Meetup vs NodeBB

Meetup helps people discover local groups and events built around shared interests, while giving organizers tools to create and manage communities. Membership is free, and the service runs on Android, iOS, web, and an API. Organizers can create groups and events, communicate with members, and appoint a leadership team. The mobile app supports event discovery, group discovery, post-event contact, group management, and event planning. Meetup provides private spaces and moderation tools. Listed organizer plans range from Starter, with one group, unlimited members, two in-person events per month, and 10 attendees per event, to Standard with three groups and unlimited events and attendees, and Pro with unlimited groups, events, and attendees. Standard Organizer subscription is $29.99 a month, while PRO Organizer subscription is $47 a month billed every six months per group. Prices can vary by location and offers. Meetup Pro adds attendee email access, custom registration forms, exports, Mailchimp integration, and community insights.

NodeBB is a community discussion platform for forums and online communities, including brand communities and product support boards. Members can write topics and replies using a visual editor or Markdown, chat in real time, and receive notifications for follows, likes and topic subscriptions. They can form groups with activity feeds, tag topics and follow tags for updates. Administrators can create unlimited moderator and administrator accounts and set their permissions. More than 500 plugins and themes can be installed through the control panel, and public Read and RESTful Write APIs support integrations. Spam-prevention integrations include Akismet, StopForumSpam and Project Honeypot. Self-hosted NodeBB is free to download and install under GPLv3; hosted plans start at $20 a month and include priority support. Basic full-text search uses the bundled database engine; Solr and Elasticsearch search require third-party plugins. Installation guides cover Linux, macOS, Windows and cloud deployment options including Docker.