7 Best Online Community Software Solution Companies

Building a strong online community is crucial for businesses, organizations, and individuals looking to establish a loyal base of followers and customers.

With the right online community software solution, you can build a platform where members can connect, offer content materials or even, as a creator, monetize your community with paid membership.

With the rise of digital communication and the need for businesses and organizations to connect with their audiences, the demand for community software has skyrocketed.

But finding the best community platform that offers the best tools is no joke. In this post, we’ll help you find the best online community software solution that you can use to create an online community for your business without breaking your bank account.

Let’s get started.

What Are Online Community Software Solution Companies?

Online community software solution companies provide software platforms and tools that allow users to create, manage, and participate in online communities.

These communities can be created for various purposes, such as connecting with customers, building brand loyalty, fostering collaboration, or providing support.

The software solutions offered by these companies typically include features such as user registration, content management, discussion forums, messaging, and moderation tools.

Some of the most popular types of online communities include social networks, forums, customer support portals, and online marketplaces.

Online community software solution companies help businesses or organizations to create a sense of community, foster engagement and facilitate communication among the members, which can ultimately lead to increased customer satisfaction, sales, and retention.

Online community software solution companies provide platforms and tools for businesses and organizations to create and manage online communities for their customers, members, or employees. These communities can be used for a variety of purposes, such as customer support, knowledge sharing, collaboration, and networking.

Some common features of online community software solutions include:

• User registration and management
• Discussion forums and messaging
• File sharing and document collaboration
• Event scheduling and calendar functionality
• Gamification and rewards systems
• Analytics and reporting
• Integration with other

What to Look For in a Community Platform

When looking for a community platform, there are a few key features and considerations to keep in mind:

• User Management: The platform should allow for easy management of users, including creating and editing profiles, managing permissions, and controlling access to different parts of the community.
• Content Management: The platform should provide tools for creating, organizing, and moderating content, such as discussion forums, blogs, and polls.
• Customization: The platform should be customizable to match your brand and design needs.
• Analytics and Insights: The platform should provide analytics and insights on user engagement and activity, so you can understand how your community is performing and identify areas for improvement.
• Integration: The platform should integrate with other tools you use, such as email marketing software and social media platforms.
• Scalability: The platform should be able to handle a large number of users and high levels of engagement as your community grows.
• Security: The platform should have a robust security system to protect user data and ensure that your community is safe and secure.

GroupApp

GroupApp is an all in one in one community-building software. With this platform, you can create online memberships, create online courses as well as build an online community around your expertise.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about GroupApp is that the community software enables you to organize your community resources and discussions in one place.

Using GroupApp’s Library, you can store your community materials in the form of videos, PDFs, worksheets and audio files. This makes it easier for your community members to find useful content materials in one place.

The “Channels” feature allows organizing your community discussions and subgroups. This allows you to arrange meaningful conversations in one place and create a clear structure for discussions, making it easier for new members to follow along and catch up on past conversations.

On top of having a quality membership community and online course platform, GroupApp gives you access to top-notched communication tools. If you’ve ever built an online community before, you know how important it is to build trust and engagement.

Our direct messaging feature allows us to offer personalized support to individual members.

In case you want to address a common issue, you can hold a group chat with all the community members.

Even better, you can schedule upcoming events, posts and emails. This allows you to keep your community active by maintaining a consistent engagement.

Pros and Cons

GroupApp is an online course creation and community software that allows individuals and businesses to create and sell their online courses while building a community around their expertise.

Here are the pros and cons of using GroupApp:

Pros

• An intuitive design that allows both the users and members to navigate the platform without any difficulties.
• Unmatched flexibility allows you to create a variety of course formats, including video, audio, and written content, quizzes, surveys, and assignments.
• Third-party apps Integrations – GroupApp integrates with other tools like payment processors, email marketing software, and webinar platforms.
• Customize your brand – the community software allows you to host your community and online courses on your domain. You can also customize it to match your own brand’s liking.
• Single Sign-on allows you to authenticate users to automatically access your community without being prompted to enter separate sign-in credentials.
• A ton of community engagement features
• You can drip-schedule your online courses to boost learning engagement and experience.
• No transaction fees on paid plans

Cons

• Lacks a mobile app (as of yet)
• Payments gateway limited to only Stripe
• It lacks gamification and a donation button

GroupApp Customer Reviews

GroupApp has received a lot of positive user reviews due to its user-friendly interface, simplicity and great customer support.

See what this customer had to say after using GroupApp:

“I searched so many platforms before stumbling on GroupApp, and I am glad I did! I really wanted a community in the same place as my online course so that people didst need to be on Facebook and didn’t need to switch between two platforms. GroupApp’s interface is pretty intuitive, and all of my participants loved it. Pm was especially happy with the customer service. Quick responses, continuous effort to improve the product, and a great backend that is easy to use. My headache nutrition community continues to grow and grow stronger together thanks to GroupApp’s help!”Susannah Juteau, Headache Nutritionist

Thinkific

Thinkific is well known as an online course software. But besides offering an online course platform you can also build a community using Thinkific.

When it comes to branding, Thinkific allows you to customize your membership community to match your branding. You get access to a wide selection of website themes that you can customize to your liking. Furthermore, you can host your community and online course on your custom domain.

Thinkific goes an extra step to help you make the most money from your community. The Thinkific App Store allows you to connect marketing tools you’re most probably using to create powerful automation and workflows.

What’s more interesting is the Thinkific free plan. With the free plan, you can create one community and a single online course with unlimited students. What’s more, even in their free plan, they don’t charge you any transaction fee.

Although the free plan for Thinkific seems robust, GroupApp has a better and feature-rich free plan. You can access better features like events scheduling, moderation tools, in-app notifications and channels

Thinkific Pros and Cons

Thinkfic is a great platform that you can use to build your online community and sell online courses. In this section, we’ll show you the good and the bad to expect when you use Thinkific for community building.

Pros

• High-level customization
• Multiple payment options for students and membership subscribers
• All-in-one e-learning platform offering course hosting, management, marketing and payment capabilities
• Does not charge transactional fees on payments made by subscribers or students

Cons

• No quick customer support options like a live chat
• A free plan is limited
• Analytics and reporting could be better

Thinkific Customer Reviews

Thinkific is one of the most rated online courses and community-building software. On a review website like Trustpilot, Thinkific has garnered an impressive rating of 4.6.

Here’s what one of the customers had to say after using Thinkific.

“I love Thinkific. It’s so easy to set up a course, and I have never had a customer complain about an issue trying to process a payment. The only improvement I would like is better reporting (which I think is included in higher plans). I always recommend Thinkific. It is easy to use, looks great, and it means I don’t have to stress over tech issues.” Lyn McFarlane, Australia.

Might Networks

Might Networks is another reputable online community software solution company that enables you to build an online community on your website.

As an all in one community platform, Mighty Networks allows you to combine many features like live streaming, online courses, memberships, events and chats all in one place. You don’t need separate platforms if you need to access either of those features. This allows you to create a great member experience that can boost your community’s success.

When it comes to community engagement, Mighty Networks offers a ton of features to help you achieve that. With engagement tools like posts, polls and quizzes, it allows you to interact with your community.

Mighty Networks has invested heavily in its community, offering support and resourceful materials to its customers.

Perhaps, the most enticing thing about MightyNetworks is probably their next level customization. Unlike most community platforms, Mighty Networks allows you to create a white-labeled mobile app. You can also customize the appearance of your community spaces with your logo, brand colors and custom graphics to match the look and feel of your brand.

However, as good as the platform may sound, we didn’t like that they don’t offer an online course builder in their basic paid plan (The Community Plan).

If you’d want to create and sell online courses to your community, you need to upgrade to their Business Plan. This is disappointing as with GroupApp; you can create an online course even with our free plan.

Might Networks Pros and Cons

Mighty Networks is fantastic community software that combines a lot of features while also allowing you to customize your community to your liking. Here are the pros and cons of using Mighty Networks.

Pros

• High-level customization and branding
• Native live streaming is available
• It has a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices
• Unlimited Members, Admins, and Spaces
• Better tracking and reporting

Cons

• Does not offer an online course builder in their basic paid plan
• Doesn’t offer a free plan.
• Doesn’t support SSO integrations
• Charges a transaction fee

Mighty Networks Customer Reviews

Mighty Networks seems to receive mixed reactions to what users have to say about their experience. On Trustpilot, the community software scores an average of 2.9 rating from 42 customers.

This rating could however be better. Just look at one of these ratings from one of the customers.

I can’t blame the customer because I’d be frustrated as well. One common thing we found about customers using Mighty Networks is that the new update made many of them lose a lot of their community resources, customization and even the community software becoming clunky.

While on Trustpilot users didn’t love the platform, on G2 the tool seems to perform better.

Needless to say, even on their most rated network, we still found out that user experience was a problem that most users faced when using Mighty Networks.

Basically, Mighty Networks seems to be struggling with providing a better UX for their users. I bet you don’t want to use a community software platform that’s hard to navigate, do you? Then try GroupApp that has the most friendly user interface.

Tribe

Tribe is a standalone community builder focusing on providing outstanding community-building features. The community platform is engineered for businesses wanting to engage customers, educate them, and offer support. .

Tribe makes it easy for members to share their thoughts using their intuitive posting tool. The platform features a post editor with a variety of formatting options like media uploads, content embedment as well as @mentions. They also get access to a translation tool that allows them to post using the language they’re good at.

Unlike Mighty Networks with a poor search feature, Tribe has a great built-in search tool that allows members to find the information they are looking for by applying different filters.

By now, you understand how important analytics data is essential to any community platform. This is something that Tribe doesn’t take with a pinch of salt.

Right on the dashboard, you can view activities in the community, page views, unique visits, and popular times. You can also track new member growth as well as active member growth trends.

The bad news with Tribe is that it may not be the best community-building platform for small businesses. Its cheapest plan starts at $599 per month.

That’s almost the same pricing for GroupApp’s most expensive plan (Premium), which costs $499 per month. Yet even with such a high price, the plan still lacks some essential features of Custom SSL certificates that ensure your member’s connection is secure.

Tribe Pros and Cons

Tribe specializes in offering online community-building tools that specifically target businesses looking forward to educating and engaging their customers. Here are the pros and cons of using Tribe as your community software.

Pros

• Highly customizable and extendable using third-party tools like Zapier, Hotjar and HubSpot.
• Supports gamification
• It has a single sign-on functionality

Cons

• It’s expensive and doesn’t offer a free plan
• No mobile apps
• No inbuilt monetization tools

Tribe Customer Reviews

Tribe.so (under its parent company Bettermode) doesn’t seem to perform great on Trustpilot. It gets a 3.4 rating on the platform. I bet this could be better.

Here’s what some of its users have to say after using the platform.

“This has to be the best and easiest-to-use forum/community management app in existence. I’ve been using Discourse for a while now, and while it is very customizable, it took FOREVER to set it up properly. With Tribe, you’re up and running 100x faster and with little to no custom development, too.” Daniel Roe, US.

Podia

Podia is another all-in-one online community software solution that you can use for digital commerce, such as selling online courses, building community membership, and selling digital products such as ebooks.

Despite stiff competition from well-established platforms like Thinkific, Podia has managed to build a reputation for itself as easy-to-use creator-centric community software.

Unlike most community platforms, Podia goes beyond being a digital commerce software. You get additional tools like email marketing and messaging that facilitate marketing and communication.

You also get access to a website builder that allows you to set up a basic website for your online storefront, where you can host your online course and sell online coaching sessions and community memberships.

If you want to offer discounts for your online course of paid membership, with Podia, you can easily create coupons with a few clicks. This enables you to strategically encourage new members to join your community or buy your online courses boosting your profit margins.

Podia Pros and Cons

Podia comes with great marketing tools and integration that facilitate your online community. You can integrate your email marketing tools, create coupons, upsells, and even affiliate marketing programs for your paid membership and online course.

Here are the benefits and downsides of using Podia.

Pros

• Well-refined user experience with a simple learning curve.
• Create unlimited course
• Offer a variety of digital products, including online courses, webinars, digital downloads, coaching sessions, and paid memberships, to mention a few.
• Build a custom website.
• A variety of community engagement tools
• A free plan that allows you to build one community

Cons

• Limits the number of teams seats even in their paid plans requiring you to pay an additional $20 per month to add more team members to your community
• The free plan is close to useless. It doesn’t allow you to integrate third-party tools or even upload videos to your community.
• It doesn’t have a mobile app
• Customization could better

Podia’s Customers Reviews

Although the community software solution company seems promising on the surface, it still has a long way to go. On Trustpilot, the platform gets an average 3-star rating.

A Common problem that we noted that customers were having is terrible customer support. Just take a look at this dead honest review.

It is disappointing that the company doesn’t even make an effort to reach out to help the customer solve the issue. Like any community software with competence, they should reach out to the customer there at Trustpilot to address the issue.

Since we didn’t want to be biased, we wanted to know how they performed on other review websites like G2. Although the platform gets a great 4.5-star review, it still seems to be struggling with customer support.

Ouch! No wonder the customer never gave them even a single-star rating.

Now, you don’t have to use a platform whose creators don’t care about you. Get started with GroupApp, where we offer an around clock support. Watch our product demo and see how easy it is to build your online community with GroupApp.

Circle.so

Circle is an online community platform focused on helping business brands and online creators build a loyal fan base and monetize it.

The community allows you to bring together your online community and content materials in one place.

Circle enables you to engage your community members in a lot of ways. You can host live Q&A sessions, offer personalized group coaching, and message members privately or through community posts.

Regarding monetization, Circle has all the tools you need to monetize your community, like offering paid memberships and online course content.

Even better, the community software allows you to offer discounts, create upsells and offer free trials for your paid memberships.

Circle.so Pros and Cons

Circle is a branded community platform that focuses only on community development. Unlike GroupApp, Circle doesn’t offer online course creation capabilities.

Here are the pros and cons of using Circle.so

Pros

• Supports SSO integrations
• Host unlimited events
• Advanced analytics
• Create a fully white-labeled brand
• iOS app
• User-friendly and modern design
• Automated moderation

Cons

• Lacks a mobile app
• Doesn’t have an online course builder to host and sell online courses

Circle.so Customer Reviews

Circle.so is among the best-performing community software. The platform gets an amazing 4-star and 3.6-star rating on Trustpilot and the Product Hunt crowd, respectively.

Here’s what one of the customers had to say after using Circle.

“ I couldn’t be more excited to see Circle here on Product Hunt. I’ve been using the platform while in beta for the past few months and couldn’t be more impressed. I evaluated FB Groups, Slack, Mighty Networks, Tribe, etc., to be the potential home for my community. I’m soooooo glad I went with Circle. Incredible platform with people who value quality products and a thoughtful UX”. Kevin Fremon

Disciple

Disciple is a white-label community app that allows you to build a fully-branded platform around your expertise.

Setting up your online community on Disciple is simple, and all of the platform’s features operate flawlessly straight out of the box.

Disciple, like the other great solutions on our list, allows you to post/schedule various sorts of material, establish sub-groups, govern your community, and measure key data.

The native live stream option, which allows you to go live in your community without using Zoom or any third-party solution, is one feature that makes Disciple fantastic for engagement.

Additionally, Disciple provides some useful monetization capabilities, such as building memberships and charging for access to the entire community or certain regions within it.

Disciple Pros and Cons

The following are the pros and cons of using Disciple Media.

Pros

• Community builder with a lot of features
• Native live streaming capability
• Tailored iOS and Android applications
• Integrated monetization tools

 

Cons

• Charges a transaction fee
• You need to pay extra to access better analytics or add more admin seats
• The pricing is too high

Disciple Customer Reviews

Disciple Media has an impressive rating of 4.7 on G2. Users seem to be happy using the platform regardless of the price. Here’s what one of the customers had to say.

“Disciple is built to counter all the things people hate about FB groups, forum sites, and traditional social media feeds. By giving control back to the community (and away from advertisers and spammers), it makes for a better experience. The UX is simple, and the support team is fantastic.” Brandon B.

Something that we found that most users were unhappy with is that most of Disciple’s features are available for the mobile app only, and it also has limited integration.

Conclusion

Choosing the right online community software solution is vital for the success of your community.

With the right community software solution in place, your members can join the community, connect with other online community members, and access your community content.

Allow us to introduce our very own community software, GroupApp. We created GroupApp to tackle most users’ faces with most community platforms. With GroupApp, you can create and monetize a fully branded online community. You also get access to our easy to use online course builder.

Try GroupApp and build your online community without breaking the bank while also enjoying quality customer support.