Circle vs Discourse
Circle
circle.so
Discourse
discourse.orgSide by side
| Figure | Circle | Discourse |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $89/mo | $100/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 5 |
| Spec score · Online Community Platforms | 8.9 (#2) | 8.8 (#5) |
| Spec score · Social Networking Software | 8.8 (#1) | 8.8 (#2) |
| Spec score · Community Building Platforms | 8.9 (#2) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Spec score · Community Platforms | 8.9 (#10) | 9.0 (#8) |
| Spec score · Customer Community Software | 8.9 (#3) | 8.9 (#4) |
| 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. | Integrations include GitHub, chat providers, Zendesk, and authentication providers. |
| Mobile apps | both | both |
| Moderation tools | Yes | Yes |
| Private spaces | Yes | Yes |
| Paid from | 89 | Paid hosting starts at $100 per month for Pro. |
Plans
Circle
- Professional$89 a month
- Business$199 a month
- Scale$419 a month
- Circle PlusPriced on request
Discourse
- FreeFree
- Pro$100 a month
- Business$500 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- Free planFree
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.
Discourse
Discourse is community software for hosting discussions, with options to self-host or use managed hosting. It supports private spaces, event hosting, custom domains and moderation tools, and its codebase is freely available on GitHub. The free plan costs nothing and includes unlimited members, 2 staff seats, 500k monthly page views, 20k monthly emails, 10 categories and 5GB storage. Pro costs $100 a month and includes 5 staff seats, 500k monthly page views, 100k monthly emails, unlimited categories and 20GB storage. Business costs $500 a month, with 15 staff seats, priority support, standard migration services and 100GB storage. Enterprise pricing is custom; it includes unlimited staff seats, 1M+ monthly page views, 1.5M+ monthly emails and 200GB+ storage. Enterprise also includes SSO, SAML, enterprise authentication and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Paid plans have a 14-day trial, and hosting plans require no credit card up front. Integrations include GitHub, chat providers, Zendesk and authentication providers. Support options range from community help to email support and professional services.