Circle vs Community Engine
Circle
circle.so
Community Engine
communitystack.ioSide by side
| Figure | Circle | Community Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $89/mo | £200/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 4 |
| Spec score · Community Platforms | 8.9 (#10) | 8.5 (#27) |
| Custom domain | Yes | Yes |
| Event hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Integrations | Circle lists integrations including Airtable, Google Sheets, Memberstack, WordPress, Memberful, Typeform, and Slack through native connections, embeds, snippets, or Zapier. | The platform lists Stripe Connect, Meetup, Eventbrite, Bevy and Luma integrations or migration adapters, plus a versioned REST API, signed webhooks, and TypeScript and Python SDKs. |
| Moderation tools | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Circle
- Professional$89 a month
- Business$199 a month
- Scale$419 a month
- Circle PlusPriced on request
Community Engine
- Enterprise£8,000 a year
- Directory API£2,400 a year
- Market Intelligence£6,000 a year
- CoreFree
In their own words
Circle
Circle brings community, content, events, courses, payments, email and website tools into one platform. Its community features include discussions, chat, member profiles and directories, gamification and analytics. Courses can be self-paced, structured or scheduled, with sections, lessons and quizzes. Events, live streams and live rooms include Q&A, attendee participation and session recordings. Circle lists integrations such as Airtable, Google Sheets, Memberstack, WordPress, Memberful, Typeform and Slack through native connections, embeds, snippets or Zapier. It offers Admin and Headless Member APIs, with request limits varying by plan. Access includes Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and web; desktop apps are available to communities on all plans. Professional costs $89 a month with annual billing, Business costs $199 a month with annual billing, and Scale costs $419 a month with annual billing. A 14-day trial is listed, but there is no free plan. The pricing comparison lists live-stream attendee caps of 100, 200 and 500 for Professional, Business and Scale, respectively.
Community Engine
Community Engine has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.