Building a thriving online community starts with choosing the right platform. A great platform helps you create a space where members feel valued and engaged while giving you the tools to grow your audience.
With countless platforms available, choosing the best one can feel overwhelming. Each platform offers different features and strengths, from simple group management to advanced tools for monetization and analytics.
Some focus on ease of use, making it simple to get started, while others provide scalability for communities that need to grow without limitations. Your choice will depend on what your community needs most, from interaction tools to seamless content delivery.
In this article, we will explore the top 10 online community platforms for engagement and growth. These platforms are designed to boost interaction, simplify management, and support your audience.
With the right platform, you can create a professional and interactive space where your community thrives and your business grows!
Benefits of Using an Online Community Platform
Online community platforms offer far more than just a space to interact. They are powerful tools for engagement, loyalty-building, and even business growth. Here are the key benefits they bring:
Improved Audience Engagement
An online community platform helps you connect with your audience in meaningful ways, making it easier to build relationships and keep them engaged. A dedicated space for your audience to interact with you and each other builds a sense of belonging and loyalty.
Features like discussion boards, private feeds, and live chats encourage active participation so members feel heard and valued.
With tools that allow you to share updates, host events, or answer questions directly, your audience stays informed and connected. Interactive elements like polls, comments, and likes make participation more fun and engaging.
Building Brand Loyalty
When your audience feels part of a community, they’re more likely to stay engaged and committed to what you offer. This sense of belonging helps your brand stand out from competitors and makes your customers feel valued.
Over time, these meaningful connections foster trust and loyalty. When people feel supported and heard within your own community, they’re more likely to recommend your brand to others and keep coming back for your products or services.
Enhanced Customer Support
Instead of relying solely on emails or calls, customers can access discussion boards, FAQs, or dedicated support threads to resolve their issues.
Also, online communities encourage peer-to-peer support, where members help each other by sharing their experiences or solutions. This lightens the load on your support team and creates a sense of collaboration within the community.
Revenue Generation Opportunities
You can monetize your community by offering paid memberships, exclusive content, or access to premium features. It creates a reliable income stream while providing extra value to your most loyal members.
Also, online communities are perfect for upselling and cross-selling products or services. You can promote new offerings directly to your audience through targeted posts, private messages, or announcements.
Community feedback can also help you refine your offerings, making them more appealing and easier to sell. Sponsorships, partnerships, or affiliate opportunities can further increase revenue by using active engagement within your platform.
Start monetizing your community today with CustomerHub’s 14-day free trial and turn engagement into a reliable income stream.
Driving Organic Content Creation
An online community platform encourages your audience to create and share content naturally, which adds value to your brand without extra effort on your part.
A customer might share a tip about using your product, sparking discussions and even new ideas for others. These interactions create a steady stream of user-generated content that can boost your brand’s visibility in search engines and attract new members.
Over time, this organic content becomes a resource that drives ongoing engagement and can make your community a self-sustaining source of value for your brand and your audience.
Access to Valuable Insights
Observing discussions, questions, and feedback shared in the community helps you better understand what your audience needs, what they value, and where they face challenges.
You might notice frequent questions about a specific feature of your product. This could highlight an opportunity to create better tutorials or improve that feature.
Similarly, seeing which topics spark the most discussions can guide your content strategy or inspire new product ideas. These insights help you tailor your offerings and show your audience that you’re listening to their needs.
10 Best Online Community Platforms in 2025
With countless options available, finding the right platform can feel overwhelming. Below, we review some of the top online community platforms, highlighting their standout features, use cases, pricing, and pros and cons to help you make an informed decision.
1. Skool
Skool provides a mix of community features and educational tools that offer users a platform to host courses and foster discussions.
Its interface is designed to be simple for members, with additional options available for administrators. One of its more interactive features is a leaderboard system that encourages member participation through gamification.
Pricing
Skool costs $99 per month and includes all features, one group, unlimited courses, and unlimited members. A 2.9% transaction fee applies to all payments.
2. Kajabi
Kajabi offers an all-in-one solution for creating, marketing, and selling digital products like courses and memberships. Its robust marketing tools, such as automated funnels and a visual email editor, streamline the customer acquisition process.
However, Kajabi’s advanced features often come with a steep learning curve, and its premium pricing can escalate. In contrast, CustomerHub offers an affordable, intuitive alternative with personalized support and simplified workflows.
Pricing
- Kickstarter at $69/month for setting up your business
- Basic at $149/month with essential tools to start
- Growth at $199/month for expanding your business
- Pro at $399/month for scaling with advanced features
3. Hivebrite
Hivebrite specializes in community management for professional networks, alumni associations, and nonprofits. It offers features like event organization, content sharing, and member directories for organizations with complex requirements.
While feature-rich, Hivebrite’s complexity may require time to master, whereas CustomerHub prioritizes ease of use and rapid deployment.
Also, its feature set and pricing structure tend to align more with larger, enterprise-level groups rather than smaller communities or individuals.
Pricing
Hivebrite offers flexible pricing plans tailored to organizations of all sizes.
The Scale plan, designed for growing organizations, includes essential tools to build and expand your community, with pricing available upon request.
For larger, established communities, the Enterprise plan provides a full suite of management modules and custom services offered at bespoke pricing.
4. MemberMouse
MemberMouse offers a range of tools designed to manage subscription-based businesses. The platform supports membership tiers to provide different pricing options. It also includes drip content functionality, which releases content at scheduled intervals.
The platform also includes analytics tools to track member activity and revenue. Businesses can experiment with upsell opportunities and content delivery strategies, though advanced customization may require additional effort.
Pricing
MemberMouse offers three pricing tiers, with each plan providing savings compared to monthly pricing options.
- Pro Plan, designed for advanced membership features at $349.50/year
- Plus Plan, for businesses looking to expand, at $249.50/year
- Basic Plan, which includes essential tools to start, at $149.50/year
5. Higher Logic Vanilla
Higher Logic Vanilla combines discussion forums with analytics and engagement tools for businesses focused on creating interactive customer experiences. It provides options like automated campaigns and segmentation to support engagement at scale.
While it’s a strong contender for large-scale operations, it can be overly technical for solopreneurs and small businesses. CustomerHub, by comparison, keeps things simple while providing the essential tools creators need to connect with their audiences.
Pricing
- Essentials package is suitable for small companies or those with a single-use case
- Corporate package supports more complex community structures and multi-product organizations
- Enterprise package includes scalable, high-level capabilities for the largest and most advanced use cases
Higher Logic Vanilla offers flexible pricing based on business needs, and pricing is available upon request.
6. Thinkific
Thinkific is a platform designed to help creators and educators build and sell online courses. Its tools include course design functionality for creating structured learning experiences.
The platform offers customizable templates for building branded course websites, enabling creators to showcase their content professionally. Also, Thinkific integrates with popular payment gateways to facilitate payment and transaction management.
Pricing
- Basic plan at $49/month provides foundational tools to start monetizing your expertise
- Start plan at $99/month is geared toward scaling your business with features to boost student engagement and growth
- Grow plan at $199/month includes expanded support, additional learning products, and features to maximize sales
7. Patreon
Patreon provides creators with a platform to build membership-based communities. It enables monetization through tiered subscriptions and exclusive member content. Tools for payment processing and member management also simplify the setup for individual creators.
Pricing
Patreon lets you start for free, with tools to share content and engage your audience. When ready, you can add paid options to grow your creative business.
The Pro plan takes 8% of income and includes subscriptions, membership tiers, and analytics.
The Premium plan takes 12% and adds coaching, team accounts, and merch options. Both include payment and payout fees.
8. BuddyBoss
BuddyBoss is a WordPress-based solution that transforms websites into community platforms, complete with forums, social groups, and customizable profiles. While powerful, BuddyBoss requires familiarity with WordPress and additional plugins for advanced functionality.
CustomerHub’s plug-and-play approach eliminates this technical barrier, which allows creators to focus on their expertise rather than their tech stack.
Pricing
- 1 Site plan costs $299 and is ideal for launching your online platform
- 5 Sites plan is $349 (discounted from $465) and provides a complete solution for growing your business
- 10 Sites plan costs $449 and supports larger-scale growth
9. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds specializes in course creation with an emphasis on interactivity, which offers tools like video quizzes, certificates, and branded course apps. While it’s great for course-focused creators, its pricing can escalate with add-ons and advanced features.
Pricing
- Starter plan costs $29/month with basic tools for course creation
- Launch package, at $84.15/month, includes the Launch package for advanced features
- Growth package costs $254.15/month and is designed for scaling learning businesses
- Hybrid learning package is available at $508.30/month for advanced, hybrid learning solutions
10. CustomerHub
If you’re still growing your audience and aren’t ready for a full-scale community platform, you don’t need to overcomplicate things.
CustomerHub provides an all-in-one business solution that includes basic community features while focusing on digital products, memberships, and coaching programs.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by complicated platforms or stuck trying to piece together multiple tools, CustomerHub is your solution. With its all-in-one functionality, CustomerHub lets you focus on sharing your expertise, connecting with your audience, and building a sustainable, scalable business.
Unlike platforms that require weeks of setup or technical expertise, CustomerHub eliminates the barriers to launching and growing your business.
Here are reasons why you should choose CustomerHub as your online community platform:
Seamless Onboarding
Onboarding new members to your platform can be a complex and time-consuming process. CustomerHub eliminates these challenges by providing tools that help you onboard your users with ease.
With CustomerHub’s built-in features, users can quickly start and feel confident navigating your site through personalized member dashboards and automated welcome workflows.
Simplified Digital Product Management
Say goodbye to juggling multiple tools. Managing your courses, memberships, and digital resources is simple with CustomerHub.
Creating courses or memberships is as simple as drag-and-drop and requires no technical expertise with CustomerHub. Your content is always organized and easily accessible, with secure hosting for videos, PDFs, and other resources.
CustomerHub brings everything into one intuitive system, so you no longer need to rely on multiple tools. It handles video uploads and content hosting to remove the need to compress files or deal with hosting issues.
Stay Connected with Private Feeds
CustomerHub’s private customer feed is a dynamic space designed to create meaningful connections between you and your audience. It creates a personalized, focused environment where your content becomes the centerpiece of engagement, which other community platforms lack.
The private feed allows you to share updates, post videos, and respond to questions in real time. You can build community participation while driving conversions with actionable links.
Scalable Monetization Without Limits
With CustomerHub, you’ll never outgrow your platform. Other platforms might limit the number of users, products, or key features at lower tiers. However, CustomerHub offers unlimited users and products, so you can expand your offerings without ever worrying about hitting a cap.
The platform’s built-in sales tools are designed to maximize your revenue potential. With features like smart confirmation pages, you can create a seamless experience for your customers while encouraging additional purchases.
High-converting product pages simplify the selling process while cross-selling tools allow you to showcase complementary products directly in your library.
Insights That Drive Better Results
CustomerHub turns data into actionable insights with advanced activity tracking. You can monitor course completion rates, track user engagement, and filter interactions by product or user type.
These insights let you refine your content and make informed decisions to continually meet your audience’s needs.
Effortless Integrations to Expand Your Capabilities
While many platforms require complex integrations and additional tools, CustomerHub delivers seamless compatibility with over 7,000 apps, including Stripe, Zapier, and your email marketing systems.
When someone purchases a membership or signs up for a course, their information is automatically added to your CRM. It's easier to track interactions, follow up on leads, or offer tailored recommendations, all without duplicating data entry.
Responsive Support So You’re Never Stuck
CustomerHub takes support seriously. With unlimited chat support, a robust help center, and access to certified partners, help is always within reach.
It ensures you’re supported every step of the way when you’re troubleshooting an issue or exploring a new feature.
CustomerHub Pricing
CustomerHub believes scaling your business shouldn’t come with hidden costs or confusing pricing tiers. That’s why they offer a simple, all-in-one pricing structure designed to give you everything you need—without the surprises.
No need to upgrade or pay extra to unlock essentials like secure content hosting, seamless integrations, or advanced tracking. You’ll enjoy unlimited products, members, and opportunities to grow for $79 per month.
Try CustomerHub with the 14-day free trial. No commitments, no pressure—just an opportunity to experience firsthand how this platform can transform your business.
What to Look for in the Best Online Community Platforms
Choosing the right online community platform can impact the success of your community. While specific needs vary, certain features are universally beneficial. Let’s explore the most important attributes to consider when evaluating platforms.
Ease of Use and Onboarding
The best online community platforms prioritize simplicity, which makes them easy for both administrators and other community members to use.
This is important for businesses or creators who don’t have technical expertise, as a complicated platform can lead to frustration and lower community engagement.
Many platforms, such as Kajabi, offer basic onboarding tools but require users to manage complex content migration and integrations on their own.
Switching platforms can also often feel overwhelming, with concerns about migrating content, losing data, or disrupting the community.
CustomerHub eliminates these challenges by handling everything for you—from transferring courses and resources to setting up integrations and workflows. Its “Done-for-You” services make onboarding and platform transitions effortless.
Customization Options
From designing layouts to structuring content, customization options allow you to create a unique and professional-looking community that reflects your style.
However, overly complicated tools can make this process time-consuming and frustrating, especially for those without technical expertise.
CustomerHub keeps customization simple and stress-free. Creating modules and lessons is as easy as drag-and-drop when organizing courses, setting up memberships, or personalizing your community space.
Engagement Tools
Engagement tools are key to creating a lively and active online community. They make it easy for people to ask questions and share ideas, which builds a sense of belonging that keeps them coming back.
CustomerHub makes engagement simple and effective. With a private content feed, you can share updates, post resources, and start meaningful conversations in one central place. Members can comment, like, and react, making them feel part of the community.
You can also host live events, send personalized announcements, and guide members with step-by-step onboarding. All of these tools work together to keep your audience informed, excited, and connected without adding extra work for you.
Content Hosting and Delivery
Poor hosting options or complicated delivery systems can frustrate users and disrupt their experience. A good platform should support various content types, such as videos, PDFs, courses, and downloadable resources.
With CustomerHub, you can organize and categorize your content for easy access. The platform lets you securely host videos, PDFs, and other digital assets.
For creators managing diverse audiences, CustomerHub allows you to tease or hide resources based on customer segments for a personalized experience for your members.
Monetization Options
Monetization options help creators and businesses generate revenue from their content and services. The best platforms provide flexible tools to sell memberships, courses, and digital products while supporting various pricing strategies to fit your audience’s needs.
With CustomerHub, you can sell your products using any e-commerce or payment solution. The platform supports multiple pricing models, including one-time payments, subscriptions, and tiered memberships.
You can also tease content to spark interest or cross-sell additional products directly from your library for an easy revenue boost.
Analytics and Insights
These provide a clear understanding of how your audience interacts to help you drive better results. CustomerHub helps you track course completion and content engagement.
The platform allows you to view and filter activities by product, type, or user so you can focus on the relevant data. You can even set custom user engagement status timeframes to measure activity over specific periods.
Scalability
As your audience and offerings grow, you need a platform that can handle the increased demand without limitations or disruptions. CustomerHub is designed with scalability in mind to make sure your success is never constrained.
With CustomerHub, you can support unlimited users and products to grow your courses, memberships, or digital product offerings without limits.
The platform’s built-in monetization tools, like cross-selling features and flexible pricing models, allow you to scale your revenue streams just as easily.
Integrations and Automation
Integrations and automation help speed up workflows and maximize revenue. CustomerHub’s integrations and automation features help you dominate your revenue game while keeping operations simple.
CustomerHub allows you to tease content and cross-sell from your product library, which encourages customers to explore additional offerings.
The platform is also capable of creating sales pages that convert and integrate with Stripe Products, Checkout, and Customer Portal.
Also, smart confirmation pages speed up product access for a seamless customer experience.
Mobile Accessibility
Many users rely on phones and tablets for online activities, so mobile accessibility is essential for any community platform. A solution that adapts to different screen sizes allows members to view content, join discussions, and make purchases wherever they are.
From browsing courses to posting comments and checking out products, every step is optimized for smaller screens. The platform’s clean interface promotes quick navigation, while creators can manage their community, track engagement, and update content on the go.
Support and Community Resources
Even with the best tools, questions or challenges can arise, and CustomerHub is always there to help. With unlimited chat support, you’ll never feel stuck or on your own whenever you’re troubleshooting an issue or learning how to use a new feature.
CustomerHub also offers a rich library of community resources for building collaboration and shared learning among users. You’ll have access to best practices, innovative strategies, and a space to connect with other creators for ideas and feedback.
How to Get Started With an Online Community Platform
Launching your online community can feel overwhelming at first, but breaking it down into clear, manageable steps makes the process smooth and straightforward. Here’s a simple guide to get started:
Think of Your Goals and Purpose
Before starting your online community, it’s important to understand exactly why you’re creating it and what you hope to achieve.
Ask yourself: What is the main purpose of this community? Are you looking to sell courses, build a membership site, connect with your audience, or provide a space for discussion and support?
Having clear goals will guide every decision you make about your community.
Choose the Right Platform
Start by matching the platform’s features to your goals. If you want to sell courses, look for secure content hosting, drip scheduling, and payment integrations.
For engagement-focused communities, prioritize features like discussion boards, private feeds, and real-time chat. If scaling is part of your plan, choose a platform that supports unlimited members and products, like CustomerHub.
Your platform should also be easy for both you and your members to use. A complicated interface can lead to frustration and lower engagement. Platforms like CustomerHub also offer “Done-for-You” setup services to make transitioning or starting from scratch effortlessly.
Set Up Your Platform
Once you’ve chosen your platform, set up the foundation of your community.
Setting up your platform is simple and stress-free with CustomerHub’s plug-and-play features. Everything you need to create an organized and professional community is built so you can focus on delivering value to your audience.
Start by uploading your content—courses, videos, PDFs, or other resources. CustomerHub handles video uploads by removing the need for file compression or technical adjustments.
With easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools, you can organize materials into clear categories or modules to make them easy for members to access.
If you’re monetizing your content, CustomerHub’s built-in e-commerce tools make it effortless to set up pricing options, payment gateways, and sales pages. You can create subscription tiers, one-time purchases, or even cross-sell products directly from your product library.
Automating tasks like payment setup and student tracking eliminates "tech headaches" and lets you launch your community with confidence.
Customize Your Community
You may also tailor the platform to match your brand and goals. Add your logo, customize colors, and create a layout that reflects your identity. You can also set up key features like private feeds, discussion boards, or event pages, depending on your audience’s needs.
CustomerHub lets you arrange lessons and sections. You can also personalize content visibility by teasing or hiding resources for specific segments for a more tailored experience for different groups.
Create a Launch Plan
It's time to build excitement around your community’s launch. But first, you have to choose a specific date to launch your community and build momentum leading up to it.
Give yourself enough time to finalize the platform, test features, and prepare your marketing materials. Then, you can announce the date early to create anticipation and keep your audience looking forward to the big day.
You can spread the word about your new community across all your channels, including social media, email newsletters, and existing websites. Share the benefits of joining, such as exclusive content, direct access to you, or networking opportunities.
You can also use teaser campaigns, countdowns, or sneak peeks to generate curiosity and excitement.
Invite Your Members
Start by inviting your most loyal supporters, such as long-time customers, followers, or collaborators. This core group can help kickstart activity, share feedback, and create a sense of excitement within the community. Their early participation will make the platform feel active and welcoming for new members.
You have to craft messages that explain the unique value of your community and how it benefits them specifically. Highlight features such as exclusive content, live events, or networking opportunities.
Personalized email invitations or direct messages also work best for showing your audience that their participation is genuinely valued.
Foster Engagement
You can kick off discussions by posting thought-provoking questions, sharing industry updates, or inviting members to share their experiences. Create polls or surveys to get feedback and involve your audience in decision-making.
Interactive features, like those found on CustomerHub, make it easy to encourage participation through comments, likes, and reactions.
You may also acknowledge active members by featuring their contributions or offering rewards like discounts, free content, or badges. Publicly celebrating member milestones or achievements reinforces a sense of belonging and encourages others to participate more.
Members are more likely to engage when they see you actively involved in the community. Platforms with private feeds and real-time notifications, like CustomerHub, make it easier to stay connected.
Monitor and Optimize
Once your online community is up and running, monitoring and optimizing its performance is essential for long-term success. With CustomerHub’s advanced analytics tools, tracking member activity and identifying areas for improvement is simple and hassle-free.
You can use CustomerHub’s activity tracking to monitor course completions, content engagement, and user behavior.
You can filter data by product, user, or activity type to give you a clear picture of how your community interacts with your platform. This information helps you spot trends, understand what’s working, and identify areas where members might be losing interest.
Build Your Community Without the Stress With CustomerHub
Starting an online community shouldn’t be complicated. CustomerHub eliminates the usual tech headaches with a platform that’s simple to use, quick to launch, and designed to grow with you.
In just a few days, you can set up a professional community, organize your content, and engage your audience.
With seamless integrations, CustomerHub connects with your favorite tools and automates repetitive tasks to save you time and effort. CustomerHub’s personalized support team also ensures that you have guidance to keep the process smooth and stress-free.
As your business grows, CustomerHub scales with you, offering the tools and flexibility you need to expand without limits.
Don’t settle for platforms that complicate your goals. With simplicity, speed, and scalability, CustomerHub is the ultimate solution for building an online community that thrives.
Start your free 14-day trial and create a space where your audience feels connected and valued.
FAQs About Online Community Platforms
What is the best platform for communities?
The best platform for communities depends on your goals and needs.
If you're looking to create a customer community with tools for engagement, monetization, and scalability, a great community platform like CustomerHub stands out. It offers features like private feeds, content hosting, and unlimited users for community leaders aiming to grow their audience and business.
What is the most popular online community?
Platforms like Facebook Groups remain among the most popular choices for online communities because of their wide reach and accessibility.
However, for those wanting more control, customization, and features to monetize their audience, platforms like CustomerHub provide a better solution. Unlike Facebook Groups, CustomerHub allows community leaders to build a fully branded space tailored to their goals.
What is the best social media to build a community?
Social media platforms like Facebook are widely used for building communities due to their broad user base and ease of access. Facebook Groups, in particular, are popular for creating casual, interactive spaces.
However, social media platforms often lack advanced tools for monetization and customization. If you’re looking to transition from social media to a great community platform, CustomerHub allows you to build a customer community that offers more personalization, revenue opportunities, and ownership over your audience.
