Circle vs Minds
Circle
circle.soMinds
minds.comSide by side
| Figure | Circle | Minds |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $89/mo | $8/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 6 |
| Spec score · Community Platforms | 8.9 (#10) | 9.3 (#6) |
| Custom domain | 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. | Minds states that it interoperates with ActivityPub, RSS, DNS, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Stripe, among other protocols and services. |
| Mobile apps | both | both |
| Moderation tools | Yes | Yes |
| Private spaces | Yes | Yes |
| Support | The pricing page lists standard support for Professional and Business, priority support for Scale, and premium support for Circle Plus. | Minds directs users to Chatwoot support or email support and provides a help center with product and troubleshooting articles. |
| What it does | Circle brings community, content, events, courses, payments, email, and website tools together on one platform. | Minds is a decentralized social network and software platform for launching branded community apps. |
Plans
Circle
- Professional$89 a month
- Business$199 a month
- Scale$419 a month
- Circle PlusPriced on request
Minds
- FreeFree
- Plus$8 a month
- Pro$58 a month
- Team$50 a month
- Community$500 a month
- Business$1,000 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.
Minds
Minds is an open-source social networking platform available on the web, Android and iOS. Its features include a newsfeed, search, groups, chat, blogs, video, photos, tips, memberships, paid replies, notifications and monetization tools. Users may sign up anonymously, and Minds says observational analytics are not shared with outside companies for tracking. Free includes groups, encrypted chat, ActivityPub federation and YouTube sync, with 20-minute video uploads and 30-day storage. Plus and Pro list 60-minute video uploads. Minds+ adds channel verification, comment spotlight, premium creator content and publishing to its feed. Minds Networks offers branded community plans for teams, communities and businesses, with stated audiences from 20–250+ users for Team through unlimited users for Business. Networks describes interoperability with ActivityPub, RSS, DNS, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Stripe; it also supports embedding videos from YouTube, Livepeer and other third-party sources. Minds says monetization and NSFW features are limited on mobile, and NSFW content is unavailable in the iOS App Store and Google Play versions. The platform and mobile app use the AGPLv3 license.