9 Best Community Platforms of 2026

Circle ranks first because it covers the most ground without forcing a sales call. Its Professional plan, $89 a month on annual billing, already includes unlimited members, community spaces, courses, live events, a website, a member directory, payments, gamification, a custom domain and iOS, Android and desktop apps. Business at $199 adds workflows, custom profile fields, Circle APIs and MCP, activity scores and removes Circle branding, while Scale at $419 brings AI agents, AI moderation, a knowledge engine and webhooks. Live streams hold 100 attendees on Professional and 200 on Business. The limits show up in staff and structure: Professional allows 3 admins, 10 moderators and 20 spaces, and extras cost $10 per admin or $20 per 10 spaces a month. The 2% transaction fee on Professional also adds up for paid communities. For most creators the bundle still beats stitching together a forum, a course tool and a checkout.

Skool takes second place on ease and price rather than depth. There are only two plans, and both include unlimited members, unlimited courses, unlimited videos, unlimited live calls, a custom URL and affiliates. Hobby costs $9 a month and Pro $99 a month, or $7.50 and $82 on yearly billing. The real difference between them is the cut on sales: Hobby keeps 10% of what members pay and Pro 2.9%, so anyone earning more than about $1,300 a month should be on Pro. Skool's about page says setup takes less than 30 minutes and that it is an all-in-one platform, so you do not need other tools to run it. Its public discovery page lists communities by topic with member counts and prices, which no other platform here offers at this scale. The trade-off is control: there is little theming, no published integration catalog and no branded app option.

Heartbeat packs the most features into the lowest entry price, as long as the group stays small. Build costs $40 a month billed annually, or $49 monthly, and includes unlimited channels, courses, events, documents and landing pages, unlimited memberships and checkout pages, 5 automation workflows, a custom domain, a member directory, badges and Zapier, Zoom and Google Calendar integrations. Voice and video rooms hold 256 people with unlimited hours, and members can use iOS and Android apps. Grow at $124 a month raises the cap to 5,000 members and adds unlimited workflows, native video hosting with 50 hours, white-label emails, an affiliate program and API access. The limits are real: Build stops at 350 members, and admins and moderators count toward that total, the transaction fee is 5% on Build, and Heartbeat branding stays until Grow. For a mastermind, cohort or paid circle under a few hundred people, it is very good value.

Mighty Networks is the course-first option on this list. Its Launch plan, $79 a month billed annually or $95 monthly, includes unlimited members and spaces, private groups and cohorts, chat with threads, online and in-person events, livestreaming with 20 hours a month and 100 viewers per stream, and on-demand, cohort and live courses with quizzes, drip schedules and badges. Members use it on iOS, Android and the web. The AI Cohost helps plan the community and outline courses, and members can be charged by subscription, one-time payment or installments. The catch is that several integrations sit one tier up: Zapier, Kit, Google Analytics, APIs and MCP start on Scale at $179 a month. Launch also takes a 2% transaction fee and allows 3 hosts and 10 moderators. For creators whose product is a course with a community around it, the course tooling is the deepest here.

Discourse is the forum standard, and it now has a free hosted plan alongside its open source code. Every hosted plan gives unlimited members and chat, and the Free plan includes 2 staff seats, 10 categories, 5GB of storage and 500k page views a month. Pro at $100 a month adds unlimited categories and tags, custom groups, custom themes, a custom domain, API and webhook access and 15+ plugins such as Solved and DiscourseConnect, with 5 staff seats. Business at $500 a month adds events, automation, gamification, advanced reporting and OpenID and OAuth2 SSO. Hosted communities get free iOS and Android apps with push notifications, and AI spam detection runs on every tier. Teams with server skills can self-host the same software for free. What Discourse does not do is sell: there are no courses or membership checkout, so it suits support, product and open source communities more than paid groups.

Kajabi is less a community tool than a business platform with a community inside it. Basic costs $143 a month billed annually, or $179 monthly, and includes 5 products, 2,500 contacts, 1 website, 1 community and 2 admin users, with unlimited marketing emails, landing pages, funnels and access groups. Members use the Kajabi Customer App, and Pro at $399 a month adds a branded mobile app, 3 communities and 100,000 contacts. Kajabi takes no revenue share; with Kajabi Payments, US card processing runs 2.9% plus $0.30 on Basic, and third-party providers carry a 2% fee on that plan. Growth at $199 adds 50 products, 25,000 contacts, third-party integrations, advanced automations and 500 AI credits. Compared with Circle or Skool, the community features are thinner, but you drop separate tools for email, sales pages and checkout. It makes sense when the community supports a course or coaching business.

Bettermode targets companies that want a customer community on their own domain rather than a creator membership. Starter costs $149 a month billed yearly, or $199 monthly, and includes the core Q&A, discussion, events and polls apps, a custom domain, removal of the Powered by Bettermode badge, private messaging and chat, social login, basic analytics and chat and email support, for up to 10,000 members and 5 collaborators. Slack, Discord and Mailchimp integrations come on every plan, and data can sit in the US or the EU. Growth at $1,500 a month raises the limit to 25,000 members and adds Ask AI, federated search, full API and webhooks, a sandbox and integrations with HubSpot, Zendesk, Intercom and Salesforce. The gap between those two plans is the main drawback, and there are no course or paid membership tools listed. It suits support and product teams more than creators.

Disciple is for organizations that want their community to live in an app with their own name on it. The Branded App plan costs $599 a month billed yearly and includes an iOS and Android app listed under your brand, a web version, a custom domain, unlimited members under fair usage, 5 admin seats, 10 groups, 1 monetizable course, 10k video minutes, a success manager, scheduled posts, custom badges and data exports. Branded App Pro at $999 lifts admins, groups and courses to unlimited and adds Zapier, multi-tier pricing, multi-host livestreams and advanced analytics. You design the app without code in the Disciple Console, and the web community is live from the start of the trial. Members can be charged through subscriptions, in-app purchases or paid downloads. The price is the barrier: a branded app on Circle or Mighty Networks needs their custom top tiers, while Disciple starts there, so it only pays off when an app is the point.

Hivebrite is built for institutions rather than creators. The Focus plan starts at $8,000 a year, billed annually, and Hivebrite says it goes live within a month. It includes public pages with a no-code page builder, your own domain and branding, unlimited members, a directory with rich profiles, messaging, events with tickets, RSVPs and waitlists, news, forums and a live feed, analytics with engagement scoring, Stripe payments, promo codes and member surveys. AI features cover global search, people and content recommendations and a conversation nudger agent, and an MCP server is listed. Extra channels such as a branded mobile app cost $2,300 a year each, and WhatsApp is offered as a channel. The Custom plan adds mentoring, sub-communities, SSO, sandbox environments and a named account manager. Focus includes only 1 admin seat, and everything runs through a sales process. For an alumni office or association it replaces a lot of membership admin; for anyone smaller it is overkill.