Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover website builders. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Carrd | Discourse | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $19 | From $100 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Annual only | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 7 days | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Everything, in an open format |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web, Linux |
| Covers | Website Builders, Landing Pages & Funnels, Link in Bio | Community Platforms, Website Builders |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | 1 | None right now |
One-page sites that cost less than lunch
Carrd builds the single page most people actually need: a bio, a link list, a launch page, a form that collects email addresses. Three sites are free and Pro is priced by the year rather than the month, which is why it keeps winning link-in-bio arguments on price alone. A site that wants a blog or a shop outgrows it fast.
Our note
The cheapest way to stop handing out a social profile as though it were a home page. If Linktree's monthly bill is the one you keep meaning to cancel, this is the version you own.
Only on this side
Forum software, hosted or run yourself
Discourse is the forum the internet settled on: threaded, searchable, indexed by Google, and open source, so a community that outgrows the hosted plans can take the database and run it on its own server. That escape hatch is the argument for it over anything closed. The hosted pricing starts where a hobby project stops, and self-hosting swaps the bill for a sysadmin.
Our note
The reason to choose this over Circle or Mighty Networks is that the conversation is public and indexed, which makes the forum an asset rather than a cost. The reason not to is that it is a forum, and an audience raised on Discord will find it slow.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.