Which community and membership stack is best for you? I break them all down and show you what their sales pages won't say out loud!
The open-source forum that runs half the internet's support communities. Free hosted plan with unlimited members, Pro at $100/mo, or self-host for nothing. Trust levels that unlock abilities, weekly activity digests built in, full data export, Stripe subscriptions on Pro. No courses, no app of your own.
An agency CRM with a Skool clone inside it, down to the exact points table. $97/mo, 0% platform fee on your own Stripe, unlimited contacts, groups and channels, levels that unlock courses, a Skool importer, and a white-label app for $497/mo on top. Built for agencies, not creators.
The free plan that's actually free: 2,000 contacts, unlimited emails, one course, a community, 0% fees on your own Stripe or PayPal. The funnels and email are the point. The course builder and the community are the compromise. We use it, so this one's first person.
Nas.io rebranded to Nas.com in 2026 and repositioned from community tool to solopreneur storefront. $29/mo Pro with a 2.9% fee, memberships, challenges with leaderboards, events, Magic Reach email and WhatsApp broadcasts, member import and export. Fees vary by country.
Not a community platform yet, but building toward one. Channel memberships at a 70/30 split, members-only posts and lives, free Courses with PDF attachments, quizzes and polls in the community tab. No email, no export, and the biggest audience on earth.
Where most communities start and most migrations come from. Free, instant, three billion people already logged in. No way to charge, no email, no export, an algorithm that decides who sees your posts, and features Meta adds and removes on a whim. A shaky place to build. Collect emails at the door or own nothing.
Free, unlimited members, the best chat on the internet. No email, no courses, no member export, no gamification without bots. Native paid tiers take 10% and are US-only, so everyone else charges through Patreon, Whop or Memberful.
A link-in-bio storefront that grew a course builder, bookings and a single community. $29/mo with 0% platform fee on your own Stripe or PayPal. Email broadcasts and flows are Creator Pro at $99. One community per store, iOS-only member app, no gamification.
A paid newsletter that's turning into a social network. Free to publish, 10% of paid revenue plus Stripe. One chat with threads, no courses, no gamification, no list sync beyond CSV. The best export on the site and the loudest algorithm.
No monthly fee, 10% of everything you earn, plus processing, conversion and payout fees. Tiers, free membership, up to 10 tier-gated chat spaces, posts emailed in full. No course builder, no gamification, no list sync beyond CSV and Zapier.
The most LMS-like platform here: SCORM, certificates, interactive video, a branded app add-on, and a real community with spaces and badges. From $29/mo, but Starter charges $5 per paid enrolment and strips out most of the good stuff. Pro Trainer at $99 is the real entry.
Courses, downloads, community spaces, and real email marketing in one plan, from $42/mo billed annually. 5% fee on Mover, 0% from Shaker. Daily or weekly digests, eight native email integrations, no mobile app, no gamification.