Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
5 tools that solve a similar problem. Compare what each costs and what it covers.
Forum software you host yourself
Flarum costs nothing at any size, self-hosted like NodeBB but with no hosted plan to grow into, right for a community that will always run its own server.
Forum software, hosted or run yourself
Discourse is the other open source forum built the same way, self-hosted for free or hosted from $100, the natural first comparison before settling on either one.
Channels for a community that outgrew a group chat
Slack from $9 with a free tier hosts the conversation for you, channels instead of threads and nothing to run.
Community software that looks like yours, not ours
Circle is built for a feed with notifications on a phone, the modern community feel that NodeBB's threads and categories do not attempt, from $89 a month with no free tier.
Community, courses and memberships
Mighty Networks bundles the community feed with courses and paid memberships, a broader business tool than NodeBB's plain forum, starting at $79 on a trial.
