Online Community Platform: 9 Options Compared (2026)
Quick Summary
Circle, Mighty Networks, Skool, Kajabi, Discourse, Bettermode, Discord, Slack and Shiken compared on fees, apps, courses, AI and price as of Oct 2026.
The best online community platform is the one built for the kind of community you are running. For a paid creator membership, start with Circle or Skool. If most members will be on their phones, Mighty Networks is the stronger choice. For a B2B customer community that has to connect to your CRM, look at Bettermode. For a searchable support forum, use Discourse. Discord and Slack are free starting points. Check Discord's paid subscription rules and Slack's 90-day free history before you rely on either for paid or searchable content.
Editorial note: This article compares Shiken with Circle, Mighty Networks, Skool, Kajabi, Bettermode, Discourse, Discord and Slack using each vendor's published product information and third-party sources available at the time of writing, last reviewed on 12 November 2026. Capabilities, packaging and pricing change; if you spot something out of date, email info@shiken.ai and we will review it.
Below are nine platforms compared on what decides the purchase: whether courses are built in, how payments work and what fees you pay, native apps, AI features, and the published starting price. Every price comes from the vendor's own pricing page as of 12 November 2026, except where a price is marked otherwise. Check them again before you sign anything, because this category changes its prices often.
The comparison table
| Platform | Best for | Courses built in | Payments and fees | Native apps | AI features | Starting price (Nov 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circle | Professional and creator communities | Yes | Yes; 2% fee on Professional | iOS, Android, desktop; branded apps on Circle Plus | Circle AI credits on every plan; AI agents from Scale | $89/mo, billed annually |
| Mighty Networks | Mobile-first memberships | Yes | Yes; 2% fee on Launch | Native iOS and Android; branded on Mighty Pro | AI Cohost | $79/mo ($950/yr) |
| Skool | Simple, gamified paid groups | Yes, unlimited | Yes; 10% fee on Hobby, 2.9% on Pro | iOS app (Skool Communities) | None listed on pricing page | $9/mo Hobby; $99/mo Pro |
| Kajabi | Selling courses and coaching with built-in marketing | Yes | Kajabi Payments from 2.9% + $0.30 (US) | Kajabi app; branded app on Pro | AI credits from Growth plan | $179/mo ($143/mo annual) |
| Bettermode | B2B customer and brand communities | Not listed | Custom billing on Premium only | Not listed | Ask AI from Growth; AI spam detection on all | $199/mo ($149/mo annual) |
| Discourse | Searchable forums for support and developers | Not listed on pricing page | Subscriptions plugin | Free iOS and Android apps | Discourse AI plugin, daily credits | Free (self-hosted or hosted Free plan); Pro $100/mo |
| Discord | Free real-time chat communities | Not listed | Server Subscriptions; 90/10 split, US banking required | Yes | Not compared | Free |
| Slack | Small professional groups | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Not listed | Free (90-day history); Pro priced per seat |
| Shiken | Communities where members practise skills | Yes, AI-generated | Stripe Connect payouts on Solo Creator | Not listed on pricing page | AI course and quiz generation, AI roleplay, AI moderation | Free; Solo Creator $149/mo ($124/mo annual) |
"Not listed" means the vendor's own pricing or home page didn't mention the feature when we checked. It doesn't mean the feature is missing. If it matters to you, ask the vendor before you buy.
The 9 platforms, ranked by how often they are the right answer
1. Circle: the default for professional communities
Circle's pricing starts at $89/month on the Professional plan (billed annually) with a 2% transaction fee. Business costs $199/month and drops the fee to 1%. Courses, payments and Circle AI credits come with every plan. AI agents, AI workflows and AI moderation start on the $419/month Scale plan. Custom-branded iOS and Android apps need Circle Plus, which is custom-priced.
Pick it if you want discussions, events, courses and payments under your own brand and you care more about how polished the experience looks than about cost. Watch out for the price climbing quickly once you need the AI agent features or your own app in the stores.
2. Mighty Networks: if your members live on their phones
Mighty's pricing starts at $79/month on Launch ($950/year) with a 2% fee. Scale ($179) and Growth ($354) cut the fee to 1% and 0.5%. Mighty's pricing page lists native apps, and apps under your own brand need Mighty Pro (custom pricing). Its "AI Cohost" helps you design the offer and runs onboarding and re-engagement automations.
Pick it if members will mostly use the community from their phones and you run regular live events. Watch out for the per-plan fee steps when you model revenue at scale.
3. Skool: the simplest paid community
Skool's pricing has two plans. Hobby is $9/month with a 10% transaction fee. Pro is $99/month with a 2.9% fee. Both include unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. Engagement depends on gamification: members earn points from likes, climb levels and appear on 7-day, 30-day and all-time leaderboards, and admins can unlock courses at certain levels (Skool help centre). There is an official iOS app.
Pick it if you want to launch this week and keep it that way. Watch out for the Hobby fee. On a $50/month membership with 200 members ($10,000/month in revenue), 10% is $1,000 a month. Pro would cost $99 plus $290. Above roughly $1,300/month in revenue, Pro is the cheaper plan.
4. Kajabi: if the community supports a course business
Kajabi's pricing starts at $179/month (or $143/month billed annually) for Basic, which includes one community. Pro ($499/month) allows three communities and your own branded app. Kajabi's community features include threaded discussions, real-time chat channels, "Meetups" with a built-in live room, challenges and leaderboards. A community channel can also sit inside a course. AI credits start on the Growth plan (500 credits at $249/month).
Pick it if you need email, funnels, landing pages and checkout in the same tool as the community. Watch out for paying for a whole marketing stack when all you needed was a community.
5. Bettermode: customer communities for B2B companies
Bettermode is built for "marketing and CS teams" and "connects to Salesforce, Hubspot, Intercom, Segment" (Bettermode). The pricing page shows Starter at $149/month billed yearly ($199 month to month) and Growth at $1,500/month billed yearly. "Ask AI" and federated search start on Growth. An AI team product called Toggy is sold separately from $750/month.
Pick it if you're a software company that wants a customer community for Q&A, ideas and product feedback, tied to your CRM. Watch out for the big jump from Starter to Growth if you need the AI search features.
6. Shiken: when the community exists to build a skill
Shiken (that's us) is a different kind of tool. The community is one part of a learning platform that also generates courses and quizzes with AI and runs AI roleplay practice. The pricing page lists Solo Creator at $149/month ($124/month billed annually). It includes one community with AI moderation, public course URLs and Stripe Connect payouts. Creator Team is $429/month. Enterprise adds SSO/SAML, SCIM and SCORM export.
Pick it if your members pay to get better at something they have to do, such as selling, coaching, clinical conversations or interviews. Practice scenarios and scored feedback then belong next to the discussion feed. It also fits teams that would otherwise stitch together a community tool, a course builder and a roleplay tool. Don't pick it if you mainly need social features. Circle and Mighty both list native apps and event features, and our pricing page doesn't list native mobile apps. We've set out where we fit against each platform on our community platform comparison.
7. Discourse: the searchable forum
Discourse is open-source and free to self-host. The pricing page also lists a hosted Free plan, Pro at $100/month and Business at $500/month. A Subscriptions plugin sells access to groups. Discourse AI is a plugin with daily credits on each plan, and there are free iOS and Android apps.
Pick it if you're building a developer, open-source or support forum where old threads have to stay findable for years. Discourse's pricing page does not mention a course builder, so pair it with a course tool if you need one.
8. Discord: free and fast, but not built to sell access
Discord costs nothing to start. Paid Server Subscriptions use a 90/10 revenue split, according to Discord's Creator Revenue FAQ, and monetisation requires US-based banking through Stripe.
Pick it if you're running a gaming, hobby or developer community that lives in real-time chat. Watch out for knowledge getting lost in channels, and for the eligibility limits if you're outside the US.
9. Slack: fine for a small professional group
Slack is free, with 90 days of message history. Its Pro plan is priced per user, billed monthly or annually. Slack's pricing page describes seats rather than paid member access, so charging members needs another tool.
Pick it if you have a small, high-trust group of practitioners who already work in Slack. Watch out for the 90-day history limit, which hides older messages from the free plan.
Decision matrix: creator, customer or internal community
The right platform depends far more on who the community is for than on the feature list.
| Your community is… | Start with | Also consider | Usually the wrong fit | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creator: paid membership plus a course | Circle or Skool | Mighty (mobile-heavy), Kajabi (you need funnels and email) | Slack | Circle and Skool build courses and paid access in; Slack's pricing page describes per-seat plans, not paid member access |
| Creator: a skills academy (sales, coaching, interviews) | Shiken | Circle plus a separate roleplay tool | Discord | Members need graded practice, not just a feed |
| Customer community for a B2B product | Bettermode | Discourse, Circle Business | Skool | CRM and support integrations matter more than gamification |
| Developer or support forum | Discourse | Bettermode | Discord | Answers have to stay searchable and linkable |
| Internal / L&D community (cohorts, onboarding, enablement) | The Slack or Teams you already pay for, plus your LMS | Shiken, if you want content, practice and community in one place | Kajabi, Skool | You need SSO and assignments, not creator monetisation |
How to choose the right platform in 5 questions
- Will you charge for access? If you will, model fees at your real revenue. A 10% fee and a 0.5% fee are very different businesses at $20,000/month. Check whether card processing is charged on top.
- Where will members actually show up? If they'll mostly use phones, test the member app on a phone, not the admin dashboard on a laptop. Mighty, Circle, Skool, Kajabi and Discourse all have apps. Your own branded app in the stores is a premium tier on most of them.
- Is the content structured or conversational? Courses and cohorts need a course builder. Q&A needs search and threads. Real-time chat needs Discord- or Slack-style channels.
- What has to connect to it? A creator needs payments and email. A B2B customer community needs CRM and support-desk integrations. An internal community needs SSO, SCIM and an LMS.
- Who will run it every week? No tool fixes a community with no programming. Budget for a weekly event, a welcome sequence and someone answering posts in the first 90 days. AI moderation and AI "cohosts" help, but they don't replace a person.
What usually goes wrong
- Launching to an empty room. Start with a founding cohort of 20–50 people you invite yourself, then open it up.
- Picking on features, then paying in fees. Model year-two revenue before you commit to a percentage-fee plan.
- Running the community and the course on separate tools. Members have to log in to two places and engagement drops. If your offer is "learn X", keep the course next to the conversation. Our guide to selling courses and a community together covers how to structure that.
- Migrating too late. Moving members is painful once threads and payments live on one platform. Check data export and Stripe portability before you launch.
If you're comparing specific tools, we've written head-to-heads on Circle and Skool.
FAQ
What is the best online community platform? There's no single winner. Circle is the strongest all-rounder for professional and creator communities, Mighty Networks is best for mobile-first memberships, Skool is the simplest paid option, and Discourse is the best searchable forum. Choose by use case, using the decision matrix above.
Is there a free online community platform? Yes. Discord, Slack's free plan and Discourse (self-hosted, or its hosted Free plan) all cost nothing to start, and Skool's Hobby plan is $9/month. The trade-offs are monetisation (Discord's paid subscriptions need US banking) and history (Slack Free keeps 90 days).
What's the difference between a community platform and an LMS? An LMS assigns and tracks courses. A community platform hosts conversation, events and member relationships. Creator platforms such as Circle, Mighty, Skool and Kajabi now include courses. Corporate L&D teams usually still need LMS features such as assignments, SCORM and SSO. See our LMS comparison.
