A lively online community is an excellent brand partner because it acts as a customer support group. An online community can help a small business spread brand awareness without expensive marketing campaigns. According to a study by Vanilla Forums, 55% of brand communities attribute an increase in sales from the contributions of their online communities.
This article will tell you more about the best community builder software in 2024 and how they can help your business overtake the competition.
Software Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article.
- PeerBoard – Community builder software for creating private spaces
- Mighty Networks – Community builder software for live streaming events
- Glue Up – Community builder software for creating public and private groups
- Amity – Community builder software with community moderation tools
- BuddyBoss – Community builder software with a gamification feature
- Khoros – Community builder software with a knowledge base feature
- Hivebrite – Community builder software with a membership management tool
- Orbit – Community builder software with built-in analytics
- Disciple – Community builder software with content management feature
- Joomla – Community builder software with a website builder feature
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best community builder systems? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): Community managers have many tasks, so I look for software with easy-to-find features to help them save time.
- Usability: Online community members come from all walks of life, so I look for software that anyone can use easily.
- Integrations: Online communities use many tools to keep members engaged, so I look for software that works well with other software.
- Value for $: Most online communities are free, or with minimal fees, so I look for software with great features but reasonable pricing.
Community Builder Platform Key Features
- Moderation tools: Allows moderators to enforce community guidelines.
- Messaging: A means for members to directly communicate with other members.
- Media center: A repository of documents, videos, and other files useful for members of the community.
- Live stream: Allows the hosting of live events or conducting online meetings.
- Subscriptions: Allows admins to create tiered subscription plans for members who want to access premium content.
- Gamification: Rewards and recognition tools for productive community members.
- Member management: Allows admins to accept or reject members.
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Overviews Of The 10 Best Community Builder Software Solutions
Here’s a brief description of each community builder platform to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
1. PeerBoard – Community builder software for creating private spaces.
PeerBoard is a community builder platform to share knowledge and increase community engagement. It lets community members create informative posts to share their knowledge. PeerBoard has a membership management feature for reviewing membership, assigning roles, and awarding badges.
PeerBoard is the best community builder software that lets you create private spaces for getting feedback from select community members. You can use PeerBoard’s private spaces for beta testing new features or products to fine-tune them before a general release. With real-time comments from users, you can use this online community platform to address user concerns immediately.
PeerBoard integrates with other customer support and community engagement tools like WordPress, Shopify, and Thinkific. You can connect PeerBoard with a paid Zapier account to access other premium apps.
PeerBoard has a free forever plan with limited features, while the pricing for paid plans starts at $29/month/up to 3 private spaces. PeerBoard offers a free trial of paid plans with an unspecified duration.
2. Mighty Networks – Community builder software for live streaming events.
Mighty Networks is a community management software for creating online communities and selling memberships. It has a course-creation feature for creating and editing courses. Mighty Networks has a poll creation feature to get the pulse of community members and increase community engagement.
Mighty Networks is the best community builder software with a live streaming feature for hosting live events. You can also use Mighty Networks live stream feature to conduct online meetings with group members. This online community platform has an event calendar feature to make sure that members are aware of upcoming events. It has a video upload tool to make sure that members who missed live events can watch them on their own time.
Mighty Networks pricing starts at $33/month/account and offers a free trial of undisclosed duration.
3. Glue Up – Community builder software for creating public and private groups.
Glue Up is a community management software for sharing ideas and creating discussion groups. It has a live feed feature for hosting live events and online meetings. You can create roles and permissions to limit what members can do in a group. Glue Up also has content moderation tools to make sure that posts and topics do not violate community guidelines.
Glue Up is the best online community software for creating public and private groups to connect with like-minded community members. This online community platform has a chat messaging feature for 1-on-1 conversations. It has a digital business card feature for sharing business and contact information to expand your professional network. Glue Up has a dashboard of existing groups and their descriptions to quickly find groups to help you grow.
Glue Up pricing starts at $125/month/account and offers a demo upon request.
4. Amity – Community builder software with community moderation tools.
Amity is an online community software to help you in community building and increasing brand awareness. You can use Amity to create a discussion forum so members can share posts and discuss ideas with other community members. It allows members to create personalized avatars and edit their display name, a profile description, and personal information to promote individuality. It has an activity feed to keep members updated on trending posts from their private groups and the global community.
Amity is the best community management software with moderation tools to moderate users and community content. You can assign community and network moderator roles to moderate posts, comments, and users within the community or the entire network. Amity allows moderators to flag inappropriate posts to maintain the integrity of your community. It has a post review feature that allows your community manager to determine which posts can appear on the community newsfeed.
Amity pricing starts at $0.06/month/active user and offers a 15-day free trial.
5. BuddyBoss – Community builder software with a gamification feature.
BuddyBoss is an online community software for increasing brand awareness and improving customer retention. It allows you to create a discussion forum so members can communicate and interact with other community members. This community building software allows members to organize themselves in public or private groups for more intimate interactions. BuddyBoss allows members to upload and share documents with other members to promote knowledge sharing.
BuddyBoss is the best online community software with a gamification feature to promote user and customer engagement. You can encourage members to return to your site by giving awards like unlocking premium content or receiving discounts for community merchandise. BuddyBoss lets members unlock ranks and earn badges by completing tasks. Community members can award and deduct points depending on how members behave.
BuddyBoss integrates with other community building apps like Groundhogg, Directorist, and FluentCRM.
BuddyBoss pricing starts at $228/year/site.
6. Khoros – Community builder software with a knowledge base feature.
Khoros is an online community software for creating digital spaces where members can share ideas, connect with peers, and get answers. It has moderation tools to approve and prioritize posts, add topic tags, and flag inappropriate comments. Khoros has a gamification feature to motivate customers to engage with your brand and interact with other members.
Khoros is the best online community platform with a self-service knowledge base feature to provide instant customer support to customers. This knowledge base feature can help customers resolve issues on their own and reduce customer support calls. Khoros community members and moderators can create and edit content to share their knowledge with other members. Admins can repurpose user posts into knowledge base articles to create the ultimate guide for Khoros community members.
Khoros integrates with social media and customer support apps like Google Analytics, Microsoft Dynamics, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WeChat.
Khoros provides pricing details and a free demo upon request.
7. Hivebrite – Community builder software with a membership management tool.
Hivebrite is an online community platform for building, managing and engaging your online community. You can customize user profile fields to reflect critical information for your community. Hivebrite has a mobile app for iOS and Android users to engage customers anywhere. You can customize the style, colors, and design to promote your brand.
Hivebrite is the best online community platform with a membership management tool to manage your membership database and engage members. Hivebrite lets you see the geographical distribution of members for localized content and concentrate on locations with fewer members. You can use this online community software to create advanced membership plans with access to premium content to increase your revenue.
Hivebrite integrates social media and business tools like Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft Dynamics, and Blackbaud CRM.
Hivebrite provides pricing details and a free demo upon request.
8. Orbit – Community builder software with built-in analytics.
Orbit is a community builder platform for creating and managing online communities. You can use Orbit to create a discussion forum for members to share and discuss ideas. It has an automation feature to save time by automating tasks like activity tracking and community segmentation. Orbit has a community monitoring feature to get a unified view of community members and activities.
Orbit is the best online community platform with built-in analytics to gain insights into how different activities improve community engagement. This analytics feature can help you identify key members who drive engagement and inactive members you need to engage more. You can use this feature in your online community and identify where to focus resources. Orbit also has a reporting feature for creating business presentations to share with stakeholders.
Orbit integrates with other community builder apps like Reddit, Slack, and Twitch. You can connect Orbit to a paid Zapier account to access more premium apps.
Orbit has a free plan with limited features for up to 3 admin users, while the pricing for paid plans starts at $200/month/up to 10 admin users.
9. Disciple – Community builder software with content management feature.
Disciple is a community builder software for creating an online community with unlimited members. Disciple’s online communities are accessible through a web browser or a mobile app for iOS and Android mobile devices. It has a live streaming capability that allows you to host live events and conduct online meetings. Admins have moderation tools to enforce community guidelines and flag inappropriate content.
Disciple is the best online community platform with content management capabilities to help you create and share with your community. You can customize your content library with informative articles to help community members grow. Disciple has multiple layouts you can choose from to give members a unique-looking content library. Use Disciple’s folders to group similar content to help members find the content they need quickly.
Disciple integrates with other business tools like Gmail, Mailchimp, Salesforce, and YouTube. You can connect Disciple to a paid Zapier account to access premium apps.
Disciple pricing starts at $46/month/up to 100 members.
10. Joomla – Community builder software with a website builder feature.
Joomla is a community builder platform for starting a networking website. Users can create customized profiles using an image of their choice and the details they want other users to see. Joomla has tabs to help users easily find the group or documents they need. It has moderation tools for approving new members and moderating content.
Joomla is the best community builder software with a website builder feature for easily building your online community. You can create a free website yourself and host it using your server or a Joomla subdomain. Joomla also lets you upgrade to private hosting through SiteGround. It can save you money because you don’t need to outsource your website design to a website developer.
Joomla has a free version with limited features, while the pricing for paid versions starts at $99/year/account.
Other Community Builder Options
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- InSided - A platform for engaging customers, sharing news, and promoting your brand.
- Vanilla Forums - A cloud-based and open source community software to increase customer loyalty and reduce customer support expenses.
- Influitive - A platform for building a community and inviting customers to post product reviews, social media posts, and knowledge base articles.
- Zapnito - Online community platform for increasing brand awareness and sharing ideas with members.
- Honeycommb - Community platform for creating and managing a web-based or mobile app-based online community.
- Groupeasy - Group management platform for communicating and collaborating with groups.
- EngagementHQ - Online community engagement platform for building and engaging online communities.
- Thinkific - Technology platform that allows course creation for online courses.
- Tribe Platform - Community platform for creating an online community to help you connect, engage, and retain customers.
- Discourse - Forum software for creating a mailing list, discussion forum, and long-form chat room.
Other Community & Event Software Reviews
Here are some other ideas for community-building software (for events, forums, and more).
- Virtual Event Platforms
- Community Engagement Platform
- Online Community Software
- Membership Website Builder
- Community Forum Software
What Do You Think About This List?
Online communities are excellent tools for companies to increase brand awareness, promote new products, and help customers with their concerns. Content creators can use an online community to teach online courses and host online meetings. With the help of the best community builder software above, you can create an online community to connect with more customers, promote your company, and improve customer retention rates.
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