The honest list, not the affiliate list.

What it’s for

Connect is the right answer when your community is more than chat and more than a forum. Multi-tenant by design — each customer gets their own subdomain (or custom domain), Auth0 organisation, theme, embed SDK. Per-tenant pricing instead of per-seat means a 500-member free community is $0 and a 2,500-member professional community is $119/month flat.

Where it falls short

Not the right answer if your community is twelve people chatting — WhatsApp is fine. Not the right answer for a server-style live-voice gaming community — Discord is built for that exactly. And the network-effect of being on a tool everyone already has (Slack, Discord) is a real cost of moving here that we don't pretend away.

What it’s for

Discord wins when speed is the point: live voice, fast text, big servers with thousands of members chatting in real time. The 100-million-DAU network effect is real — every gamer and most Gen-Z creators already have it. For communities where being current matters more than being durable, Discord is correct.

Where it falls short

Built for ephemeral. The article you wrote last month is gone. Search is chat-only. No custom domain, no SEO, no public discoverability beyond Discord's own "server discovery". The model breaks the moment you need archive.

What it’s for

Slack is brilliant for ten-to-five-hundred person teams. Threading, integrations, search-of-history, the cultural defaults of how to work async — all of it is best in class. If your community is an internal team that needs chat and integrations, nothing beats it.

Where it falls short

Per-seat pricing kills community use cases. The free tier loses 90 days of history. No public discoverability — nobody finds your Slack from a Google search. No structured Q&A or article surfaces. Slack is the inside of a company; communities need more than that.

What it’s for

Skool nailed the creator-course-community trio. If you sell a cohort course at $497 and want a tidy forum + course player + community thread on a single platform, Skool is hard to beat. The economics work for solo creators in a way the older platforms don't.

Where it falls short

Forum-shaped, not chat-shaped — no real-time channels, no DMs, no presence. Hosted on skool.com (no custom domain). Breaks down the moment your community isn't structured around a course.

What it’s for

Circle is the most polished course-and-community platform on the market. The asynchronous discussion UI is best in class. If you're a creator running a $99/month membership and need everything to look beautiful by default, Circle delivers.

Where it falls short

Per-member pricing scales with success. Real-time chat is an add-on or higher-tier feature, not the default. AI sits on Enterprise. Embed SDK doesn't exist. Custom domain only on Professional+.

What it’s for

Mighty packs the most features per dollar in the category — courses, events, payments, livestream, groups. If you want the kitchen sink, this is it.

Where it falls short

Dense UI, busy navigation. The breadth comes at a cost in clarity. AI features are gated to upper tiers. No embed SDK. Mighty's "Powered by" footer survives until the Community tier.