusiasts of all kinds use Discord to create discussion posts.

Discord is a voice, video, and text communication service used by many communities.

Discord's ideal use case

Discord is a user-controlled conversational space serving mostly non-commercial audiences. Most Discord spaces (servers) are private.

Discord's top features

• User-driven—Discord members decide the topics and who they want to connect with.
• Values-based—They have an entire section of their website dedicated to safety and guidelines.
• Voice, video, and text chat—All the essentials.

Discord's pricing and plans

While Discord's free version is their most popular, they also have a paid Nitro version that's USD 9.99 per month or USD 99.99 per year.

Facebook Groups

Individuals, organizations, and businesses use Facebook groups as their sole community or in addition to other community platforms. Knowledge providers will also use Facebook groups to monetize their content or services. Groups are as varied as their members with top groups ranging from math formulas to wrestling.

Facebook remains a popular space for communities. However, the lack of robust customization and other community-specific platform features may limit interactions with members. 

Ideal use cases for Facebook groups

Facebook is a good starting point if you're testing the waters by building a community for specific audiences. However, many users find that new members get distracted by different content feeds. There's also the risk of Facebook's algorithms inadvertently disabling legitimate groups, which can take time to resolve.

Top features of Facebook groups

• Public and private settings—Group admins can control the member directory to determine who joins.
• Events—Many groups host live events to engage members.
• Discussion tools—Chats, reels, Q&As, polls, and prompts are all popular.

How much do Facebook groups cost?

A Facebook group is free and all you need is a Facebook account. However, any advertising you use to promote your group or event is paid.

Where can I learn more about Facebook groups?

Check out the top free alternatives to Facebook groups.

Reddit

Reddit is a social media platform that lets users post, comment, and vote on topics and responses. You can create communities (subreddits), but you have to be a member for at least 30 days and earn enough karma.

Reddit has 430 million monthly active users and over 100,000 active communities.

Reddit's ideal use case

Reddit lends itself to niche communities centered on conversations. Certain businesses and brands have leveraged Reddit, but you have to be fluent in the rules and culture of the platform.

Reddit's top features

• Multimedia posts—Share stories, links, images, and videos.
• Voting—Gives you a quick picture of what's resonating with the most engaging content rising to the top.
• Forum-based communities—Members are highly engaged but also skew toward Millennials and Gen Z.

How much does Reddit cost?

Reddit is free. Paid advertising and partnerships are also available.

Slack

Born as a communications tool, Slack is widely known as a popular team chat platform for its instant messaging. Many businesses, large and small, use Slack as a team communication platform. However, brands, interest groups, and entrepreneurs have found ways to use workspaces as online communities.

Slack has become a staple for organizations to stay communicated and enhance team collaboration, especially during the COVID-19 work-from-home restrictions.

Slack's ideal use case

Slack shines as a tool for instant and organized communication. The main activities used for online communities are discussions and information sharing. Slack communities also tend to be always-on communities where members check in daily. If you miss a few days, you may miss thousands of messages.

Slack's top features

• Instant messaging—Respond to a thread or send a private direct message to a particular user.
• Channels—One of the most popular features, channels are public or private conversations for users.
• Slack integrations—Because it's used by so many businesses, Slack has thousands of integrations.

How much does Slack cost?

While there's a free plan, it's pretty limited and you can reach the 10,000 message limit pretty quickly. If you're building a community, you'll want to use a paid plan. It's also important to call out that the pricing is per user, so your costs will increase as your community grows.

Slack Pro plan starts at $17.25 USD, Business+ at $22.50 USD and for the Enterprise plan you need to contact sales.

Where can I learn more about Slack?

For additional info see how Slack compares to Discord and Bettermode. 

Comparison table

What to consider when choosing a community platform?

When choosing a platform, give thought to the exact reasons why you're building your community and the experiences you want to provide to ensure a thriving community:

• What kind of community do you want to build—a creator, brand, learning, support, membership community?
• Will this community be public, private, or a combination of both?
• What types of interactions and experiences do you want to promote—discussions, feedback, events, self-serve support, etc.?
• Which features and functionality do you need now and in the future?
• Do you want a platform that's self-serve or more hands-on support and customization?

Once you've narrowed down your top choices, contact each platform to learn more. The simple act of talking to someone can tell you a lot about fit.

While we've worked diligently to ensure the accuracy of the information in this post, community platforms are constantly updating their features and pricing.

Conclusion

Finding the right community platform depends on your unique needs, whether you're building a creator-led community, a brand hub or a membership site. While Circle is a popular choice for many, it’s not the only option out there.

As you evaluate options, think about your community's goals: Are you looking to enhance community engagement, make knowledge sharing easier or create a private space for collaboration? Bettermode offers customizable features, event hosting and seamless monetization options—all in one platform.

Ready to make your communities thrive? Try Bettermode for free today.

This article was originally published on May 2nd, 2022, and was updated on November 1st, 2024.

FAQs

Is Circle the best community platform?

Circle community platform is popular for its user-friendly design and integrations, making it a good choice for creators and small communities. If you prioritize features like 100% community ownership, advanced gamification or seamless content embedding, you might consider exploring other community platforms such as Bettermode that offer all in one solution for community building.

Is there a free version of Circle?

Circle does not offer a free version, but it does provide a 14-day free trial that allows you to explore its features. After the trial, you’ll need to choose from one of its paid plans.

If you're looking for an alternative to Circle.so with a free option, Bettermode offers a free trial as well as flexible pricing plans, making it easier to find a solution that fits your budget.

Is Circle a good app?

Yes, Circle is a good app for creating and managing online communities. It has a simple design and offers features like discussion boards, private messaging and customizable pages, making it easy for members to connect and share.

Is Tribe the same as Bettermode?

Yes, Tribe is now called Bettermode. The rebranding reflects a focus on improving customer community experiences. Bettermode offers tools to create and manage online communities, including discussion boards and customizable pages, helping businesses build better relationships with their customers.

Looking for alternatives to Circle.so? Check out our list of the 10 best alternatives, plus a breakdown of what makes each one unique.