Mighty Networks and Whop are both flexible community platforms that power customizable community features and social connections. But which is better?

In this article, we’ll compare them. We’ll cover:

• What each platform is.

• What they have in common.

• How they compare on social and community tools

• How they compare on course and educational options.

• What business and branding tools each gives you.

Whether you’re launching a side hustle or a $1 million-dollar community, this comparison will help.

Whop is a new social commerce platform that lets creators monetize their audiences through digital products and experiences–they call these “whops.” Yup, the platform is called Whop and the monetization action is called “a whop”--just in case you’re confused.

Whop has a set of in-platform “apps” that users can customize to add features they need to sell their digital products.

For example, a creator might combine the features of Discord, Coursera, and Shopify to build a sellable product. These modular “apps” can be used to mix livestreams, community chats, courses, and a product sale in one place.

Mighty Networks is an AI-boosted community platform. It hosts more $1 million communities than any other platform, with some of the top creators in the world, people like Marie Forleo, Gary Vee, Tony Robbins, Matthew Hussey, and Mel Robbins. You can build and monetize an online community under your brand.

Mighty’s Spaces let creators customize their offerings, toggling features like courses, events, livestreams, chats, articles, or discussion forums. You can build and sell almost any combo of offers, depending on what you love to create, in 135 different currencies around the world.

• An emphasis on social selling and monetization tools

• Strong focus on online communities

• High flexibility for building offers and products

• All-in-one approach so you don’t need any other platforms to run your business

• Strong in online education and course delivery

• Native payment processing and customizable features

The thing is, both Mighty and Whop have similarities in how creators earn money:

• : Online education tools are the bread and butter of both platforms.

• Paid communities: Building memberships and recurring revenue around shared interests.

• Coaching: Both are strong options for a coaching business and/or group coaching community.

• Selling digital products: Both can be used to sell files, downloads, templates, etc.

• Flexible payment options: Either can be used for one-time or recurring payments.

• Affiliate programs: Creators can incentivize members to sell with affiliate payouts.

Mighty powers $370 million in creator and community businesses, mixing communities, courses, events, streams, and apps with ease. For creators who want to own their community and build under their own brand, it’s got everything.

Mighty means:

• Thriving communities: Discussion forums with reactions, comments, GIFs, etc. You can also add articles, video, livestreaming, polls & questions, and chat.

• Unmatched engagement power: AI-boosted member profiles that connect members and start conversations. Customizable new member checklists, text prompts and AI improvement, auto discussion questions, plus built-in gamification.

• Total customization: Choose from Space templates or customize your own with any combo of Activity Feed, Chat, Messaging, Member Discovery, Live or Pre-Recorded Courses, Single or Recurring Events, or Pages.

• Education power: Sell courses, livestreams, coaching packages, downloads, memberships, or any combo of these.

• Community management power: Instant branding and landing pages (AI powered), 1-click member re-engagement, moderation tools, and plan management.

• Branding: Build and customize your community under YOUR brand with light/dark mode, custom urls, and even branded apps if you choose (more info here).

• Integrations: Mighty is an all-in-one, but you can still embed over 2,000 other programs, plus it has built-in Zoom and Kit integrations.

Whop also features a community-first UX that emphasizes finding groups of like-minded people. Whop’s approach focuses on discovery, with a marketplace feel that could help users find communities, courses, livestreams, etc. that interest them.

Remember it’s an “app” based approach. “Apps” are basically modular features creators can use to build an offer.

Whop is:

• Online communities: Discussion board and chat “apps” include messaging, reactions, and content organization. You can also have multiple chatrooms in a single whop.

• Gamification: Built-in giveaways, contents, prizes, and “bounties”--tasks community members can do for money. For example, a lot of “whops” are dedicated to paying people for “clipping” on social media–cutting and sharing content.

• Member tools: User profiles and member directory with payments and subscription management.

• Meetings & events: Use Zoom to run a virtual gathering.

• Livestreaming & integrations: Run basic native livestream with reactions and screen sharing, or integrate with OBS for more powerful streaming tools.

• Social Integrations: Whop has integrations for social media and networking platforms like Discord servers or Telegram.

• Some community management tools: Moderation, filter words, pinned messages, customizable permissions.

• Mighty has more sophisticated community features with way more power and AI tools built in. It’s been G2’s top-rated community management platform for years running, and is best in class for built-in features. Whop is a new platform and is missing a lot of features: AI engagement, AI community management, and branding.

• Whop is stronger on discoverability, since people land on the Whop homepage and see all the Whop communities and products. This could lead to serendipity–people finding your product. On the other hand, there’s more distraction and competition. And a LOT of spam.

• Mighty has better branding tools and more control over your community–since it’s an enclosed community platform and not a marketplace. On Whop everything happens on their ecosystem–you don’t own anything.

Mighty Networks isn’t just about community. Flexible Spaces mean courses and community integrate seamlessly.

Courses on Mighty include:

• Versatile LMS: Whether it’s pre-recorded (async) courses, livestreamed courses, small-group learning experiences, or any combo of downloads, PDFs, audio, video, or quizzes, Mighty’s course platform does almost anything you can imagine.

• Premium features–built-in: Livestreaming (in any Space) with high-velocity chat, up to 9 speakers, backstage, and downloadable recordings. You can also connect to OBS if you want.

• Flexible monetization: Build course bundles, payment plans, and/or bundle with masterminds, communities, streams, or bonus content.

• Incredible UX: With AI course outlines, e-learning gamification, unlocks, challenges, and useful analytics.

Adding a course app to your Whop community gives you some additional features to teach and sell.

Here’s courses on Whop:

• LMS: Create structured online courses and add modules, lessons, PDFs, and basic quizzes.

• Different lesson types: Create multimedia courses, video, audio, etc. and drip content.

• Analytics: Track student progress and engagement.

• Community integration: Mix your courses with the Whop community app features (and other apps).

• Mighty has a stronger course platform, with deep integration across the community platform. It’s easy to deliver livestreamed or async courses (on Whop these are on different apps).

• Mighty Networks has more powerful livestreaming natively, but you can still connect to OBS if you want. Whop has basic livestreaming and you need OBS to get premium features.

• Admin flexing: Designate Space Hosts and mods, manage members, organize members with tags, and get advanced analytics and insights.

• Build under your brand: Customization power to create brand identity, colors, urls, light/dark mode, and graphics at both the community and Space level.

• Automations: Mighty intuitive automation tools: members can unlock secret courses, challenges, resources, or 1:1 calls. Auto reward members, trigger actions, or unlock bonuses. These free up tons of time for community managers.

• Flexible monetization: Build multiple tiers and offers, sell subscriptions, trails, and installments. Create promo codes, affiliate programs, and charge in 135 different currencies or with token gating.

• With Mighty Pro, get your community on a totally branded app! That’s YOUR app in the App Store and Google Play Store. (Learn more here.)

• Lots of ways to pay: Crypto, Apple Pay, buy-now-pay-later, and multi-currency payments.

• Flexible monetization: Charge with one-time payments and subscriptions, plus add free trials, waitlists, and calendar bookings.

• Integrated GPT: Whop offers a GPT that can be integrated into your products and trained on your knowledge base.

• Integrate content rewards: Pay viewers and creators (for user generated content), sell merch, or build in an affiliate program. The most common seems to be doing tasks online for either prizes or money–especially cutting and sharing on social media.

Whop’s marketplace approach makes it possible to be discovered by members who wouldn’t otherwise know about you. That’s a potential plus. For members who find your offer in the Whop marketplace, Whop takes an additional 30% of revenue.

But you should note, Whop is is susceptible to scams and spam–like any marketplace. There are tons of offers that aren’t legit (the stars system can help with this a bit). It’s a lot of work moving through the platform trying to assess what’s legit and what’s not. And many of the “whops” contain bots and spammers.

• Both platforms offer an app for every device.

• Only Mighty offers a community on totally branded apps.

• Mighty has way more automations and unlocks to put community and brand growth on autopilot.

• Whop has a tool for selling products, which Mighty doesn’t have.

Both platforms offer communities. But they have really different focuses.

• Mighty Networks offers a community under your own brand. It offers the flexibility of Whop with features you can turn on and off, but everything is native with no need to connect different apps. And it has powerful AI tools embedded plus it’s built for engagement.

• Whop works best for discoverability. Its marketplace approach makes it more likely people will stumble on your community. But the actual UX is more complicated than Mighty, and its community and course features are more basic.

If you’re ready to build a community you can charge for, come get started on Mighty Networks! Mighty is the place for real digital business, without the distractions. Mighty offers incredible features to customize your community and add your brand. And the average member on Mighty pays $47/mo for a membership–making it an awesome way to earn recurring revenue.

You can try it free for 14 days–no credit card required!

Mighty charges a flat monthly fee starting from $41/mo with a 2% transaction fee (1$ on the higher tiers). On some platforms, there is also a payment processing fee. You can see details on pricing here.

Whop charges from 2.7% transaction fees + .$0.30/transaction as well as a payment processing fee. The fee increases depending on payment method. However, it’s important to note that Whop charges a 30% cut for products sold through their marketplace or–in the case of affiliates–30% goes to the affiliate.

It depends on your niche and business model. There’s no one platform that outearns others, you need to find the one that fits your vision and approach to an online business. Let us say that we love the community membership model, which generates recurring revenue and is a business that grows itself.

We break this down in this article.

Mighty Networks offers dedicated migration services for Mighty Pro clients moving communities to branded apps (learn more here). There’s a more complete guide to moving an online community here.

Whop doesn’t offer any specific migration support.

Mighty allows you complete control over your member data and lists. You own the emails, contacts, and relationships. It’s one of the reasons people choose Mighty over a platform like Discord or Facebook, where you don’t even have access to your members’ emails.

Whop doesn’t really give you the same level of control over member data–these are Whop’s customers. With an integration–Mailmodo or SolarMail–it is possible to email your members. The service creates Whop that sense emails.

On the whole, Mighty has way more control of your members’ data and how you contact them.

On Whop, you can join the Whop support app or access Whop’s customer service chat.

On Mighty, when you’re signed into your community you can click the “Need Help” button to message customer service. You can also get help in the Mighty Community, which includes members from the Mighty Team as well as a ton of dedicated Mighty Hosts.