Online Community Platforms

Circle vs Discourse

Compare Circle and Discourse side-by-side. See feature differences and pricing in the Online Community Platforms category.

Most Features

Circle

by Circle

0.0 (0)

Pricing: Professional $89/mo and Business $199/mo, both on annual billing; Circle Plus by quote. 14-day trial, no card. Transaction fee 2%, 1% or 0.5%.

Circle is a community platform for creators and brands: discussions, chat, courses, events and paid memberships on your own domain, sold flat per community.

18 /20 features Full profile

Discourse

by Discourse

0.0 (0)

Pricing: Free hosted plan; Pro $100/mo, Business $500/mo, Enterprise custom (Sep 2026)

Discourse is an open source discussion forum and community platform, run as managed hosting on Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans or self-hosted for free.

17 /20 features Full profile

Feature Comparison

Online Community Platforms features side-by-side

Feature	Circle 18/20 features	Discourse 17/20 features
Threaded discussions Forum-style topics with threaded replies, categories and tags.	Yes	Yes
Real-time chat channels Live chat rooms alongside the forum.	Yes	Yes
Private and gated spaces Spaces visible only to chosen members or paid tiers.	Yes	Yes
Paid memberships and subscriptions Charges members for access, with recurring billing built in.	Yes	Yes
Courses and lessons Hosts structured courses with lessons and progress tracking.	Yes	No
Events and RSVPs An event calendar with RSVPs, reminders and recordings.	Yes	Yes
Live streaming and live rooms Live video sessions hosted in the community.	Yes	No
Member directory A searchable directory with rich profiles and custom fields.	Yes	Yes
Points, badges and leaderboards Rewards participation with points, badges and rankings.	Yes	Yes
Moderation queue and content flagging Reported content lands in a queue with tools to hide, edit or ban.	Yes	Yes
Custom domain for the community Runs the community on your own domain.	Yes	Yes
Branded mobile apps Your own iOS and Android apps built from the community.	Yes	No
Embedded member authentication Members sign in with your existing app or identity provider.	Yes	Yes
Community automation workflows Automates actions such as welcome messages, tagging and access changes.	Yes	Yes
Weekly email digests Automatic digests of new activity sent to members.	Yes	Yes
Member engagement analytics Active members, posts, retention and top contributors over time.	Yes	Yes
Community API An API and webhooks for members, content and events.	Yes	Yes
Idea voting boards Members submit and vote on ideas.	No	Yes
Headless and embeddable components Embeds community components in your own site or app.	Yes	Yes
Self-hosted option Can be run on your own servers, not only as the vendor's hosted service.	No	Yes
Overall Rating	0.0 0 reviews	0.0 0 reviews