HelloBox vs Scoold
HelloBox
hellobox.co
Scoold
scoold.comSide by side
| Figure | HelloBox | Scoold |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 3 |
| Spec score · Customer Community Software | 8.9 (#5) | 7.9 (#14) |
| API | The homepage shows a JavaScript example using feed.latest() under a getting-started API section. | Scoold provides a RESTful JSON API defined with an OpenAPI specification. |
| Integrations | Listed integrations include automatic posting to Twitter, Slack and Discord, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and chatbot tools such as Intercom, HubSpot and Drift. | The maker lists Slack, Microsoft Teams, Mattermost, Zapier, and n8n integrations; chat integrations are marked Pro. |
| Support | The pricing page says the free plan includes email support, and the help center directs users to email support for unanswered questions. | Scoold Pro licenses include free updates and support for 12 months after purchase; the maker offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. |
| What it does | HelloBox is a fully hosted forum and community platform positioned as an alternative to Discourse, Circle and Facebook Groups. | Scoold is a self-hosted Q&A platform, forum, and knowledge base for teams. |
Plans
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
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.
Scoold
Scoold is a self-hosted Q&A platform, forum, and knowledge base for teams. It can support team knowledge bases, community forums, developer hubs, support centers, Q&A platforms, and issue trackers. Members can ask and answer questions, vote on posts, earn badges and reputation, and review edit history. Full-text search covers indexed content, while posts can include Markdown, media, files, code snippets, and syntax highlighting.
Scoold provides a RESTful JSON API described with an OpenAPI specification. Listed integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Mattermost, Zapier, and n8n; chat integrations are Pro features. Identity options include LDAP, social login, and two-factor authentication, while Pro adds SAML 2.0 SSO, SCIM, and custom authentication. It can be deployed as a JAR or Docker setup on an operating system with Java 21 or higher and a Para backend. The free plan allows up to 10 spaces, 1 admin, and 1 whitelisted identity domain. Scoold Pro is €499, paid once; Pro + Source is €1,999, paid once.