Discourse vs ProfileGrid

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.

ProfileGrid is a WordPress plugin for building user profiles, groups, communities, directories, and paid memberships. Administrators can create groups with separate profile fields, registration forms, membership prices, member limits, and group leaders. Community features include user blogs, private messaging, notifications, and a friends system. Privacy settings can restrict posts, pages, profile data, and group content. Listed integrations include WooCommerce, bbPress, MailPoet, RegistrationMagic, EventPrime, and Elementor. PayPal is available in core, while Stripe is an extension. The free Core plan costs nothing and includes more than 90 core features plus free extensions. Premium costs $79 per month as listed, with one site and one year of updates and support. Premium+ costs $139 per month as listed, with a one-time payment, unlimited sites, and lifetime updates and support. The standard version uses the GNU General Public License; Premium receives priority support. Profile and registration data are stored in the WordPress database, and compatibility with every third-party product, plugin, theme, or browser is not guaranteed.