10 Best Online Community Platforms 2026 + Free Options

I’ll dive into that in this post and walk you through how to build an online community, with advice from experts who have successfully done it themselves. Premium memberships and product or service sales can be used to monetize your community and promote growth and success in these virtual spaces. The amount of time spent on community pages can be used to gauge how engaging the content is for users. Community managers may make evidence-based decisions and modify strategies for sustained growth and success by using the useful data that these KPIs give.

In the second approach, knowledgeable members list the subjects they wish to teach. The rest of the members then select the topics they wish to learn. The staff bulletin activity is about coworkers getting to know what goes on in each other’s lives. This activity captures daily occurrences and significant events in team members’ lives. Virtual volunteering opens up opportunities for employees to serve the wider community. In addition, this community-building process involves social interaction among colleagues.

Virtual Pictionary

Over time, he saw how fragile client work can be and shifted toward building his own creator business. Today, he helps small creators build sustainable, content-driven businesses and choose software that actually fits their needs. James has worked with more than 20 creators through his coaching program, Growth Creator Lab (GCL), helping them grow faster with clearer positioning and better systems. He also tests, buys, and reviews business software separating what works in practice from what is mostly hype. Platforms like Circle, Mighty Networks, and Skool provide strong engagement tools such as interactive discussions, live streaming, polls, direct messaging, and gamification.

Most social platforms support these community formats, but many restrict how you can monetize or communicate. Some ban paid memberships, limit content types, or run ads that pull your audience’s attention elsewhere. In comparison to other platforms on this list, Circle is a more affordable option for those looking to build a community around their brand or business. Slack has exploded in popularity in the past few years and is now one of the most popular community platforms for businesses and organizations to facilitate team communication.

For example, a gaming community might partner with Razer to sponsor a tournament, which boosts both engagement and cash flow. Partner with companies that align with your community’s interests to sponsor posts, events, or features. Think of it like having a cool guest drop by with special goodies for everyone. Growing a community takes time, but with the right strategies, you can attract engaged members who add value and keep the momentum going.

There are several ways you can build engagement in your online community. They include asking for feedback, creating polls, organizing virtual events, and incorporating gamification. However, it all starts with an environment where members interact freely. The forum has six main discussion boards offering help with listings, bookings, general business, and design tips. The community café is where hosts can chat about their hobbies or arrange social meetups. Its online community – Tripadvisor Forums – offers members a space to share and learn from each other travel experiences.

It also allows you to categorize content and offers seamless discovery through a personalized activity feed. Moreover, your members can access the group and engage with the content and other members via the web and mobile apps. Moreover, the initial plan limits your membership to 100 users, and you’ll have to pay around $759 per month for up to 1,000 users and $1,199 per month for up to 10,000 users. Your members enjoy their personalized community feed, they can create new discussions or engage with existing ones, and they can easily search for and connect with other members. Setting up your online community on Disciple is quick and easy, and all the platform’s functionality works great right out of the box. Disciple is a hosted platform that allows you to create a fully branded community over which you have complete ownership and control.

Mighty Networks Pros

• Her writing has also appeared in outlets such as Digital Trends, Pay.com, and Springboard.
• These policies should be transparent, easily accessible, and updated regularly to reflect changing community standards and expectations.
• Over time, he saw how fragile client work can be and shifted toward building his own creator business.

The messaging feature allows community members to communicate easily in private chat rooms or make announcements on public channels about projects they are working on. Skool also boasts a higher completion rate for their courses due to all of the features keeping students contained on the site. Your course and community are housed in the same place, which means your students can be more interactive while they’re going through your courses.

GroupApp offers three paid tiers limiting you based on the number of channels and admins you can have. All plans allow for unlimited courses and have no platform transaction fees. However, unlike Circle or Mighty Networks, GroupApp does not support native livestreaming. You must use third-party software like Zoom, which means members are directed outside your community to participate.

Will it deliver you fresh content ideas, help you stay accountable for production, raise your status within a niche, or lead to increased revenue, DatingsMatch on YouTube directly or indirectly? Without clear incentives, running, moderating, and promoting the community will simply become another item on your to-do list. At Ghost, we launched a community for publishers and creators. It’s a private community that anyone can apply to become a member of.

Publishers, creators, and business owners create communities so that their audiences can communicate with them, and each other, more directly. Online communities are one of the best ways to foster better alignment with your audience, encouraging trust and growth for your business. An online community is an ongoing connection and conversation around something members care about. A networking event or conference is a short term conversation. A successful event, like a successful community, needs a clear Ideal Member and Big Purpose.

– Plan Content, Guidelines, And Engagement

Answering these two questions ensures you choose the correct strategies to achieve your goals, including which platform to use and what content to share. Meaningful interactions drive customer satisfaction, customer retention, and customer loyalty. Your community’s structure will differ depending on the type of platform you choose. If you build your brand community website, you can structure the community however you want. Paid community platforms include Slack, Mighty Networks, Circle, Skool, and others. Membership sites are similar to them, although offer a slightly different experience focusing on giving members an exclusive access to your content.

That way, you can quickly measure what’s working, adjust what’s not, and keep your community moving toward success. You can build any kind of community on Whop, from trading and coaching groups to creative spaces for artists, streamers, or musicians. It’s flexible, fast to set up, and designed to help you monetize what you love. These help people in the same field connect, share insights, and grow their skills.

Integrations with other tools like CRM, email marketing, and social media platforms are must-haves for a holistic community strategy. Platforms should offer API access, plugins, and Zapier integrations to streamline workflows and enhance community management. For learning purposes, integration with video conferencing tools like Zoom is essential.

This can be invaluable for understanding customer needs, preferences, and pain points, which can inform product development, marketing strategies, and more. For example, Nike’s online community allows fitness enthusiasts to share their journeys, participate in challenges, and connect with like-minded individuals. This not only keeps customers engaged but also encourages them to stay loyal to the brand, leading to repeat purchases and word-of-mouth referrals. That’s what online communities do — and in 2025, they’re more powerful than ever. With over 430 million people connecting on platforms like Reddit (Statista, 2024), communities have become the modern-day town square, where interests spark, and real conversations happen.

Finally, always ensure that your community has a clear purpose that resonates with its members. Whether your community is focused on professional networking, learning, or shared interests, members need to see the value in participating. Discord has a free version and can accommodate the needs of any team. It also has paid plans and pricing may vary depending on your country and chosen subscription plan. The table below shows all the platforms we will review in more depth in this guide while looking at each one’s pros and cons, features, and pricing. Mighty Networks is an all-in-one community platform that lets you do everything we talked about above.

And every generation says they love joining communities around a brand they care about, with GenX being the highest at 62%. To find people, you can request volunteers from trusted customers, create a banner on your website, or include mentions in your company newsletter. My first recommendation is to familiarize yourself with the software or platform you use to set up your community. It’ll help you throughout every other step of the process, from deciding the platforms you use to how you advertise your community — really any additional steps you go through along the way. 3 templates to help you build, grow, and connect with your community.

Community spaces can be a one-stop portal for receiving or providing information, advice, or additional assistance. Organizations administering these platforms can leverage the maintenance of these spaces to relate with consumers, foster positive sentiment, respond to inquiries, and gather data on engagement. They also facilitate data intelligence on common requests and user behaviors.