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Wondering to give Circle a shot? Are you on the lookout for more similar options? Then this article is for you. It will take you through the details of 8 top alternatives to Circle.so.
What is Circle.so all about?
It is only fair that we fully take a look at the ins-and-outs of the platform to make sense of what it offers and what the alternatives to Circle.so can offer in comparison.
Circle.so was recently launched in 2020 to connect clients with their service providers. The idea was to create seamless connections whereby people can discuss, make transactions, and make purchases in an accessible and quick way.
It is an all-in-one community-centric platform for creators and brands. A digital community space where creators, business professionals, learners, and generally, anyone interested can hop on and join the discussion. The space enables meaningful engagement and hence, effective relationships.
Furthermore, the platform revolutionized creator and community dynamics by understanding the importance of merging community elements with business. Reports prove that investing in the community encourages employee participation, impacts positively on the business image, and client satisfaction.
Central features
- Discussion chat rooms
- Private messaging
- Brand building
- Live streams
- Paid memberships
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Free trials
- Multiple integrations
- Advanced analytics
- Invite teammates
Top alternatives to Circle.so
1. Teachfloor
Teachfloor is a one-of-a-kind cohort-based course platform. It focuses on facilitating a quality solution to remote learning with the benefits of in-person learning. One of the key areas that Teachfloor emphasizes is community-building.
The central idea of working in cohorts - a close-knit group of like-minded individuals - is to build lasting relationships for educational purposes, be they academic, professional, or personal. Therefore, it offers the following features:
- Ability to build and sell courses within Teachfloor (no need to pay for a second platform)
- Discussion forum: Participants can share their concerns on the community page and others can respond to them. It is a quick and easy way for people to connect with each others.
- Create and sell cohort-based courses on top of your community
- Peer review: People can review and comment on each others assignments and give constructive criticism. Moreover, peer review in particular encourages independent thinking skills amongst learners.
- Zoom integration: A reliable video-conferencing app is a must for online cohort streaming.
- Multiple admins: Have more than one admin spearhead the community.
- Create customs channels
- Chat one-to-one
- Multiple integrations
- Invite teammates
- Free trials
- White-Label + custom domain
Other features include an analytics dashboard to track participant activity, student enrolment for member onboarding, and Stripe integration for smooth transactions.
The only areas where Teachfloor lacks is in having a mobile app. You can add further integrations via Zapier, however, that will spike up your costs.
2. Slack
Who hasn't heard of Slack these days? The popular business communication platform is in use by nearly are workplaces these days. Nowadays, fewer people are using emails for keeping track of official engagements. Rather, more have taken to the platform as it offers a designated space for each community. In doing so, people can communicate efficiently and keep their discussions organized.
Its primary advantages are simple-to-use and user-friendliness. The interface is easy to navigate and it is available on both the web and mobile. Whereas it may make for ordered community engagement, on the other hand, it lacks key features such as custom branding. For a regular community that may not be an issue, however, for business channels branding is an important element.
Moreover, it is strictly a communication platform which means it offers no monetization option or course creation option. Furthermore, the charges apply per member. Overall, it is a great option for community engagement, and one can integrate it with their website easily.
3. Tribe
Tribe is possibly one of the closest alternatives to Circle.so. In the same way, it is also a business community platform. It operates by focusing on customer engagement through healthy feedback and communication. The best thing about Tribe is its customizability. It offers multiple layout options, color palettes, even custom domains for business branding.
Other features include:
- In-app integrations: Zapier, Google Analytics, your custom apps, and Amplitude for community optimization.
- Moderation: Automation tools and rules to keep the community safe.
- Discussion spaces
- Analytics
- Member access for private communities
As an incredibly customizable and flexible app, Tribe makes for an excellent alternative. Moreover, it is free for up to 100 members. The only cons; the user experience can be a bit cluttered due to excessive integrations and extra charges for removing the Tribe logo.
4. Discourse
Discourse is a platform that lets you create community discussion boards much like Teachfloor for organized communication. Additionally, it offers exciting little features like reacting to each others' posts.
It offers the following features:
- Easy community moderation with inappropriate content flagging.
- Easy-to-use interface
- Organized discussion boards
- Notification system for keeping users updated
While it comes with many upsides, Discourse seems to be an expensive option for most with starting limit at $100/mo. Moreover, one needs some coding knowledge to set up free code from third-party sites if one chooses not to use the platform's offered code. Hence, making it a less suitable option for rookie creators.
5. Discord
Discord is yet another popular team chat platform and one of the interesting alternatives to Circle.so. It works similarly to Slack as both are text-based communication apps and allow users to make specific discussion channels. Furthermore, it also has an easy voice chatting option that gamers seem to love.
The features include:
- Easy-to-use
- Voice and video calling
- Specific community channels
On multiple levels, Discord is similar to Circle, however, the platform seems to lack certain tools for scaling a growing community.
6. Amity
Amity is a social cloud that helps to 'supercharge' your platform with lots of social features. The primary idea for the app focuses on developing online communities and driving social engagement for revenue generation. For this purpose, the platform offers solutions concerning improving app engagement, building lasting communities, promoting customer engagement, and solutions for e-commerce retention.
The platform offers four Amity exclusive features for a 'supercharged' experience:
- Social for community engagement
- Chat for one-to-one communication
- Video for immersive live interaction and webinars
- Bots for streamlining user interactions
Additionally, the platform also offers easy integrations and user profiles for fellow members to follow. It can sustain up to 500k users per community and hence make it a great option for big communities. Moreover, it also offers UI kits for customizations and SDKs. On the downside, it can be a bit much customization at times.
7. Facebook groups
Facebook is another one of the great alternatives to Circle.so. Interestingly, it is free! It is also a convenient option as almost everyone is already using Facebook. Therefore, making it easier for people to connect with community channels in the groups.
Some of the features include:
- Wide accessibility as most people already use Facebook
- Free of cost
- Easy to use interface
One can get too excited by seeing the free option, however, there are multiple downsides to this app as well. Firstly, it doesn't notify the users about the in-group activity and has limited engagement. Moreover, monetization is very complicated. Anyways, people seem to be dropping Facebook now making it a less suitable option for hosting a community.
8. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a white-label community and online course creation platform. One can use it in multiple ways: community building, live event hosting, course creations, and brand development. Users can easily monetize the activity within communities and subgroups. Moreover, clients can pay in several currencies.
The main features include:
- Features like live streaming, Q&A, and polls.
- Web and mobile friendly
- Multiple currency payment option
- Monetization plans
- Unlimited hosts
Overall, Mighty Networks makes for a credible alternative to Circle. The only con is that some users report it to be complicated to navigate.
Conclusions
More and more people are realizing the importance of community-building and how it can help in growing businesses. Communities offer an interesting solution to business marketing by emphasizing on 'giving back' philosophy rather than passive advertisements. By doing so, businesses end up developing lasting and more meaningful customer-seller relationships. This was a quick but detailed look at possible alternatives to Circle.so. Try them out for yourself for an all-rounded overview.
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