Circle

Courses, community and short challenges

Heights Platform bundles courses and community with short challenges at $19, a cheaper seat for a course-led community.

Community, courses and a calendar in one paid space

Skool is the simpler thing Circle out-configures, putting community, courses and a calendar in one paid space from $9 against Circle's $89.

Community, courses and memberships

Mighty Networks covers the same community, courses and memberships from $79 with a trial, the nearest rival at Circle's end of the market.

Your community as an app in the app stores

Disciple puts your community into the app stores under your own name at $399, the step past Circle when a branded app matters most.

A branded social network for one community

Honeycommb builds a branded social network for one community from $24.99, matching Circle's own-brand pitch at a smaller price.

A community with courses and events built in

Heartbeat wraps community, courses and events into one space at $49 with a trial, undercutting Circle's $89 entry.

Works with Discord

Forum software you can host yourself

NodeBB is forum software you can host yourself, from $20 with a free tier, when the discussion matters more than the branding around it.

Forum software you host yourself

Flarum is forum software you host yourself, free, for a community that wants threads on its own server rather than a hosted space.

Forum software, hosted or run yourself

Discourse is the forum-shaped alternative, hosted from $100 or run yourself with a free tier, discussion-first where Circle bundles courses and streams.

Paid memberships bolted onto a site you own

Memberful at $49 bolts paid membership onto a site you already own, so the community lives in your pages rather than in a platform.

Channels for a community that outgrew a group chat

Slack hosts a community as channels with a real free tier and paid from $8.75, a cheap way to test whether people show up before paying Circle's $89.