Best Circle.so Alternatives, Competitors & Similar Software (2023)
Looking for different alternatives to Circle.so community platforms? Then, you've come to the right place! Here, you can read more about the best Circle alternatives available to build your community quickly. But first, let's understand what Circle is and why it matters.
What is Circle.so all about?
Circle.so is a "community-centric platform for creators and brands." It offers a digital space where creators, business professionals, and general members can participate in a variety of discussions. The space also helps them create an engaging environment for members to interact with. You can only have audiences with iOS devices because the Circle app is only available for iOS.
Reasons to look for Circle.so Alternatives?
Circle.so is a great platform for creators and brands, but there are some disadvantages to it that you should be aware of before making your decision.
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You can create courses with Circle.so, but it's really known for its paid community. If you're looking for a learning platform that supports online courses and community-based learning, you should look for one with all those features in one place.
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The Circle iOS app was launched in early 2021, but there is no information about when an Android app might be released. Although this does not directly impact you as a course creator, your members will be affected because they cannot access live streams or live webinars and will need an iOS device.
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Circle.so offers basic community features like Slack or Discord. You can get space groups, events, and online communities on Circle. However, if you're looking for a tool with more features, like drip course lessons, moderation tools, team collaboration, and gamification tools, Circle may not be the right fit for you.
Best Circle.so alternatives you can try
Graphy Community Platform
Discord
Mighty Networks
Slack
Tribe
Graphy Community Platform
Graphy Community Platform is an ultimate community platform that helps you build a robust community where you can sell your courses and host live events, webinars, and live streams. It offers the best community features through which you can moderate, manage, and monetize your community all in one place - with your brand appearance, under your custom domain. Graphy Community Platform can also generate a whitelabelled mobile app and list it on the Play Store/App Store.
Features
Pros
- Available across in multiple formats & avatars; be it a web app under your domain, a native whitelabeled app on Android and iOS, integrations within your existing app or API-based integrations.
- Auto Scaling across platforms - Scenes uses powerful auto-scaling technology to keep your community blazing fast no matter how many visitors you have across all devices. They scale as you scale.
- The only platform that enables custom CSS for top to bottom granular-level user interface customization. You can make your community look close to your app/website's UI.
- A built-in coin system lets you incentivize your community members to engage more.
- Live audio-video features for your events, webinars and live classes where all your members can get notified and RSVP.
Cons
- You will lose some members during the platform migration process.
Discord
Discord barely needs any introduction as a community tool. Originally intended to be a text/voice-based group-chatting platform for gamers, Discord has broken the mould to house all kinds of communities. Think of it like a less-serious version of Slack. You have channels, role systems that enable you to restrict access to specific/all members and incentive systems (boosts).
Discord Features
- Interact via live/audio video and text-based channels with community members.
- Assign roles to restrict access to specific channels or to introduce status-based hierarchies within your community.
- Reward valuable social behaviour among your community members through Badges (a gamification tool).
Discord Pricing
- Starting price is $4.99/month for Discord Nitro Classic and $9.99 for Discord Nitro.
- A free version of Discord is available.
Pros
- Discord has unlimited file storage.
- Discord allows audio calls to up to 5,000 concurrent listeners.
- Discord allows you to make Public and Private channels.
Cons
- Discord has a limited group video-calling capacity with a limit of as low as 25 members.
- Discord works well for starters, but when you hit scale (500+ members), you will find that it is not at all customizable - no whitelabeling, no branding and no support. As a result, you don't have 100% ownership of your community.
- Discord does not provide valuable in-depth reporting and analytics that enables you to take critical decisions to steer the community.
Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks allows businesses of any size to create online courses, mobile apps, and communities. In addition, one can create membership sites to offer paid courses, paid groups, or bundles of courses and groups.
Mighty Networks Features
- It offers platform capabilities that scale as your community scales, allowing a seamless experience for you and your community members.
- White-label and customize your community under your domain and replicate your brand aesthetics.
- It has many LMS features that let educators and course-creators manage and run their online courses in one place.
Mighty Networks Pricing
- Starts at $39/mo.
- A 14-day free trial is available.
Pros
- It offers good social engagement features like live audio/video and chat that lets your members engage with each other.
- It comes with a native mobile app that is fully Whitelabeled (available when you buy the Mighty Pro plan)
- It has a very user-friendly UI on the web that replicates Facebook groups on some level.
Cons
- Not very customizable when it comes to their user-interface. Community owners have to work within a relatively rigid set of constraints.
- At $30,000, the native mobile app is the most expensive compared to other alternatives.
- The course creation experience has been said to be 'cumbersome' by many of their paid customers.
Slack
Slack is where workplace communication happens. As a tool designed for collaborative workflow, Slack allows team members to put forward their ideas or concerns and get them heard whenever they want. It's a one-stop shop for work-chat that integrates with typical web applications like Google Drive and Dropbox.
Slack Features
- The thread features allow effective communication between team members by tracking every new conversation.
- Create public and private channels to allow for team-based collaboration and communication.
- Supports all kinds of rich-text formats and media, including images, GIFS, file uploads, bulletin and numbering and more.
Slack Pricing
- Paid Plans start at $8.75 per user/mo.
- The free Plan includes access to 10,000 recent messages, ten integrations with other apps, and 1:1 voice and video calls.
Pros
- Works best for improving workplace communication and efficiency between teams.
- Extremely intuitive interface, rich with features with plenty of integrations with other products.
- Works seamlessly for remote teams all around the world.
Cons
- Slack is a great workplace tool but nothing close to a community-building platform. The entire tool is optimized to improve collaboration over email.
- The paid Plan is expensive for community builders, starting at $8.75 per user monthly. That is ~$1000 if you have a community of 100 members.
- No gamification tools to incentivize your community and no ability to white-label your community in terms of domain, branding and appearance.
Tribe
Tribe is a Whitelabell community platform for businesses. It is famous for its customizability and integration capabilities. Primarily, Tribe is built for text-based conversations using features like forums, polls, etc.
Tribe Features
- The UI is easy-to-use and comprises customizable blocks called 'spaces'.
- It offers powerful rich-text features to format and deliver your content how you want to present it to your users.
- A moderation panel that lets you manage your community smoothly and efficiently.
Tribe Pricing
- Paid Plan starts at $59/month.
- The free Plan includes 100 total members, essential apps, and a custom domain.
Pros
- Offers a white-label community with a good level of customizations that lets you match your community aesthetics to your brand aesthetics.
- Has widgets and APIs that let you integrate with several third-party applications.
- Has a generous free plan that lets you house 500 members (without the Paywall feature, however).
Cons
- More of an old-school forum-based tool rather than a full-fledged community platform with real time-communication features like live audio/video.
- It lacks an incentive system and gamification features necessary for community engagement. Your users need incentives to engage.
- No built-in shop/paywall system that lets your users buy products from you, such as premium memberships, courses, and the like.
Disclaimer: To curate the pros, cons and reviews - we mine the internet for customer references regarding the said software. Some of our sources include Reddit, Product Hunt, Twitter & Quora (and sites like G2 & Capterra).
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