Web Resources for Online Communities and Forums

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Dedicated platforms like Mighty Networks, Circle, and Bettermode; social media sites with community features like Facebook Groups, Reddit, and Discord; and more general marketing platforms like GetResponse that provide community-building capabilities are examples of online resources for online communities and forums. Additional choices include integrated learning systems like Kajabi and Q&A websites like Quora.

With features like branded areas and sophisticated interaction tools, these platforms are designed especially for building and running online communities.

It’s likely that your clients are dispersed throughout cities, nations, and even continents if your business is online. In the past, hosting social gatherings like conferences was the most common strategy for bringing clients together. However, these days, the best method for creating enduring relationships with your current and potential clientele is through online communities.

Brands may acquire devoted consumers, repeat business, and valued brand advocates by reaching out to their online audience and establishing sincere relationships with their followers. The finest aspect? Additionally, you may make money from your community by offering digital goods, unique content, subscriptions, and more.

Specialized software that serves as a virtual meeting place for people with similar interests is known as an online community platform.

Reddit, for instance, is one of the most popular websites in the world and the biggest platform for online communities. The platform has over 100,000 active subreddits, also known as communities, and receives millions of users and visitors every day.

Reddit brings people together based on their shared passions. Users can join multiple subreddit communities at the same time, and any user can create a new one.

Platforms for online communities may consist of:

Social media groups
Membership sites
Forums
Online chat rooms
Creator platforms

Online community platforms also give businesses the opportunity to establish a connection with their target audience and establish a private online forum for exchanging product-related conversations, special deals, and other content.

Top Online Community Platforms in 2026

1. Thinkific

For Creator Educators, Thinkific is a robust and user-friendly platform that makes it easy to create, host, and monetize your online community. It is completely adjustable and doesn’t require any technical knowledge or coding; just start with a template and modify it to suit your needs.

You can use the system to create discussion groups and communities with your own brand that you can sell separately or as a component of a subscription to other digital content you provide. Create specialized landing pages to turn visitors into leads or paying customers so that members may access your community.

Hundreds of integrations are available in the Thinkific app store to improve and personalize the platform to your requirements.

Key features

Create and scale online communities, both paid and free
Engage your audience with coaching sessions and webinars
Engage your audience on the device they use most with Thinkific Mobile, included with Start and Grow plans

Thinkific’s pricing

Thinkific offers a free 14-day trial for the three plans below. Their plans are:

Basic ($49/month)
Start ($99/month)
Grow ($199/month)

Additionally, you can enjoy a 25% discount when you choose annual pricing instead of monthly pricing, bringing those rates down to $36, $74, and $149 per month.

2. Circle

This platform is marketed as a one-stop community for businesses and creators, and its strong features aren’t diminished by its simple design. Circle’s custom domain name makes it simple to create your own branded community.

Use live Q&As, weekly office hours, direct messaging, group coaching, and special masterclasses to interact with your online audience. To ensure that your community can remain connected while on the go, there is also a mobile app. Additionally, Circle provides you with a variety of choices for making money off of your business, such as one-time access charges, monthly subscriptions, and memberships.

Key features:

Advanced analytics
Mobile app
Live streaming and event spaces

Circle’s pricing:

Professional ($99/month)
Business ($199/month)
Enterprise ($360/month)
Plus Branded App (custom pricing)

3. Mighty

Previously known as Mighty Networks, this community platform makes it simple to invite members of your community to talk about anything you have to offer, including ebooks and online courses. The website allows users to talk and write messages to one another, strengthening ties within your community.

With a user-friendly CMS, creating new posts is simple and allows you to add images, videos, music, surveys, and more. Additionally, users can interact with your material using a community app.

Features:

Direct messages between members
Create multimedia posts
Add unlimited admins and members

Mighty’s pricing:

The Community Plan ($49/month)
The Courses Plan ($119/month)
The Business Plan ($219/month)
The Path-to-Pro Plan ($430/month)
Mighty Pro (custom pricing)

4. Facebook Groups

Regardless of demographics, the majority of your community most likely already has a Facebook profile. Because of this, Facebook Groups is a simple option when looking for a new online community platform. It is that easy for users to join your group by just logging into their Facebook account.

The drawback of Facebook Groups is that, although they are totally free to use, most users won’t see your postings in their activity feed and will have to go to the group directly in order to interact with your material. This indicates that Facebook Group member engagement is typically poor, and it can be challenging to make money from your group just by using Facebook.

Facebook has also encountered other difficulties in recent years, including problems with ownership, data privacy, and usability. Therefore, it’s preferable to utilize it in conjunction with another online community platform that offers you greater control and security, even though it can be quite helpful to get your community started.

Key features:

Seamless integration with the Facebook ecosystem (Messenger, Meta, etc.)
Track growth and engagement with an insights dashboard
Exceptional international accessibility

Facebook pricing:

Facebook groups are free for all account holders to use. This combined with its exceptional ubiquity makes it one of the best free online community platforms on the market.

5. Slack

Slack is more than simply a work chat; it’s also a simple method to set up an online community. Although you can add as many community members as you like to the platform with the free plan, the number of viewable messages is restricted to 10,000 (you can view them by purchasing a subscription plan). Group calls, app connections, and additional storage are all possible with paid plans.

Direct messages are the norm on Slack, and you can make channels to keep different subjects well-organized. Slack recently added the ability to make video and voice calls.

Slack is an excellent alternative for anyone who wants to maintain the conversation, but there aren’t many ways to personalize the platform to reflect your company.

Key features:

Unlimited members
Direct messaging
Widely used

Slack’s pricing:

To enjoy the features of a paid Slack plan, everyone in your community must pay for the same plan. You (the admin) can’t just pay $7 for a few features. You must pay $7 for every member, all at once. Because of this, paid plans are almost never used beyond a corporate setting.

However, Slack’s free plan allows you to create a group and invite anyone to the community. You can enjoy basic features, putting this platform close behind Facebook in its running as one of the best free online community platforms.

6. Discord

Every member of the gaming community is familiar with Discord, an instant messaging app that allows phone and video conversations as well as chats.

Although Discord is free to use, users have the option to upgrade to a pro user account to access additional features. Discord is an excellent choice for building an online community built on real-time, impromptu communication, much like Slack. If your target audience is already using Discord, it’s simple to start a new online community because the same user can be a member of many communities.

Key features:

Free to use
Simple chat-focused interface
Set up separate channels

Discord’s pricing:

Like Facebook and Slack, Discord is another one of the best free online community platforms. Free for everyone. All you need to do is download it to get started.

However, users can upgrade to Nitro Basic or Nitro for additional benefits that enhance the user experience.

7. Skool

Skool serves as a central location for a large collection of online communities, much as online course markets like Skillshare or Udemy. From influencer 101 to financial literacy, learners can access a variety of groups. On the other hand, creators have access to all of the traditional capabilities that one would anticipate from a modern community or course builder.

Skool is one of the greatest online community platforms for 2025, and it only takes a few minutes to set up your group. Provide communities that are either free or paid, integrate images and videos, plan live events, and collect emails for marketing automation. Use engagement tools to keep members interested, such as a leaderboard or even levels, where reaching particular goals might grant access to coaching sessions, resources, and other things.

Key features:

Intuitive community and course creation interface
Skool gamification encourages community engagement
Simple 1-plan pricing

Skool’s pricing:

Skool is free for the first 14 days; after your trial expires, the monthly rate is $99. This plan allows for 1 group and grants access to all features, unlimited courses, and unlimited members.

8. Bettermode

For many creators, Bettermode is all they need to launch and grow their communities, making it one of the greatest platforms for online communities. Numerous log-in authentication routes, member roles, member profiles, a flexible and customizable community structure, and much more are among the platform’s useful features.

To speed up your launch, use the pre-made templates provided by the platform. Alternately, use Bettermode’s developer site, integrations/app library, drag-and-drop builder, and customization tools to personalize the startup.

Key features:

Drag-and-drop builder makes creation a breeze, with the option to customize further using code
A community analytics dashboard gives you insight into metrics like member growth, activity, unique daily visits, and more
Leverage social login for near frictionless accessibility

Bettermode’s pricing:

In the platform’s own words, the free plan is “Ideal for hobbyists and individuals exploring web app creation.”

With a cap of 10 members and 5 spaces, the free plan is effectively an untimed free trial. However, in an era where true free plans are disappearing, it’s nice to see one that isn’t limited to a small time frame.

The rest of Bettermode’s pricing plans are as follows:

Free ($0/month)
Lite ($24/month)
Pro ($59/month)
Business ($119/month)

9. Kajabi

Kajabi is a comprehensive online community platform that offers innovative, personalized solutions to help you expand your company. Utilize the integrated CRM, leverage analytics to inform data-driven business choices, and collect payments through connections with Stripe and Paypal.

Kajabi gives you the resources you need to produce content and showcase your skills to the world. As you develop your online community, you may sell memberships, podcasts, coaching programs, online courses, and more.

Key features:

Create discussion posts with comment feeds
Set up a fully-integrated website
Automated marketing campaigns

Kajabi’s pricing:

Kickstarter ($69/month)
Basic ($149/month)
Growth ($199/month)
Pro ($399/month)

10. Vanilla by Higher Logic

Vanilla Forums is an online community platform that facilitates communication between businesses and their clientele. This forum software is easy to alter; however, you must utilize HTML and CSS. In addition to creating polls, users can exchange private messages, ask questions, give comments, and mention one another.

On Vanilla Forums, you may manage several sub-communities as a business and choose community administrators to oversee moderating. Every forum can be tailored to serve a particular purpose, such as a knowledge base, a Q&A area, or something else entirely.

Key features:

Originally a forum platform, Vanilla is designed for communities
Add sub-communities
Leverage comments, questions, polls, and mentions for engagement

Vanilla’s pricing:

This platform’s pricing is not available online. Unfortunately, you must set up a demo call with a sales rep to receive pricing info.

11. Podia

Encourage discussions about your work with Podia. You can create both free and paid communities with this all-in-one community building tool, which has all the features you need to start and run an online community. In addition to offering you the opportunity to develop a website, webinars, coaching packages, and optional email marketing add-ons to promote your material, they make the entire process transparent, simple, and uncomplicated.

Key features:

Create paid or free communities
No code builder
Sales funnel for digital products

Podia’s pricing:

Mover ($39/month)
Shaker ($89/month)
Podia Email (free)

12. Disciple

Disciple, which is intended for both individual producers and well-established companies, enables you to manage your community and content from a desktop or mobile device. Disciple’s open API allows you to integrate your favorite tools with YouTube, Google Suite, Mailchimp, and other programs to improve your online community without knowing any code. Use groups, polls, and comments to start community discussions. You can also use live streaming and direct messaging to interact with your members in real time.

Key features:

Multiple community layout options
Unlimited subgroups and content feeds
In-depth insights and analytics

Disciple’s pricing:

Disciple offers three pricing plans. The below amounts reflect your monthly breakdown, but note that the platform only offers billing in 6-month or 12-month terms.

Grow ($875/month)
Pro ($1,400/month)
Enterprise (custom pricing)

13. Discourse

Discourse is leading the way in open-source community platforms. The ability to modify the coding as needed to create the community features you desire is this platform’s greatest advantage.

Discourse, on the other hand, is a really potent platform by default. Organize your community into distinct threads and categories, designate moderators, and more. The platform allows users to share material, post, and message one another.

Discourse’s automatic filtering for spammers and trolls is another useful tool that makes community moderating simple and gives you greater peace of mind.

Key features:

Open-source code and flexible API
Assign multiple moderators
Powerful automatic moderation

Discourse’s pricing:

Starter ($20/month)
Standard ($100/month)
Business ($500/month)
Enterprise (custom pricing)

14. MemberDev

With MemberDev, create a unique membership platform and expand your online community from the ground up. By doing it for you, MemberDev seeks to relieve the burden of developing a membership website.

Obtain a community area that is especially designed for your company and target market, complete with a personalized user interface to optimize the impact of your merchandise.

The high degree of customization that MemberDev offers is one of their main selling points. Additionally, they offer email marketing integrations and basic sales funnels to assist you in online community promotion.

Key features:

Receive a custom website with a CRM, membership & subscription capabilities, and more
Engage members with private messaging, community forums, and topic threads
Build your communities with custom invite systems, privacy settings, and even social feeds

MemberDev’s pricing:

MemberDev is essentially an agency for businesses in the community niche. They build—for a high fee— and host a digital environment for your community from scratch. Then, they help you manage the backend after you’ve launched.

Unlike other platforms, where you’re buying into their software, ecosystem, and digital solutions, MemberDev makes your solution custom for you. That’s what makes their pricing different from every other platform on this list.

Builder Plan ($5,000 one-time fee + $249/month support plan)
Community Plan ($10,000 one-time fee + $397/month support plan)
Hybrid Plan ($15,000 one-time fee + $695/month support plan)

15. Uscreen

Uscreen, a company that specializes in video content, can help you develop your online community. With a Netflix-style interface that makes it simple for users to find new content and interact with your brand, Uscreen assists creators in creating a distinctive and vibrant community area.

Use live streaming, exclusive content drops, and a private membership area to highlight your video content and build stronger relationships with your audience. To put your community at the forefront of your audience’s lives, you can also customize your own Uscreen website and app. You can even include personalized calendar reminders to keep members informed about upcoming events.

Key features:

Tailored to video
Host live streaming events
Create a custom branded app

Uscreen’s pricing:

Uscreen offers three different pricing tiers. However, it’s worth noting that this platform comes with quite a few fees.

Most notable is the “Per subscriber fee,” which is a fee you pay each month for every active subscriber. The “One Time Sales (TVOD) Fee” is a 5% added onto non-subscription transactions, like rentals or one-time sales.

Growth ($199/month + $1.99 subscriber fee)
App Essentials ($499/month + $0.99 subscriber fee)
Build Your Own (custom pricing + $0.99 subscriber fee)

16. Reddit

Reddit is the biggest online community platform in the world, and anyone can start a new community at any moment. To draw more people to your community more quickly, start your own subreddit, but watch out that you don’t get lost in the shuffle.

You have the ability to allow members of your Reddit community to post, vote on, and even choose moderators. Reddit is a fantastic way to start conversations and expose your brand to more people. Additionally, using it is totally free.

Key features:

Exceptional international accessibility
Communities require minimal setup and are easy to manage
Members can engage with multimedia like GIFs, images, videos, links, comments, and more

Reddit’s pricing:

Reddit is free for all users. Like Facebook, the platform is ubiquitous on devices across the globe and reaches a unique audience that may not be active on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. These traits are, in part, what makes it one of the best free online community platforms.

How to Choose the Best Online Community Platform

There are many different online community platforms available, but how can you choose the best one for your company?

Here are six tips to assist you if selecting an online community platform seems overwhelming:

Decide what type of community you want: Before choosing an online community platform, get clear on the type of online community you want – including the structure and approach.
Determine your goals: The best community platform for you will depend on your goals – why do you want to build an online community? What do you want to achieve? What are your KPIs?
Look at key features: Write a list of the must-have features you need from your community platforms, like live-streaming, 1:1 chat functions, and more.
Be realistic about size: The size of your community will greatly impact the type of community platform that’s best for you – including pricing and limits. Create an estimate for your community size before choosing a platform.
Prioritize scalable solutions: Your business is likely to grow – so any community platform must also be scalable to match your changing needs.
Check your budget: Budget also has a role to play in choosing the right community platform. Look at the fine print for adding extra admins, community members, and hidden transaction fees.

No platform for online communities is ideal for everyone. Real-time conversation is one of the aspects that every option will excel at, while customisation is another. In the end, an online community platform should be a secure and encouraging environment that allows you to establish a community where your members feel involved and connected.