Bettermode vs Khoros: In-Depth Analysis for Customer Communities
Bettermode and Khoros are two popular choices for businesses looking to build and engage online communities. But it can be difficult to know which one will meet your needs. We compare Bettermode vs Khoros to help you make an informed choice.
As both Bettermode and Khoros Communities offer a range of features and benefits, it's essential to consider each platform's unique offerings, support, and overall user experience to make an informed decision.
So to help you understand where the strengths (and setbacks) of each community platform lie, we've done the bulk of the research for you.
The big takeaway: Bettermode's all-in-one community engagement platform comes with robust customization tools, templates, and integrations. In contrast, while Khoros is well established, the platform is highly resource-intensive – you need engineering resources to customize your online community and build integrations.
Today we're your guide, so let's delve deeper into the specifics of each platform to help you find the best solution for your online community needs, starting with an overview of Bettermode.👇
Bettermode overview
Bettermode is an all-in-one customer community platform and website builder that comes with powerful customization options, a beautiful template gallery, and a rich App Store for integrations and embed options.
With everything under one roof, Bettermode increases user engagement, promotes peer-to-peer support and leverages user-generated content to drive organic traffic.
In a nutshell, the platform is designed to help brands and creators build online communities with complete customization capability, data ownership, and improved customer retention rates. Plus it's highly scalable, supporting anywhere from thousands to millions of members for any given community.
📈 Leading to results like these:
- 3x better user engagement
- 50% fewer support tickets
- +20 increase in NPS and CSAT scores
- 30% increase in organic traffic
In fact, Bettermode has everything you need to run your online community, all in one place – with spaces for different use cases such as forum discussions, private messaging, user feed, help center, events, product roadmap.
With this in mind, let's take a look at some of the key features and use cases.
Key features
- Powerful Design Studio to build unique communities
- Professionally crafted pre-made templates
- Easy-to-use and beautiful interface
- Community engagement features such as badges, leaderboards, reactions, comments and direct messaging
- Built-in CMS
- Rich App Store with direct integration with popular business tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk
- Embedding capabilities to integrate community into web and mobile apps
- Single Sign-On functionality
- Gamification and moderation tools
- Developer platform to build custom solutions on top of Bettermode
- Supported in languages such as English, Spanish, French, German, and more
Primary use cases
- Customer self-service
- Building a knowledge base
- Creative collaboration (among community members or employees)
- E-learning communities
- Marketplace community
- Product ideation and feedback
Key industry segments
- Software and SaaS
- Consumer products and services
- Online training and cohort-based courses
Disadvantages
- Lack of mobile app
- Lack of native features to support course-building
In short, Bettermode's all-in-one approach helps businesses consolidate multiple tools into one platform and simplify customer experiences. For instance, a community powered by Bettermode can host forum discussions, Q&A, events, ideation, help center, and resource library in one centralized online platform.
So with all this in mind, let's take a look at how Khoros stacks up.👇
Khoros Communities overview
Khoros Communities, a merger of Lithium and Spredfast, is a well-established platform that helps large businesses and enterprises build and manage their online communities.
The platform primarily focuses on improving customer service and experience while reducing support costs. Khoros Communities provides user-friendly tools and features to help community managers moderate and manage their communities.
Plus, it offers various integrations for data sharing and reporting, which helps businesses to better understand their customers and improve their overall experience.
Some of the key features:
- Community syndication to amplify community content throughout search, purchase and support
- Access to Group Hubs to help users connect with people who share their interests
- Advanced search and analytics
- Modern content editing tools
- Community moderation
- Gamification features
- AI sentiment analysis
- Customer service and support functionality
- Community integration capabilities through API and mobile SDK
Key use cases:
- Peer-to-peer customer support
- Self-service knowledge hub
- Crowdsourcing knowledge
Key industry segment:
- Large enterprises
The drawbacks:
- While Khoros offers some good out-of-the-box (OOTB) components, there are limitations when it comes to integrations and support.
- Users report the platform is a bit dated and needs innovation and modernization to make it a bit more user-friendly.
- Customization comes at a cost, with some users reporting they pay 10x the amount for additional customizations.
- There is a learning curve when you first use the platform and it is not intuitive without some training.
👉 In summary, when comparing Bettermode and Khoros, it is evident that Bettermode offers a more comprehensive approach to community building by providing advanced engagement channels and the ability to leverage user-generated content for organic traffic growth. Additionally, Bettermode's focus on out-of-the-box customization capability and direct integrations with third-party tools is a significant advantage, especially for brands looking to create a unique and personalized online community experience.
Now that we have a solid understanding of both platforms, let's dive deeper into a feature comparison. 👇
Bettermode vs Khoros: key features comparison
As we've just seen, not all customer community platforms are built the same. So here are the biggest differentiators to be aware of when choosing which platform best fits your needs:
1. Templates
Both Bettermode and Khoros offer a variety of templates that allow users to quickly set up their community platforms. These pre-built templates are designed to enhance user experience and simplify the process of creating cohesive and visually appealing communities.
However, Bettermode offers a wide range of templates designed for various use cases, such as software companies, consumer product and services companies, and e-commerce stores.
Check out some of our most popular online community templates:
- Startup community platform
- Non-profit community platform
- Community engagement hub
- Developers' community platform
- E-learning community
- Customer service platform
On the other hand, Khoros primarily targets marketers and social media marketing. And its interface is less innovative.
2. Community customization
When it comes to customization Bettermode offers complete customization capability and data ownership, allowing brands to communicate with customers and improve engagement.
In fact, Bettermode allows users to customize the platform to suit their needs with its own set of branding and a robust Design Studio. Bettermode's flexibility in customization offers an advantage for businesses with diverse requirements and preferences.
Our new feature, section block, can help you take the layout customization to the next level, providing you with more flexibility and control over your design. The section blocks are user-friendly and they're suitable both for complete beginners building their first customer engagement platform and experts who want to design more complex layouts.
Also, you can make your platform automatically adjust to different devices and screen sizes. For example, you can program it to hide specific section or columns on small screens to provide a better user experience. And all this without any coding skills!
On the other hand, while Khoros provides customization options, specific features may vary depending on the package selected by the user. Here’s what one Khoros user said about it:
Plus, some users report they pay 10 times the amount for customization options.
3. Apps & integrations
It's essential to choose a community software platform that provides seamless integration with the tools you're already using, whether it's your CRM or a collaboration tool like Slack.
Bettermode's community platform has a rich App Store with a wealth of integrations.
For instance, Bettermode supports direct integration with various platforms such as Zapier, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, Amplitude, FullStory, etc. providing a seamless experience to connect your online customer community with the existing tech stack.
The integrations supported by Khoros are much fewer, in fact, this is one of the bugbears often reported by users on G2. One user reported that sometimes it is tricky to retrieve the data. There should be a chain of API calls for getting everything needed, but he has to pay this "price" for the complete platform.
4. Developer platform
A robust developer platform ensures that businesses can extend the functionality of their community platforms. Bettermode's SDK provides React hooks for accessing data on their platform and enables full customizability. Khoros, although not explicitly mentioned in the provided sources, is likely to have developer tools and APIs to cater to their customers needs.
However, the Developer Platform by Bettermode takes customization options and the App Store to the next level by allowing developers to build custom functionalities and integrations. What's more, you can even use to build new apps that can be published on your website.
In comparison, Khoros users say that going into implementation, you will need a full grasp on your limitations OOTB, so you know which way to pursue development to get the most value. If you make mistakes there, you will spend a long time trying to resolve them.
5. Embed tools
Embed tools enable businesses to easily incorporate community features into their existing websites or blogs. Both Bettermode and Khoros offer embed tools that facilitate the sharing of community content on external sites. These tools are designed to be user friendly and help promote user generated content and interaction among community members.
Better still, Bettermode allows businesses to embed various community components into websites and apps to facilitate member discussions and connections.
And the best part is that no coding skills are required. All you have to do is copy a generated code and paste it to your product.
6. Pricing comparison
Bettermode is community software for businesses of all sizes: its free plans make it suitable for small communities and creators with a limited budget, but its advanced features and customization allow it to support large communities and meet all the specific needs of your business.
It comes with three pricing plans:
- Free plan: a forever-free plan allows you to create up to five community spaces
- Lite: $19/month, this plan comes with unlimited community members, making it suitable for small businesses and online creators
- Pro: $49/month, this plan allows you to create up to 20 community spaces, making it a good option for those who want to scale their customer community or digital products
- Business: $99/month, this plan includes up to 30 community spaces and it comes with 100GB of storage and priority customer support
On the other hand, pricing structures for Khoros Communities are not available without contacting the vendor. However, users on G2 report that Khoros is on the pricier side of the options available, which is not surprising knowing that they target mostly large businesses and enterprises. The subscription fees are often more than 100,000 USD per year.
This lack of transparency can make it more challenging for you to compare costs upfront, so it's worth considering a free trial and demos. Use this as a chance to test and explore the features of both platforms before committing to a subscription. This also allows you to ensure that the chosen platform meets your expectations and requirements.
👉 In summary, Bettermode offers a transparent pricing model with a forever-free plan and subscription plans starting from $19 per month, while Khoros requires you to contact their sales team to get a personalized quote.
7. Customer reviews and testimonials
When considering Bettermode and Khoros Communities for your community platform, it's essential to evaluate their online presence and reviews from actual users.
According to G2, Bettermode has a rating of 4.6/5 stars based on 101 reviews, while Khoros Community has a rating of 4.2/5 stars based on 132 reviews.
On Capterra, Bettermode received a 4.8/5 overall rating from 92 reviews, whereas Khoros Community has received a rating of 4.3/5 stars based on 10 reviews.
Users have praised Bettermode for its ease of use, customer service, and value for money. Capterra rates Bettermode's ease of use at 4.8/5 stars and customer service at the same level. The platform is considered to be a good choice for businesses looking for a cost-effective solution, with a value for money rating of 4.8/5 stars.
Khoros Community also mostly receives positive feedback from its users, but there seems to be a huge sticking point when it comes to Khoros support. Take this user review, for instance:
When researching, be sure to look at several review sources to gather a comprehensive understanding of the platforms. Additionally, pay attention to customer stories and case studies provided by Bettermode and Khoros Communities.
Customer stories can offer detailed information on how each online customer platform has helped businesses build successful online communities and the types of challenges they have helped them address. Remember to evaluate each platform based on your specific requirements, keeping in mind the size of your business, the desired level of customization, and the available budget.
Bettermode vs Khoros: The final verdict
When comparing Bettermode and Khoros Communities, both platforms offer unique features to help businesses build and manage their online communities.
Bettermode provides an all-in-one customer community platform designed to streamline customer engagement and foster better relationships. It comes with plenty of customizable templates that allow you to create a thriving online community in a few seconds.
Plus with a focus on customizability and App Store, Bettermode is suitable for brands and creators looking to drive customer engagement, feedback collection, and content creation.
On the other hand, Khoros Communities offers tools for social measurement, sentiment analysis, and influencer tracking. Khoros is designed to help businesses manage large-scale community interactions with a heavy focus on engineering-led customization.
Based on the product reviews, we see that Bettermode is a better alternative to Khoros for several reasons. Let us break down the main factors that contributed to our decision:
- Flexibility to meet business needs: Firstly, many users have reported that Bettermode meets the needs of their business more effectively than Khoros. This is an important aspect to consider, as the primary goal of using community software is to improve customer engagement and satisfaction with a platform that specifically caters to their company's requirements.
- Product support: Another significant factor that sets Bettermode apart from Khoros is the quality of ongoing product support. According to G2, reviewers felt that Bettermode offers superior support, which shows a more responsive and dedicated team behind the product. This ultimately contributes to a better user experience with the platform and ensures a smoother implementation process.
- Ease of use: In terms of features and roadmaps, Bettermode makes it easy to build highly customizable communities with the power of Design Studio and pre-made templates. Plus, its App Store is designed to integrate with business tools and overall enhance the community with custom features.
- All-in-one solution: Lastly, while both Bettermode and Khoros offer robust community platforms, Bettermode offers a more comprehensive all-in-one solution, allowing customer support and success teams, marketing teams, and product teams to collaborate effectively within the platform. This helps build meaningful customer experiences and engagement throughout the whole customer journey.
So taking all factors into consideration, Bettermode is the overall winner when compared to Khoros for companies that want to build an online customer community platform that meets their needs, offers exceptional support, is committed to innovation, and provides a seamless all-in-one solution.
With all this in mind, let's quickly recap some of the features our customers love.
Features our customers love include:
- Easy-to-use interface with a well thought-out community structure including content categorization, easy navigation, and tags
- 20 ready-to-use templates for creating online communities
- Frictionless and secure member authentication with Single Sign On (SSO) and social login options.
- Professional and easy-to-use customization options, including beautiful typography, color palettes to reflect your unique brand.
The best bit? All of these can be done quickly and easily. Get started for free.
This article was originally published on May 15th, 2023, and was updated on October 21st, 2024.
FAQs
Who are Khoros competitors?
Khoros is known as an enterprise-level customer community platform, therefore its primary competitors are complex tools like Salesforce Experience Cloud, Oracle Communities and Zendesk Gather. But if you're looking for a more user-friendly and less expensive online community platform, Bettermode stands as the top alternative to Khoros, with more flexibility and customization.
Who bought Khoros?
Vista Equity Partners acquired Khoros in 2018/2019 and currently owns it. Khoros is actually a product of a merger between two SaaS companies – Spredfast and Lithium Technologies that existed for years but merged together in 2019.
What does Khoros company do?
Khoros Company aims to help people manage every aspect of customer engagement, including customer communities, marketing campaigns, chat, messaging and social media management.
What is Khoros social media?
Khoros Social Media is a tool for content creation and community management. It allows you to plan your content, create cross-channel campaigns and engage with your target audience.
