Circle vs. Mighty Networks vs. WordPress: Best Online Community Platform for Bloggers

In this article, we’ll look at the best online community platform for bloggers.

A community platform is essential for bloggers seeking to build an audience and expand their profit margins. Why is this? Because AI is taking over search. Algorithms are keeping your social media traffic away from your links. The internet is working against you being able to directly contact your people.

An online community provides you with an undisputed and uninterrupted line of communication directly with your audience.

Online communities help you empower connections, increase engagement, and monetize your category.

In this article, I’ll go over 3 of the best online community platforms based on your goals, budget, and technical comfort level.

Why Bloggers Need an Online Community

Why would you ever want to build an online community in the first place, since you already have a blog, right?

You need to shift your mindset from audience to community. Followers are just a vanity metric and nothing more. True retention falls under follower engagement.

The benefits of an online community are simple. You’ll build deeper relationships. You’ll retain a higher number of audience members. You have ample opportunities to upsell digital products and services. Most importantly, there is no algorithm or AI getting in your way.

Search engine optimization is being foiled by artificial intelligence. Social media opportunities are being foiled by algorithms. However, a community is something that AI and algorithms can’t penetrate, and it represents a direct line to your most loyal audience and potential customers.

What makes the best online community platform for bloggers, though? Ease of use for starters. Branding control matters, too, right? You want to be able to integrate your other tools into your community. Of course, monetization really matters.

Overview of Each Platform

We will cover three platforms in this article. They are Circle, Mighty Networks, and WordPress.

Circle

Circle is a very sleek, modern, and easy-to-use community platform. You don’t have to host the software yourself, and you can brand it with your own domain name. It has numerous features, but it does incur a monthly operating cost.

Circle is ideal for creators, educators, and bloggers who seek a clean and engaging community experience.

The user interface is very user-friendly. You can customize discussion spaces. You can integrate Zapier. There is an event management system. You can also send out newsletters.

I was once a Community Manager for a large Circle community. We offered discussion boards (Spaces), webinars (Zoom or Built-in), courses, and newsletters.

The con is that the community is hosted elsewhere, so you don’t have full control, which makes it a slightly rented space. It also has an expensive monthly price for the basic plan.

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks provides a community, course management system, and content management system all in one platform.

If you want to combine community, courses, and membership into one main platform, Mighty Networks might be your best choice.

The mobile app for this community is often described as one of the best. You can create and manage events, build courses, and utilize a member feed feature as well. You don’t have to host any software, and you can use your own domain name.

The con is the price, as it also has a steep monthly cost for a very basic plan. The design isn’t very flexible, either. It can be overwhelming to some users.

WordPress

If you use WordPress as your blogging platform, you can easily expand it to also be your community platform.

You’ll self-host WordPress, which means you own it and have full access to it. This also means that you can fully customize your community without plan limits, unlike other platforms.

This solution is ideal for bloggers who want to fully control their community and keep it in the same place as their blog content.

You own the community. You get to control the SEO. You can add numerous plugins to integrate other things into it. It’s one hub for everything.

The con is that you have to set up everything, and some things are technical. You’ll have to do all the maintenance and back up your community on your own. You can do most of it for free, but you will need to pay for your hosting, domain name, and any paid plugins you might use.

Pricing Breakdown

Here’s the price markup for the online community platform for bloggers that we have examined in the sections above.

Circle starts out at $89 a month.  If you need the best plan, you’ll pay around $500 a month or more.

Mighty Networks is $109 a month for the basic plan. The higher plan is cheaper than Circle at about $360 a month, but you could pay more for more dedicated support.

WordPress is free. Hosting may cost you anywhere from $10 to $250 a month, depending on what resources you require. One of the best Membership plugins to use for creating your community costs around $200 per year.

Verdict: Which is the Best Online Community Platform for Bloggers?

Circle and Mighty Networks are great if you don’t want to host your community yourself. WordPress is better if you want full control and don’t want to spend so much each month.

Circle is easy to use for members and community managers. Circle and Mighty Networks are both very modern and professional-looking, as well. However, you get total control and integration with WordPress, and you can make it look just as professional and easy to use if you know how to do so.

Final Thoughts

I suggest testing each of the platforms before making a decision.

WordPress can be easily tested for free. Circle and Mighty Networks both typically offer a limited trial period for their plans. You’ll just have to ensure that you cancel your plan before it becomes paid if you don’t wish to use the service.

Before deciding which community platform to use, try to write down your three must-have features and ensure the platform you choose has those features.

If you’d like to learn more about creating an online community, check out my discussion forum, Another Admin Forum, which is all about online community and blog creation, growth, and profit. It’s free to join and use, too!

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.