So it’s time to build a community. You’ve been bit by the bug. You know how amazing it can be to create an online community, and add things like online courses and/or virtual events. Maybe you even want your own white-label app so that your community members can come together completely under your brand.
Awesome.
It’s all possible, and there’s never been a better time to build community!
So the inevitable question when you’re starting out (or moving and growing) is, where’s the best place to host this thing?
And maybe you’ve come across Higher Logic. Higher Logic is a community software that was created for two primary markets: Higher Logic Thrive is geared towards associations while their Vanilla Forums community engine can add a forum to a website or app.
While it’s a good basic platform, there are some Higher Logic competitors that offer more features for building your community, and at a better price. In this article we’re going to introduce you to 5 Higher Logic alternatives and walk you through what each one can do for you.
If you want more support in building your online course and community, come join OUR Mighty Community for free and meet other new and established community owners! We’d love to meet you. Join for free!
((toc))
1. Mighty Networks
Ranked #1 community management software by G2
Mighty Networks is cultural software platform that lets you bring together community, courses, content, and commerce on your own platform.
Its powerful forum function lets you build short-form and long-form content including rich articles, video posts, and polls and Q&As, plus giving you all the discussion tools you need like tagging members, a full notification system, and easy moderation for your Hosts. A lot of these features require add-ons with Higher Logic but are just built into a Mighty Network.
Mighty Networks also has some great features that Higher Logic doesn’t, including native live streaming and a full LMS system for building beautiful courses.
It also gives you more ways to monetize, you can sell access to events, courses, custom subgroups, or your whole community. On top of live streaming, its native event platform also has RSVPs, event communities and messaging, and a 1-click Zoom scheduling function built in.
When it comes to apps, Mighty Networks’ native app works for every single community. BUT, for established brands and organizations, we’ll also work with you to create your own white-label app totally under your brand through Mighty Pro. Mighty Pro has built custom apps for brands like the TedX community and Cambridge University’s research network.
If you’re looking for a totally branded white-label app, schedule a call with us.
Mighty Networks will even help you build your community with Mighty Co-Host™. Mighty Co-Host™ is Mighty's AI-powered community name generator. It runs on Chat GPT and can create a Big Purpose, community name, brand, landing and sales pages, and more. Try it!
Features
- AI-powered community building capability
- Short & long-term content
- Video posts
- Polls & Q&As
- Full notification system
- Easy moderation
- Native live streaming
- Course platform (for either prerecorded or live courses)
- Easy subscription management
- Collect payments in different currencies
- SSO
- Rich events with Zoom integration
- Branded subgroups
- White-label apps
2. Tribe
Add a forum to a corporate website
One of the things Higher Logic does through their Vanilla Forums brand is to add a forum function to an existing corporate website. If this is what you’re looking for, Tribe might be a good choice.
Tribe gives you the tools to build forum discussions, organize them into “spaces,” and post different kinds of content like images and videos. As a white-label platform, it comes with the option to add your own branding and custom domain and some useful integrations like Slack and Google Analytics. Like Mighty Networks, it also gives you some useful moderation tools like keyword blocking and post-hiding and lets you tag content.
Like Mighty Networks, Tribe also comes with a white-label app option to have a custom, white-label app, but it’s only got a forum function. Tribe is not an all-in-one platform, and it’s missing features like native events or built-in courses. But it’s a good option for companies that only want a forum solution and nothing else – say for a customer community.
3. Geneva
Geneva Chat is another Higher Logic alternative that gives you space to build a community. It offers an all-in-one communication app that brings together forums, chat, video, and live streaming functions. It’s got a lot to offer as a community platform, giving you the space to schedule and host integrated events and build out forum discussion boards. It’s well-designed and modern, giving you a lot of content features Higher Logic doesn’t like audio rooms or native video meetings.
The only downside to Geneva is its lack of options for monetization. If you’re looking to build a business or sell memberships, Geneva doesn’t really give you much functionality. They’ve recently added token-gating, which is a really neat Web 3 application – you can connect your digital wallet to it. BUT the token-gating isn’t a replacement for a proper point of sale that lets you collect membership fees or dues on your community platform, a feature many other community platforms have.
4. Disciple
Disciple is a white-label community-building app out of the UK that’s one of the Higher Logic alternatives. With Disciple you can create content and live stream within the app. Disciple also has an LMS, giving you the option to build courses for your members, which is a great feature and one that Higher Logic doesn’t have. Like Mighty Networks, the Disciple app has built in live streaming (but not on the web community) – although it doesn’t have native event functionality otherwise.
Disciple’s cost structure is based on charging more every time you add more features, members, and admins, meaning that it can get expensive pretty quick. For example, you need to pay $549/mo to get an app with your community. While the app comes with some great features, other Higher Logic alternatives come with apps built-in at every price point. This makes Disciple a competitor, but more expensive. And instead of giving you unlimited features to grow with, you need to keep paying extra as your community grows and needs more.
5. Hivebrite
Hivebrite is a community software and Higher Logic alternative that’s geared towards non-profits and alumni groups. With a community engine that works in multiple languages, Hivebrite has a good basic platform for creating and connecting your members. Hivebrite also has a lot of built-in native emailing options to reach your members and a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) built in that helps you track your members.
A few downsides to Hivebrite. There’s not really any virtual event capability, which is a miss for a platform built for alumni networking – alumni events are all the rage. The video capabilities are really limited – live streaming is non-existent and even to share video in posts requires a link out to a third-party platform like YouTube. Finally Hivebrite has really limited branding options. It looks really corporate and dated.
Hivebrite is a reasonable alternative to Higher Logic, but with the better options above it only comes in at number 5 on this list.
Ready to start?
If you’re looking for an awesome alternative to Higher Logic for your community, come try out Mighty Networks! We’ve built an awesome, all-in-one platform that grows with you. With native live streaming, amazing courses, integrated events, and a beautiful community platform that works on every device. There’s a reason Mighty Network is ranked the #1 community software by G2.
But don’t take our word for it! You can try it free for yourself for 14 days and see what all the fuss is about.