If you’re trying to build an online community, you might have come across Circle.so.

If you’ve been thinking about trying Circle community or are currently using it and have outgrown it, this post will talk through 9 alternatives to Circle.so and walk you through some pros and cons of each one.

Ready? Let’s go!

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In this chart, we offer a quick comparison of the best Circle alternatives. We go into more depth on each option below.

Circle.so is a community platform that includes features like discussion forums, chat & messaging, livestreaming, and courses. It also gives users different ways to host and organize content created by both hosts and members.

The Circle platform also has monetization features, like adding paywalls to different spaces to sell memberships, courses, and/or events.

• Circle’s Professional Plan starts Circle.so starts from $89/mo which allows for memberships, courses, discussions, and events.

• The Business Plan adds workflows and more customization features for $199/mo.

• Circle Plus adds a branded app with AI agents, and requires a custom quote (via a sales call).

Extra fees

There are several other upsells and additional fees with Circle.

• Email hub connects email broadcasts, forms, and campaigns, and is priced by how many contacts you have ($19/mo for 1,000, $39/mo for 25,000, $99/mo for 10,000, etc.)

• There are fees for extra admins ($10/mo each), moderators ($20/mo per 10), spaces ($20/mo per 10), and custom profile fields (49/mo).

- There are additional fees for virtual events: extra livestream attendees ($20/mo per 100) and livestreaming hours ($50/mo per 10).

• Interactive discussion forums

• Build event, chat, content, or course Spaces

• Member profiles

• Charge for memberships, courses, and events with gating

• Livestreaming

• Workflow options

• Good iOS app (and they just added an Android app)

• Customization tools

• Branded apps

• You're stuck creating different kinds of content in different Spaces. You can only have one feature per space (e.g. you can't add a discussion forum to a course space).

• It's hard for members to meet each other. The member list is often off by default. Even when it's on, profiles are basic and aren't designed to bring members together.

• The course LMS is basic, missing things like assessment tools. It's better for cohort courses.

• There are limits on the essential features: e.g. max 3 admins, max 10 moderators, or max 20 spaces on the Professional plan.

• There are hidden fees for extras like additional admins or moderators. There are extra costs for additional Spaces too or more live attendees at events.

• Customization is limited to colors and logos.

• Event spaces are really just posts--you can't add RSVPs and meeting links (e.g. Zoom) have to be in the text.

When we're ranking features that you should look for in a Circle alternative, here are some of the ones to watch for!

• More ways to create and host the features you want. Find a platform that doesn't dictate what you can create.

• More ways to help members meet each other. They don't only have to make friends in the comments. Look for better member profiles and more between-member engagement tools.

• Lots of options to communicate with your members like discussions, chat & messaging, livestreaming, etc.

• Better course integration with a more robust LMS. You may need more power to create live or pre-recorded courses.

• Real event spaces that let you RSVP, post event details, and add proper calendar integrations

• The ability to charge in your own currency (if applicable)

• Trustworthy apps for iOS and Android

• White-label apps (under your brand) (if applicable)

The Best Circle Alternative for Building a Member-Led Community

Mighty Networks is ranked the #1 community management software by G2. And Mighty will power $370 million in creator businesses this year.

This includes some of the top names in the world: like Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuck, Jim Kwik, Matthew Hussey, and TED.

Mighty mixes a powerhouse community platform with courses, content, commerce, and events.

Here's what makes Mighty the best alternative to Circle.

Mighty gives you flexible Spaces -- each one works like a container that can hold community discussions, live streaming, virtual events, courses, and more.

And, unlike Circle, Mighty lets you do all these things in the same Space, choosing which features to toggle on or off.

While Circle gives you a platform in which the 4 Space options basically look the same, Mighty's Spaces are yours to design what you need. You can choose from templates like Chat, Feed, Cohort Course, Content-Only Course, Event, Conference, Page, or Resource Library. Or, you can build your own Space with any features you want.

This boosts engagement and makes UX easier. For example, on Circle you would have to host course content, discussions, and course events in separate spaces. With Mighty, you can do all this in one Space.

We can predict with 93% accuracy whether a community will succeed or fail.

It's not how often you post, how much content you have, or how slick your sales funnel is.

Communities thrive when members make friends. Great communities need members to connect to each other.

Mighty builds engagement everywhere: into member profiles, content, and even AI tools.

Mighty uses AI to boost connection.

Mighty's people magic software is designed to boost and grow real human connections, not just to spit out content.

Here are the AI features that make engagement at Mighty second to none.

• Profile assist and show similarities with another member

• Icebreaker questions and conversation starters

• Automatically re-engage members who have dropped off

• Text boosts like the "make it better" editor and an integrated AI course creator for designing course outlines and more.

It's designed to skyrocket your engagement while simplifying your community management work. These tools let you run a thriving community on as little as a few hours a week.

Better membership tools

It's really hard to meet people on Circle.

Circle's member management software is still basically a member list (that's not even turned on by default in your main community). It's hard to even see who's in a community.

Mighty Networks has a set of member tools to keep members engaged, meeting each other, and coming back to the community.

And if you want to talk to someone who looks interesting, Mighty Co-Host™ can instantly start the conversation.

On the backend, you can manage member plans, see which members are in each plan, and check their activity.

A better community business

Mighty gives you more ways to monetize too, you can sell memberships, courses, events, premium access, and bundles.

You can offer discounts, build different kinds of packages, and charge in more currencies than Circle or even monetize with token-gating.

Plus, Circle has a lot of hidden fees.

While Mighty's Business Plan offers the same features as Circle, Circle.so charges you extra to add more Hosts, members, moderators, and spaces -- On Mighty ALL of these are unlimited.

Circle's add-ons add up.

Customization power

• Build your network under your brand, use light and dark mode, and customize themes, landing pages, network identity, labels, and more.

• Great apps for every device. Mighty has a track record of well-rated apps in the App Store and Google Play Store. Circle only launched an Android app last year, and it's glitchy.

• Mighty has built hundreds of branded apps. It's a feature Circle launched last year: branded apps. Mighty Pro has been building branded apps for years, with hundreds of successful examples (more below).

Since you get all the same features and a ton more for the same cost or less, Mighty Networks is the best alternative to Circle.so. (If you want to go deeper, we have a full side-by-side comparison of Mighty Networks vs. Circle.)

Mighty Pro is the best alternative to Circle Plus. It puts G2's #1 community platform on your own branded apps.

• Branded app for memberships, courses, challenges, coaching, chapters, non-profits, and conferences

• Discussion forums, chat & messaging, LMS, flexible Spaces, branded livestreaming + every kind of content you can build

• App Store marketing, phone + notification branding, mobile strategy support

• Support by a team of experts on migration, strategy, and brand

Pros

• Has all of Circle's core features and more: discussions, forums, chat & messaging, profiles, Spaces, livestreaming, polls, Q&A, group chat.

• More flexible Spaces with better UX, plus more Space templates and build-your-own custom Spaces.

• AI-boosted community management: Instant Big Purpose statements, auto-community building, landing page and course outline generator, the "make it better" text editor, and member re-engaging tools, + Mighty Co-Host™ teaches you how to build.

• People magic software designed to boost connections between members: profile assist, conversation starters, show similarities, icebreaker questions.

• Reliable apps for every device type (Circle only recently launched an Android app)

• Charge for memberships, courses, subscriptions, events, coaching, and bundles in 135 currencies or token-gating

• Unlimited members, Hosts, and moderators on every plan

• Built-in ConvertKit integration for connecting your email list and community together.

Cons

• Doesn’t integrate directly with Teachable (because you can host your course on your Mighty Network without paying for another platform)

Mighty Networks is free to try for 14 days--no credit card required.

Try it!

Good Circle alternative for pre-recorded courses + funnels

Kajabi is one of the best-known online course platforms. If you're looking for a Circle alternative that gives you a pre-recorded course with built-in course marketing features, Kajabi is a good option. It has a powerful set of marketing features, things like upsells, email targeting, funnel/landing pages, and more.

Kajabi is not as strong on community building as Circle or Mighty Networks. Kajabi’s community product adds "Circles" (topic clusters), discussion forums, messaging, and live events. It’s missing advanced engagement tools like AI discussion starters and the gamification is limited to badges and a leaderboard. However, the biggest limit is that Kajabi’s community 2.0 came from acquiring a chat platform, and the UX still feels like an add-on–it’s not closely integrated.

This means Kajabi is better than Circle for pre-recorded courses, landing pages, and funnels, but not as good for communities specifically. Kajabi also offers a DIY branded app that’s a cheaper, but ultimately more limited, version of Circle plus.

Pros

• Great async LMS with course delivery, dripping content, assignments, etc. built-in

• Integrated marketing funnels, landing-page builders, and email marketing

• Affordable DIY branded apps

Cons

• Kajabi’s course apps and business admin apps are separate–you need 2 apps to run your business on mobile.

• Kajabi is significantly more expensive than Circle

Branded enterprise community apps

The next Circle alternative we'll talk about here is Disciple. It gives you a community platform with branding options and good content tools. Members can share text, videos, or images, and Disciple has discussion forums, Q&As, and even an activity feed. It also offers livestreaming and courses on all plans.

Disciple gives you tools for mobile app monetization -- it is app-based first and foremost. You can monetize with gated content and subscriptions, manage memberships, and even use a built-in email feature to reach your members. And since most plans allow for a branded app, it’s more customizable than Circle and comes branded from day 1. It’s especially noted for its branded notifications. Disciple is costly. It starts from $399 for a basic branded app that still shows “powered by Disciple in the app” (i.e. it’s not fully branded). There are lots of course limits on the lower plans–you need Pro at $999/mo for unlimited courses. And it doesn’t have built-in email marketing like Circle. It’s also a smaller company, with fewer app builds than competitors. Disciple is a good Circle alternative for a mid-tier, basic branded app and good community features.

Pros

• App-based community forum with a (limited) web app.

• Build a digital business that sells subscriptions or gated content.

• Customization and branding features

• Good member management tools: lists, email, groups, topics, friends, messaging, etc.

Cons

• Branded apps aren’t fully branded on lower cost plans.

• Lacks the advanced community engagement tools found elsewhere.

Corporate forum platform

Bettermode was formerly called Tribe, and it's a good alternative to the Circle platform for companies needing a corporate forum.

Bettermode’s corporate forum platform has good community-building features to host and sort discussions with content and spaces, plus member management tools (profiles, roles, etc.). And it has content creation options, things like images, videos, and polls. It has flexible deployment options for adding to existing websites, as well as mobile friendly options. However, Bettermode does not have a native app.

Bettermode has apps that can be white-labeled, multilingual support, email white-labeling, and customization.

It's a good tool for a corporate community-only build. It's missing monetization features of any kind, so it's not the best Circle alternative for a digital business. It’s best for customer communities that you don’t need to charge for. And it has no courses and no live events. It starts from $399/mo.

Pros

• Forum-first community with spaces and some member options

• Build under your own brand and white-labeling (apps, email, etc.)

• Design studio for more customization power

• Lots of app integrations for corporate applications.

Cons

• No monetization features

• Missing courses and live events

• Community is limited to a simple discussion forum

Good free Circle alternative

Discord is another popular team chat platform. It’s similar to Slack in that it creates a text-based communication solution that helps community members have conversations. Also, like Slack, Discord allows you to create dedicated channels for discussion topics. It also has easy options for voice chatting since it was created for gamers to collaborate. This also means that it’s great for streaming gameplay.

Discord also has server subscriptions, which can be a way to monetize your community. They take a 10% cut of revenue, and you can charge anywhere from $2.99-$199.99/mo.

As an alternative to Circle.so, Discord is comparable to Slack. It’s a good option to create channels for discussions and has the added bonus of easy live calling between members—which could be helpful in some situations.

Pros

• Free & easy to use with a good UX and great livestreaming

• Add voice and video chats

• Has many of the same conversation functions as Circle.so

• Great apps for every device

Cons

• Limited tools for growing a community, and would be almost useless for growing a business (very few monetization options)

• If you do charge with subscriptions, Discord takes 10%

• No course functions

• Not functional for organizing a large community

Best for free, simple chats

Slack is another alternative to Circle.so. With Slack, you can create specific channels for dedicated conversations, which replicates one of the main features of Circle.

Slack is common, and a ton of companies use it. So, there’s a good chance some of the members will know Slack already from work.

Slack also has a dedicated app that works well and is available across all devices. While Slack channels can work for small, free communities, they aren't designed to turn strangers into friends. Remember, Slack works for work because people have to be there. There is no native monetization or branding, and the more comprehensive Slack plans are really expensive.

Pros

• A free, simple starter plan that could work for small groups

• Intuitive and familiar to users

• Available on mobile and web

• Works well for groups that already know each other

Cons

• No custom branding

• No direct monetization options

• No options to create online courses

• Charges per member

• No subgroups

Circle alternative for enterprise users platform

Higher Logic Vanilla is another Circle.so alternative that gives you features for creating and managing customer communities. It can be branded under a corporate brand and gives you some good membership management tools; members can be organized into different groups and you can add polls and questions.

As an enterprise platform, it adds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 compliance, as well as useful enterprise integrations. The newest AI features add AI-suggested answers, sentiment analysis, and AI moderation and search.

As an online forum solution, Vanilla is made for customer support, companies can engage and answer member questions, connect it to their knowledge base, or even to CRM and customer experience platform (CEP) solutions like Salesforce or Zendesk.

Higher Logic is a great alternative to the Circle platform for brands looking for enterprise-level customer communities. It's not a full community solution for brands looking to monetize and sell digital products and memberships.

Pros

• Build customer forums under a corporate brand

• Add member management features and customization

• Integrate with knowledge base and tools like Zendesk and Salesforce

Cons

• Not a full community solution

• Extremely limited subscription and monetization tools

• No apps or white-label apps (web app only)

Circle alternative for non-profits

Hivebrite is an alternative to the Circle community platform that was built as an alumni management platform.

Hivebrite includes features like dedicated subgroups, forum functions, and even a job board for students to explore. And it has added AI matching for networking, AI moderation, and AI search. Hivebrite has a cool mentoring feature that means community members can mentor each other–a popular feature on the review sites.

Hivebrite's best connecting feature for alumni networks? Its tools for events--including event apps. It can handle invite emails, tickets, and event calendars. And it has some monetization features like event ticketing and donor campaigns.

Although the live event features are cool, Hivebrite is really missing the type of comprehensive tools you'd expect in a community platform. And the limited virtual event options with no livestreaming or video tools knock it down the list even more.

Pros

• Live event management and useful alumni features

• CMS tools with job board

• AI matching and mentoring tools

• Good live event management

• Apps under your brand

Cons

• Missing features to run virtual events

• Doesn't have livestreaming, native video, or courses

Good for Async courses and websites

Thinkific is a good course platform, and they've recently added some community features that make it a decent alternative to Circle.so.

As an e-learning solution, Thinkific is strong--much better than Circle. It has good curriculum-building features with advanced quizzes, webinars, surveys, and feedback. And it adds live events, direct messaging, push notifications, community moderator roles, trending posts, and threaded comments. It's still not a match for dedicated community platforms, but it functions well.

Thinkific is a bit like Kajabi, but it's quite a bit cheaper.

The biggest knock against Thinkific is its apps, which are notoriously low-rated: 1.9/5 in the App Store and 3.2 out of 5 on Google Play. Users complain about poor performance, video lags, difficult UI, and a much more limited experience than the web version.

Pros

• Good course platform with really strong LMS options

• Some integrated marketing features

Cons

• The community feature isn’t as strong as Circle

• Thinkific’s app reviews are terrible

There are a lot of great options on this list. But none of them do what Mighty Networks does, allowing you to create a vibrant community, host discussions, sell memberships, go live, build dedicated subgroups, and create elegant courses.

Come try it for yourself! It's free for 14 days--no credit card required.

Ready to start building your community?