So it’s time to build an online community, and you’re looking for a place to host it. In your search, you might have come across the name, Honeycommb. Or, maybe you’re already hosting on Honeycommb and looking for an alternative.
If you’re creating an online community, Honeycommb offers some of the features of a community platform. It lets you cultivate discussions, manage members and subgroups, and charge for live events.
But it’s missing a lot of the power of a modern community platform, like discovery features and advanced posting and content options. And its backend community interface is… well… dated.
So in this article, we’re going to talk through some Honeycommb alternatives for your community. We’ll show you some way better options for building and monetizing a community and events, and share some pros and cons of each one.
If you want more support in building your online 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!
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1. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a powerful cultural software platform that brings together community with courses, content, commerce, and live events. Plus, Mighty is ranked the #1 community management software by the review site G2.
Unlike Honeycommb, Mighty has a beautifully designed community platform that makes it really easy to post all kinds of content, including videos, polls, images, and long-form articles. Features like tagging people are built in, and the Discovery and “News Feed” feature gives you an easy way to see everything that's going on in the community. Honeycommb basically gives you a list of text posts.
Mighty also has way more advanced member profiles, with features like built-in chat and messaging, “Members near You,” and a built-in Ambassador program.
Live events are easy with Mighty, you can schedule, collect RSVPs and even payments if you want, and use the built-in live streaming or Zoom functions. And Mighty’s flexible Spaces mean that you can mix in courses and discussion forum features.
What makes Mighty unique from every other community platform is Mighty Co-Host™. It's our AI community builder that makes it RADICALLY EASIER to build your community. You can automatically generate your own Big Purpose, community name, brand identity, landing pages, and more.
Type a few words into the box and we'll start building your community!
Mighty also works great for monetizing your community; you can charge in 135 currencies or monetize with token-gating. And every community comes accessible on a fantastic app for every device.
As an alternative to Honeycommb, Mighty gives you all the same features and more on a much better platform, for a fraction of the price; the $41-a-month community plan will give you everything Honeycommb gives you for $89.
2. Mighty Pro
One of the other things Honeycommb offers is a white-label app. If this is your use case, then you should definitely consider Mighty Pro.
Mighty Pro is the white-label version of Mighty Networks. It gives you all the great features we discussed above but also adds custom, white-label apps built under your brand that live in the App Store and Google Play Store.
We’ve built custom community apps for creators like Adriene Mishler, YouTube’s top Yoga instructor, not to mention businesses like TED and Cambridge University.
Schedule a call with us and we’ll show you what you could build!
3. Circle
Circle is another community platform that offers creators a robust community option. It has some of the same features as a Mighty Network, including a built-in rich community, spaces, and some great discussion options. Like Honeycommb, you can create paywalls for communities, adding plans for the whole community or for access to individual spaces. Circle has a clean design and some options to add your own branding to your community – giving you more flexibility than Honeycommb does.
Circle started as a way to add a community to a Teachable course, but is growing into a stand-alone community platform for creators and entrepreneurs. They recently added some new & beta features to let you customize spaces, marking them for posts, events, chats, or courses.
A couple things are missing with Circle. It doesn’t have a full-fledged Android app yet, although they’ve got one in the works. Mighty lets you charge in 135 different currencies, while Circle only has 6. Mighty also lets you token-gate a community and has a richer feature set (For a full breakdown of Circle vs. Mighty, go here). Last, but not least, Circle.so doesn’t do white-labelling. So if you want a white-label community, either now or later, Mighty is a better alternative to Honeycommb.
But with member profiles, a user-friendly discussion board, and a decent reputation, Circle could be a good alternative to Honeycommb.
4. Higher Logic
Higher Logic is an alternative to Honeycommb that also offers a lot of the same features around community and events. Higher Logic actually makes two products: Vanilla, for adding a forum to a corporate website; and Thrive, a community and member-management tool for associations and non-profits.
Like Honeycommb, Higher Logic gives you a community engine that lets you cultivate discussion boards and collect user-generated content.
As we said above, it also does both other things Honeycommb does: creating subgroups and events. Since its primary use case is national associations and non-profits, the subgroup options create a way to organize your members and turn over some control to the respective chapter heads.
And when it comes to events, Higher Logic is much stronger than Honeycommb, giving you options to schedule and host either virtual or live conferences. The event option comes with integration to their CRM or Association Management Software if you need it, and you can even add advertising or sponsorship to an event.
That said, the interface for scheduling events in Higher Logic is pretty dated:
Higher Logic is missing the features that Mighty and Circle have, things like live streaming and courses. So it’s best for an association or non-profit that wants member management and live events.
5. Discourse
Discourse is a community platform that’s similar to Honeycommb in that it gives you an online forum. The look and feel are even similar; the posts are organized in a list much like reddit or Quora (as opposed to a more visual feed). Discourse is discussion-board-focused, and lets users post, comment, and get notified about content.
One interesting thing about Discourse is that the code for creating an open-source community is actually free on GitHub. Which is cool! But, unfortunately, by the time most people hire a developer to get the community up and running, not to mention paying for hosting, Discourse will probably cost more.
Since it’s missing the many options of a modern community platform, things like live streaming, courses, and events, it’s probably better to stick with one of the options above – unless you specifically want a clean, basic, text-based discussion forum.
6. Tribe
Tribe is the final contender on this list. It’s best for companies that want to add a forum to a corporate website. This could be something like a customer community or a support forum.
Tribe’s forum features are solid, and members can post content, start discussions, and participate in polls. Tribe can also be integrated into a company’s native mobile apps. With good customization features, Tribe does a lot of the same things for a community that Honeycommb does.
Tribe doesn’t contain paid membership features or things like courses or gated content. It primarily works for a company that needs a community platform without needing to charge for it.
Ready to start?
If you’re ready to start your community, come give Mighty a try! It comes with advanced community features and events built-in, and way more flexibility than Honeycommb offers. Don’t take our word for it, you can try it free for 14 days – no credit card required.
