Top 19 Best Community Platforms in 2021

At Job Board Fire our job board software helps communities like Girlboss, DemandCurve and Product Marketing Alliance monetize their communities with their brand’s own niche job board. We’ve taken the opportunity to ask our customers which platforms they use to manage their communities, to help you find the best one for yours.

What is a Community Platform?

Community platforms are digital spaces where people can engage with content or hold meaningful discussions about specific topics, shared interests or beliefs. There are many different types to choose from, each catering to different use cases.

Top 19 Best Community Platforms in 2021

1. Circle - Circle is a flexible community platform that can be used for a wide range of community types from podcast communities to product communities and selling online courses. Trusted by Makerpad, Earnest Capital and Unicorn Factory. Pricing starts at $39/mo.

Best for Product Communities 🤓

2. Tribe - Tribe is designed to turn your customer base into a community, and is used by Pipedrive and IBM. Free up to 500 members.
3. Insided - improves retention, customer growth and advocacy with an all-in-one customer success engagement platform. Used by Zapier, Looker and Mixpanel.
4. Khoros - Khoros specializes in online brand communities for big businesses where customers can get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas.
5. Vanilla Forums - for enterprise customers looking for community software to drive loyalty, grow sales, and reduce service costs. Trusted by Adobe and EA.
6. Influitive - turns your customers into engaged advocates using content-targeting, gamification, engagement and rewards. Used by Marketo, Cisco and Coursera.

Best for Courses and Education 👩‍🎓

7. Mighty Networks - ideal if you want to monetize your community with online course content. There’s a great free forever plan for small communities.
8. Group App - similar to Mighty Networks, Group App is designed for content creators and their communities. Pricing starts at $19/mo.
9. Zapinito - Zapnito is the community software platform designed for academic communities and facilitates peer-to-peer learning. Zapnito is used by Wiley and Springer Nature.
10. Bevy - enterprise software for virtual conferences and community events.

Best for Lifestyle Communities 🎨

11. Disqus - a community plugin for publishers and content creators to facilitate community conversations directly in content pages. Used by TMZ. Free for up to 500 members.
12. Disciple - trusted to house a wide range of communities from the Rolling Stones official fanbase, to the Solopreneurs Association. Disciple offers a web app, iOS and Android. Pricing starts at $55/mo.

Best for Associations and Special Interest Groups ✊

13. Mobilize - a conversational forum designed to facilitate connections between members of associations, portfolio companies and nonprofits. Trusted by the United Nations. Mobilize is free for up to 500 members.
14. Hiverbrite - Hiverbrite is designed for non profits like WWF and the American Heart Association, as well as university alumni networks like Columbia Business School.
15. GlueUp - GlueUp is designed for associations, agencies and enterprises to create online communities for business networking.
16. HigherLogic - Enterprise level community software for associations and corporations facilitating member communications and engagement. Used by the Rotary International and the American Cancer Society.

Best for Local Communities 🏠

‍ 17. Happy Building - is a digital building news bulletin board and support center for appartment blocks, specilising in making residents happy! 18. Meetup - a website that lets anyone start a local (or online) meetup, recruit members, manage member communications and event registrations, all under one roof.

📢 Newcomer

People - a brand new alternative to Circle, People is a lightweight plugin for startups that lets you add a customizable community to any website fast. It’s currently offering its pro plan for $1 to all early adopters.