Circle vs HelloBox
Circle
circle.so
HelloBox
hellobox.coSide by side
| Figure | Circle | HelloBox |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $89/mo | $5/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 6 |
| Spec score · Customer Community Software | 8.9 (#3) | 8.9 (#5) |
| Integrations | Circle lists integrations including Airtable, Google Sheets, Memberstack, WordPress, Memberful, Typeform, and Slack through native connections, embeds, snippets, or Zapier. | Listed integrations include automatic posting to Twitter, Slack and Discord, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and chatbot tools such as Intercom, HubSpot and Drift. |
| Support | The pricing page lists standard support for Professional and Business, priority support for Scale, and premium support for Circle Plus. | The pricing page says the free plan includes email support, and the help center directs users to email support for unanswered questions. |
| What it does | Circle brings community, content, events, courses, payments, email, and website tools together on one platform. | HelloBox is a fully hosted forum and community platform positioned as an alternative to Discourse, Circle and Facebook Groups. |
Plans
Circle
- Professional$89 a month
- Business$199 a month
- Scale$419 a month
- Circle PlusPriced on request
HelloBox
- FreeFree
- Starter$5 a month
- Growth$10 a month
- Pro$20 a month
- Business$50 a month
- Scale$100 a month
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.
HelloBox
HelloBox is a hosted forum and community platform for publishing and discussion, positioned as an alternative to Discourse, Circle, and Facebook Groups. It handles hosting, scaling, backups, and SSL; communities can be public or private, with admin approval for new members. Members can sign in with Twitter, Google, GitHub, LinkedIn, or email, and email sign-ups are verified. The editor offers rich-text, inline, and Markdown modes, plus image, code, map, and tweet blocks, drafts, and optional post approval. Its writing assistant can continue or rewrite drafts, summarize threads, or create a draft from a prompt. HelloBox can post automatically to Twitter, Slack, and Discord, connect with analytics, search, and chatbot tools, and send newsletters featuring popular posts. Customers can import subscriber lists, link existing newsletters, run ads and keep 100% of the revenue, use a custom domain, and export data anytime. The free plan allows 50 members and 10K views per month with limited features. Paid plans start at $5 a month; Starter includes 100 members and 50K monthly views.