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    Choosing the right community platform can be a daunting task. To simplify the process, we’ve analyzed popular platforms like Bettermode, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Higher Logic, Zendesk, Vanilla, InSided, and Influitive.

    Our extensive research, based on 20 sources and expert opinions, provides valuable insights and data. These findings empower you to make informed decisions that align with your community’s needs.

    Our research covers mapping, scoring, rating, ranking, vendor sentiment analysis, and more. By offering a comprehensive analysis, we support community enthusiasts in optimizing community growth and ROI. Trust our insights to unlock your community’s full potential.

    Choosing the right community

    Bettermode is an all-in-one customer community platform that helps businesses streamline the customer experience, build stronger customer relationships, and improve retention. The platform offers a unified set of engagement tools, including holistic analytics, robust customization options, a rich app ecosystem, and embed tools.

    With Bettermode, businesses can speed up community building using templates for spaces such as discussions, Q&A, events, groups, and help center.

    Rating

    Industries

    Technology

    Healthcare

    Education

    and more

    Target Audience

    Best suited for Enterprises looking to streamline customer experience and create powerful brand-led communities in minutes

    Khoros (Lithium) is an all-encompassing community platform that provides businesses with a wide range of tools and features for building and managing thriving online communities. With its robust functionality, Khoros empowers companies to foster customer engagement, gather valuable feedback, and drive customer satisfaction through meaningful community interactions.

    Rating

    Industries

    Retail

    Telecommunication

    Technology

    Finance

    Healthcare

    and more

    Target Audience

    Enterprise-level businesses improving customer engagement and support.

    As a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Salesforce goes beyond traditional CRM capabilities by offering powerful community-building features & functionalities. Businesses can leverage Salesforce to create branded online communities that facilitate seamless connections and boost engagement among customers, partners, and employees. Salesforce communities strengthen customer relationships and fuel business growth by providing a collaborative space for knowledge sharing, support, and networking.

    Rating

    Industries

    Sales

    Marketing

    Customer Service

    Finance

    Healthcare

    and more

    Target Audience

    Businesses managing customer relationships and operations.

    Designed specifically for professional associations and organizations, HigherLogic is a comprehensive community engagement platform revolutionizing member communication and collaboration. It equips users with advanced tools to create advanced online communities, host engaging discussions, share valuable resources, and organize impactful events. By fostering robust networking, continuous learning, and member engagement, HigherLogic empowers organizations to cultivate thriving communities that drive professional growth and deliver exceptional value to members.

    Rating

    Industries

    Associations

    NPOs

    eCommerce

    Customer Service

    Target Audience

    Enhancing member engagement and collaboration.

    Vanilla stands out as a user-friendly community forum software enabling businesses to create and manage online discussion boards and customer support communities effortlessly. With its intuitive interface and customizable features, Vanilla provides a versatile platform for customers to seek support, exchange ideas, and share valuable feedback. With powerful moderation tools, analytics, and seamless integrations, Vanilla empowers organizations to build dynamic online communities that strengthen customer relationships and enhance brand loyalty.

    Rating

    Industries

    Technology

    Gaming

    eCommerce

    Education

    and more

    Target Audience

    Support and collaboration for companies of all sizes.

    With a strong focus on customer support, self-service, and knowledge sharing, inSided offers a comprehensive customer community platform for businesses to create branded online communities. These communities serve as valuable spaces where customers can ask questions, find answers, and interact with one another. With its robust features, such as community analytics, content management, and gamification, inSided enables organizations to drive engagement, improve customer satisfaction, and encourage repeat purchases.

    Rating

    Industries

    Software

    Technology

    eCommerce

    Telecommunication

    and more

    Target Audience

    Building customer communities and enhancing support.

    Influitive is an innovative advocacy and community engagement platform that enables businesses to effectively mobilize their customers and advocates. By leveraging Influitive, brands can build and nurture communities of superusers who promote products, provide valuable feedback, and share their positive experiences. Through its sophisticated advocacy program management tools, rewards system, and content creation capabilities, Influitive empowers organizations to harness the power of their customer advocates and turn them into a formidable force for driving growth and brand advocacy.

    Rating

    Industries

    Technology

    Software

    Finance

    B2B

    and more

    Target Audience

    Leveraging customer advocacy for brand awareness and loyalty.

    Renowned for its customer service and engagement solutions, Zendesk extends its capabilities to include robust community-building functionalities. With Zendesk, businesses can establish online communities where customers can interact, seek help, find answers, and collaborate effectively. These communities act as self-service support channels, enabling customers to help one another and access a rich knowledge base of articles. Seamlessly integrated with other Zendesk products, Zendesk communities provide a unified and seamless customer experience, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.

    Rating

    Industries

    eCommerce

    Technology

    Healthcare

    Education

    Finance

    and more

    Target Audience

    Enhancing customer service and support operations with efficient issue resolution.

    Platform Mapping

    Comparative Parameters/ Vendors (OOTB) Parameter Descriptions bettermode Khoros Salesforce Zendesk Higher Logics inSided (By GainSight) Vanilla Forums (By Higher Logic) Influitive

    Pricing & Packaging

    Product/ Platform Name Bettermode platform (Formerly Tribe) Khoros Community Experience Cloud (Formerly Commiunity Cloud) Gather Community Forum Software (Part of Zendesk for Service Suite) Community Online Community Platform Vanilla Forums Influitive Platform
    Packaging (Standalone/ Packaged with other products or a base platform) Yes, Zendesk offers Community Forums as a module of Zendesk Suite in Professional & Enterprise Tiers. You need to pay for entire Zendesk Suite which has multiple modules and communities can’t be purchased seperately. Standalone Standalone Packaged with Salesforce CRM Packaged with Zendesk Service Suite and offered only in Suite Professional, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus Plans Standalone Standalone Standalone Packaged with its Customer Advocacy Platform
    Pricing – Annual ( 1 Million Users) Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing
    Minimum Annual Pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing
    Pricing Tiers Advanced plan + Enterprise plan (Custom pricing) Custom Plans + with modules and the language packs Customer Community: $2/login or $5/member per month billed annually Customer Community Plus: $6/login or $15/member per month billed annually Enterprise Service Suite Pricing: Professional: $99/ Agent/ Month billed Annually; $125/ Agent/ Month billed Monthly Enterprise: $150/ Agent/ Month billed Annually; $199/ Agent/ Month billed Monthly Enterprise Plus: Custom Pricing Three Tiered Pricing: Essentials, Plus, Enterprise $9,000 – $150,000 per year (based on no. of visitors) Three Tiered Pricing: Professional, Business, Enterprise Traffic Based Pricing Estimates: 0 to 1m: $10.8k – $35k 1m to 2m: $35k – $75k 2m to 3m: $75k – $100k 3m to 10m: $100k – $150k 10m+: negotiated Four Tiered Pricing: Essential, Corporate, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus Starting at $690 per month on 250K monthly page views for Essential Tier (based on no. of pageviews/ visitors) Two Tiered Pricing: Customer Advocacy & Digital Community Feature based pricing starting at $1,499/month for Customer Advocacy Package
    Implementation Pricing Please contact the vendor for correct pricing as Integrations are chargeable Design, customization, data migration, training: $30k to $150k+ $40K to $200K+ as charged by implementation partners depending on customer requirements $5k to $30k $5k to $30k
    License Type Per Month Multi-Year Month per Month Billed Annually Month per Month Billed Monthly and Annually Month per Month Billed Annually Month per Month Billed Annually Month per Month Billed Monthly and Annually Month per Month Billed Annually
    Minimum Commitment It differs from customer to customer but its definitely more than 1 year so I am making it “>1 Year”. The minimum commitment for Salesforce is 1 Year and that of Zendesk is 1 Month as it offers month per month plans with monthly billing 1 Month >1 Year 1 Year 1 Month 1 Year 1 Year 1 Month 1 Year
    Trial Previously offered but now has ceased the trial
    Trial (No. of Days) 14 days 30 days 30 days 14 days
    Freemium Freemium refers to a product package which is life time free for the customers with certain basic features and monthly usage limits Offers Openhub to try some of the features of Influitive Platform

    Deployment

    Cloud
    Saas
    Web-based
    On-Premise Vanilla offers on-premise community deployment unlike other vendors included in the comparison
    Mobile-iOS & Android If the community is responsive to iOS & android or not
    Usual Set-up Time Few hours to weeks > 1 Month Existing Salesforce Org: 1 Week – 3 Months No Existing Salesforce Org: 1 Month – 6 Months Few Hours to Weeks (In case of existing Zendesk Service Suite) Few Hours to Weeks (Community-enriched websites with unique domains can be set up in under 30 minutes. Additional time required for CRM integration, custom design, user permission configuration, automated workflow) 1-2 months Few Hours to Weeks > 2 Weeks

    General Community Features

    Set-up community access permissions
    Flexible community structure with categories and groups
    Basic community functionalities Basic community features checks if the community is missing any general features required to run a community like question answering, discussions, groups, commenting, voting / liking and responding to topics, social integration, content resources etc.
    Private messages
    Subscriptions / notifications Subscription is the ability to subscribe to a topic or category in order to receive notifications on new replies. Community notifications are recieved through mails.
    Rich media / wide variety of supported file types Not OOTB Direct media upload not supported/ Only third party media embedding through URL Supports image file formats but direct video upload not supported/ Only third party videos embedding through URL
    Live, Federated Search Done Not OOTB
    Search with automatic suggestions for the best content Not OOTB
    Customizable layouts and branding (colors, buttons, images and icons)
    Multi-language Support Don’t have much clarity on this. This is with consideration to what they mention in their marketing collaterals and datasheets and if they openly market themselves as multi language supporting platforms/ communities.
    No. of Languages Supported Links to what languages in the cells 10 38 30+ 40+ 1 1 Partially support 44 languages through translations but full support is only in english 9
    Case Management Case management refers to customer support case/ ticket creation directly from community in the support software like Zendesk. Certain vendors offer this capability OOTB wherein agents can transition a community post to a ticket in ticketing software to continue the conversation. Not extensive
    Directories Directories here refer to the community member directories which makes it easy for community members to search and see who else is in the community and connect with people who share their interests.
    Groups (Public, Private, Secret) Public & Private Groups Only Public & Private Groups Only Public & Private Groups Only
    Group Hubs
    Knowledge Base Add-on
    @Mentions
    Polls
    Surveys Yes Khoros has value analytics which can be considered as an alternative to surveys however it doesn’t has the flexibility like that of surveys and also has some issues as reported by Khoros users. Still something is better than nothing so mentioning this in note Third party integration Value Analytics as an alternative to surveys Add-on (Salesforce Surveys and Feedback Management)
    Personalizations
    Drag & Drop Customization Dragging-and-dropping is a common user interaction which makes a platform intuitive for better UX. As per this feature admins can drag and drop various page elements like text/buttons, images etc to create an ideal community page setup as per their preference. It also enables to drop files directly into the file uploader of community
    Automated community tour for newcomers
    Automation rules Automation Rules are versatile tools that can be configured to trigger just about any action you need. In many ways, they work as “virtual community assistants” that allow you to automate tedious and time-consuming actions that likely need to be performed across your site on a daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis. Ultimately, they enable Community Managers to spend their time and energy focusing on their most important responsibility: Increasing member engagement. Some of the tasks which can be automated include Sending targeted emails, Adding users to community, Adding Demographics to user profiles, Adding users to different groups etc
    Event Management Add-on
    Microsites Microsites give the community leaders and organization staff the ability to create and manage independent websites for the communities. Microsites can be tailored to their members, and admins can control everything from content to the design, layout, and site navigation. Its a offered as a module by Higher Logic Not extensive Add-on
    Nested Communities/ Forums Many associations and businesses have multi-tiered structures: leadership hierarchies, committees and sub-committees, and products under product lines. With Nested Communities you can structure your the communities to reflect whatever “layer” approach is used by your organization. The Nested Communities lets you “”nest”” multiple sub-tiers of sub-communities (nested communities) under your main community and there can be an unlimited number of nested communities on each sub-tier.
    Mobile App

    Content & Ideation Features

    Users can create questions and answer those of others
    Organize and link questions to specific categories
    Various notification options for new questions and replies
    Show relevant content in one feed Add-on through RSS Feed Widget
    Allow users and moderators to mark replies as “answers”
    Easily create FAQs from popular questions and articles
    Create discussions between and amongst users
    Organize and link discussions to specific categories Discussions are generally super set of questions. While the questions are usually posted by users and seek answers, discussions does not necessarily start with questions on community. Those can be started by admins/ users seeking suggestions, for general suggestions etc but can/ cannot contain questions. While in Zendesk documentation they mentioned that they do offer organizing and linking discussions to different categories but they havent mentioned the same for questions so it has been marked false above
    Split/ Merge Discussions Once a community becomes quite active, as a moderator, you might run into scenarios where you need to merge two discussions or create a new discussion from a comment which might not belong. The Split/Merge functionality within the communities makes it very simple. Partial (Khoros offers splitting & merging of two discussions but not in the same way as Vanilla which offers merging of multiple discussions along with splitting)
    Various notification options for discussion follows, replies and reactions When any user follows, replies or react to any discussions some communities give the options to admin/ moderators to recieve the different types of notifications which may be Personalized Digest-a daily email summarizing all the user interactions relevant to your preferred discussions, Real-Time Discussion Emails which are the immediate notifications or both. The notifications can be further customized just for follows or replies or reactions or all the three based on the admin preferance
    Highlight discussions and create sticky topics for vital info Ability to highlight discussions by making it sticky on a category page, also includes the feature of highlighting the best answers in discussions
    WYSIWYG Editor WYSIWYG is an acronym for “What You See Is What You Get”. WYSIWYG is a content editing tool. In WYSIWYG editors the edited content whether text or graphics, appears in a form close to a final product. So instead of manually writing source code, you deal with a convenient rich text editor in which you manipulate design elements. WYSIWYG editor allows you to see precisely how it will look like. WYSIWYG HTML editor is an extremely useful tool to give your clients ability for editing and updating their website without bothering coders.
    Emojis Emoji is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation. Emoji is a way to express yourself in graphical form in your community. Through Third Parties & Extentions Through Third Parties & Extentions Through Third Parties & Extentions
    Create blog posts + articles Through Knowledge Add-on Through Knowledge Management Module Add-On through Knowledgebase
    Users can comment on blog posts + articles
    Real-Time Comment Preview & Edits
    Identify and Surface Similar Posts Offers an Add-on Widget
    Enable easy social sharing buttons Not OOTB (Through App) Not OOTB Not OOTB
    Dedicated ideation area and features Salesforce Community supports Ideation through “Free Ideas Component for Experience Cloud” which though is being developed by a 3rd party is available for free and has no extra charge on Appexchange. I was a bit skeptical which is the reason I had mentioned the sub parameters of ideation like voting, custom idea status etc. as not OOTB but kept the main ideation parameter as true as its free. However since its not an OOTB offering from Salesforce I am changing the initial answer to “Not OOTB” Apart from this Salesforce also offers dedicated Idea Creation and Sharing through Service Cloud Not OOTB
    Ask users to submit ideas Not OOTB
    Allow users to vote on ideas Not OOTB
    Indicate custom idea status Ability to set custom labels for ideas indicating the status of an idea. For instance you can update the status of ideas to stimulate discussion and indicate when you’ve committed to a great idea. Or, to manage expectations and indicate to your members that an idea won’t be picked up right now. Not OOTB
    Show top ideas by votes, views, replies and more Not OOTB
    Community/ Content Syndication Community Syndication is a unique capability of a community platform that allows brands to easily isolate different community conversations based on a variety of characteristics, and embed them as interactive content in any digital channel. Community Syndication helps with content syndication, giving you the ability to place valuable user-generated content exactly where it needs to be on your website.
    Product Reviews
    Document Collaboration
    Document Previews
    Document Sharing
    Document Uploads

    Security & Authentication Features

    Compliance with key standards and certifications Key standards and certifications refers to all the major security certifications which ensure customers that their data is handled in a manner that meets their data protection and compliance requirements and to provide them full transparency. These include HIPAA, SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, PIMS, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI DSS and TRUSTe Privacy Certificates to name a few Limited Limited Limited Limited
    Local compliances Local Compliances refers to region/ country specific security certifications like CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for Canada, Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) for Australia etc
    Vendor undergoes regular audits
    Register and login directly or via SSO OOTB ability to register and login from within the community application or using SSO Not OOTB Add-on
    Encryption To ensure that all sensitive customer data in encrypted both in transit and at rest using industry standards, TLS 1.2 protocols, AES-256 encryptions, SHA2 hashes. Vendor must periodically evaluate encryption standards and update the algorithms in use as necessary AES-256 AES-256 as Add-on AES-256 AES-256 Add-on
    SAML2.0, oAuth2, OpenID SSO standards
    Link with CRM logins Ability to automatically register on the forum using CRM or SSO. Ability to connect with a CRM application during login and registration Not extensive Not OOTB

    Moderation & User Management Features

    Global moderation
    Flexible topic views
    Moderator assignment for different categories or topics
    Civil Tongue (Swear Word) Civil Tongue or Swear words is a feature that allows you to enter a list of forbidden words and have them replaced with text of your choice. It differs from spam detection as in spam detection the words in dictionary are blocked but in Civil tongue the spam words are replaced with some other words of admin’s choice.
    Avatars
    Basic spam detection based on sentiment and vocabulary Not OOTB
    Advanced spam detection based on machine learning and NLP
    Spam correction
    Multi-language spam detection
    Ban Spammers
    Flood Control Flood control refers to limiting the number of posts or messages a member can send in a set period of time. Not OOTB but can be done by Khoros team as the part of support services Through Rate Rules Through Rate Limiting Through Rate Limiting
    User Card
    Collaborate with an unlimited no. of agents
    Browsing-data
    Activity

    Gamification & Engagement Features

    Create user ranks and roles
    Automatic ranking or custom options
    User Activity Leaderboards
    Custom icons and badges
    Full notification capabilities for ranks and roles
    Display ranks and badges on user profiles / avatars
    Display relevant help content across your entire platform Add-on through In-App Embeddables
    Curate company- and/or user-generated content automatically Automatic content curation ensures showing the best authentic user/ company generated content on the community in the least amount of time Add-on
    Enable community access within your own app or back-end environment Add-on through In-App Embeddables

    Analytics

    Analyze posts and other content
    Canned Reports
    Customizable Reports
    Key stats and trends
    In-depth reporting Add-on and offered in Data Services Package
    Integrate with 3rd party reporting
    User-friendly dashboards
    Monitor content generation Refers to monitoring the content generated on community in frequency, number, by specific user etc. along with some insights on which content is performing the best for the benefit of other departments like Marketing, Product Development, Customer Service, etc
    Assess customer sentiment Customer Sentiment Analytics is a general overview of the overall customer sentiment by tracking the number of community posts having a positive reaction vs the number of posts having a bad reaction
    Contribute to customer health scores Whether the analytics features indirectly/ directly contributes in improving the customer’s community health score which are dependent on community visits, posts, topics, replies, new ideas, and more
    Member growth and retention statistics
    User engagement metrics User Engagement metrics measure how active the community is. Some of the common user engagement metrics include Logins versus unique logins, Daily, Weekly and/or Monthly Active Users, Average Session Length, Unique community contributors, Top & average pageviews, Average number of active members, Average number of responses per post etc
    Support metrics Not OOTB
    Marketing engagement metrics Tracks impact of community on marketing and sales objectives, Eg. increase in no. of brand advocates, inbound calls generated by community, correlation between user engagement and annual revenue spend etc Not OOTB
    Analytics Data Export

    Out of the Box Integrations

    Salesforce Free App
    MS Dynamics
    SAP
    Gainsight Free App
    Google Analytics
    Alteryx
    Adobe Analytics (Omniture)
    Power BI
    Tableau
    Zendesk
    Zapier Free App
    JIRA Free App
    Slack Free App
    Github
    WordPress Free App
    Hubspot Free App
    Adobe Marketo
    Social Media Platforms
    Federated Search Platforms None except Zendesk & Salesforce
    Customizable embeddable widgets
    REST API
    Mobile SDKs
    Webhooks Whereas the REST Platform API provides the ability to read or write data into the community sometimes you need to be notified of events that occur such as when a new member joins. WebHooks provide an event notification service that will call a URL of your choice to alert you that an activity has occurred. It is your application’s responsibility to then call back to the community learn more about the activity or take action on the event.

    Organic Search Engine Optimization

    Effective community ranking and content recognition by Google
    Google Search Console integration for optimal crawling results Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free platform for anyone with a website to monitor how Google views their site and optimize its organic presence. That includes viewing your referring domains, mobile site performance, rich search results, and highest-traffic queries and pages. The service provides users with actionable reports, learning resources designed to get their content on Google Search, as well as the options to receive a diagnosis on every detail of the site such as analyzing the site’s traffic, providing 12-16 months of data, and monitoring spam issues. Moreover, every month the user can also use the Search Console status page which also allows users to examine the health of their site.
    Support Open Graph metadata for community pages to provide automated crawling context to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Microsoft
    Community page structure and semantics optimized for search
    Custom (sub) domain support

    Services

    Implementation
    Consulting
    Training & Education
    Support
    Migration
    Additional Customization Services If the vendor has a dedicated team for offering community customization services or the customers are largely dependent on partners or third parties for them.
    Learning Academy Learning Academy refers to if the vendor is offering a dedicated customer/ partner/ developer education program wherein there are product related courses, exams and industry valid certifications
    Free Updates Refers to if the vendor charges extra for new features and community upgrades. While most of the vendors do not charge extra for the new features which they release, but there are some instances wherein extra charge is levied on some premium new features

    Customer Success, Support & Training

    Support Levels Standard Standard & Premium Standard, Premier, Signature Standard and Premier Standard and Premier Professional, Business and Enterprise Standard and Premier Standard
    CSM & Solution Engineer
    Live Chat
    Knowledgebase
    Ticketing & Email
    FAQ/ Self Service Support
    Phone Support
    Onsite Training
    Technical Health Reviews
    Developer Support
    24*7 Support
    Tutorials
    Webinars
    Comparative Parameters Maximum Scores bettermode Khoros Salesforce Zendesk Higher Logics inSided (By GainSight) Vanilla Forums (By Higher Logic) Influitive

    Pricing & Packaging

    70 51 30 32 38 37 44 60 33
    Packaging 10 10 10 5 5 10 10 10 5
    Standalone 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Packaged with other Products 5 5 5 5
    Overall Pricing 20 20 6.67 6.67 6.67 13.33 13.33 20 13.33
    Low 20 20 20
    Medium 13.33 13.33 13.33 13.33
    High 6.67 6.67 6.67 6.67
    Pricing Flexibility 10 3.33 10 3.33 6.66 6.66 6.66 10 3.33
    More than 3 Tiered 10 10 10
    3 Tiered 6.66 6.66 6.66 6.66
    2 Tiered 3.33 3.33 3.33 3.33
    Licensing 10 10 3.33 6.66 10 6.66 6.66 10 6.66
    Month per Month Billed Monthly 10 10 10 10
    Month per Month Billed Annually 6.66 6.66 6.66 6.66 6.66
    Multi-Year 3.33 3.33
    Trial 5 5 0 5 5 0 5 0 0
    Yes 5 5 5 5 5
    No 0 0 0 0 0
    Trial (No. of days) 5 2.5 0 5 5 0 2.5 0 0
    1 Month 5 5 5
    2 Weeks 2.5 2.5 2.5
    Freemium 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 5
    Yes 10 10 5
    No 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

    Deployment

    40 35 28 28 35 35 18 40 30
    Deployment Type 30 25 25 25 25 25 15 30 25
    Cloud 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Saas 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Web-based 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    On-Premise 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0
    Mobile-iOS 5 5 5 5 5 5 0 5 5
    Mobile-Android 5 5 5 5 5 5 0 5 5
    Usual Set-up Time 10 10 2.5 2.5 10 10 2.5 10 5
    < 1 Week 10 10 10 10 10
    1-2 Weeks 7.5
    2 Weeks – 1 Month 5 5
    > 1 Month 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5

    General Community Features

    135 110 100 98 78 98 98 100 93
    Set-up community access permissions 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Flexible community structure with categories and groups 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Basic community functionalities 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Private messages 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 5 5
    Subscriptions / notifications 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Rich media / wide variety of supported file types 5 5 5 0 0 5 2.5 2.5 5
    Live, Federated Search 5 5 0 0 5 0 5 5 5
    Search with automatic suggestions for the best content 5 5 5 0 5 0 5 5 0
    Customizable layouts and branding (colors, buttons, images and icons) 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Multi-language Support 5 5 5 5 5 0 0 5 5
    No. of Languages Supported 5 5 5 5 5 0 0 2.5 2.5
    Case Management 5 0 5 5 5 0 5 0 0
    Directories 5 0 5 0 0 5 0 0 0
    Groups (Public, Private, Secret) 5 5 5 5 3.33 3.33 5 5 3.33
    Group Hubs 5 0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Knowledge Base 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 2.5 5
    @Mentions 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Polls 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 5 5
    Surveys 5 5 5 2.5 0 0 0 0 5
    Personalizations 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 5 5
    Drag & Drop Customization 5 5 0 5 0 5 5 5 5
    Automated community tour for newcomers 5 5 0 0 0 0 5 0 0
    Automation rules 5 5 0 5 5 5 5 0 0
    Event Management 5 5 5 0 0 5 5 5 2.5
    Microsites 5 0 0 5 0 5 0 2.5 0
    Nested Communities/ Forums 5 5 0 0 0 5 0 5 0
    Mobile App 5 0 0 5 5 5 0 5 5

    Content & Ideation Features

    145 110 108 80 50 115 100 110 85
    Users can create questions and answer those of others 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Organize and link questions to specific categories 5 5 5 0 0 5 5 0 0
    Various notification options for new questions and replies 5 5 5 0 0 5 5 5 5
    Show relevant content in one feed 5 5 5 5 5 5 0 2.5 0
    Allow users and moderators to mark replies as “answers” 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Easily create FAQs from popular questions and articles 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Create discussions between and amongst users 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Organize and link discussions to specific categories 5 5 5 0 5 5 5 5 5
    Split/ Merge Discussions 5 0 2.5 0 0 0 0 5 0
    Various notification options for discussion follows, replies and reactions 5 5 0 0 0 5 5 5 5
    Highlight discussions and create sticky topics for vital info 5 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 0
    WYSIWYG Editor 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Emojis 5 5 5 2.5 2.5 2.5 5 5 5
    Create blog posts + articles 5 5 5 2.5 2.5 5 5 2.5 5
    Users can comment on blog posts + articles 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Real-Time Comment Preview & Edits 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 0
    Identify and Surface Similar Posts 5 5 5 5 5 2.5 5 5 0
    Enable easy social sharing buttons 5 0 5 2.5 0 5 0 5 5
    Dedicated ideation area and features 5 5 5 2.5 0 5 5 5 5
    Ask users to submit ideas 5 5 5 2.5 0 5 5 5 5
    Allow users to vote on ideas 5 5 5 2.5 0 5 5 5 5
    Indicate custom idea status 5 5 0 2.5 0 5 5 5 0
    Show top ideas by votes, views, replies and more 5 5 5 2.5 0 5 5 5 5
    Community/ Content Syndication 5 0 5 0 0 5 0 0 0
    Product Reviews 5 5 5 0 0 0 5 5 5
    Document Collaboration 5 0 0 5 0 5 0 0 0
    Document Previews 5 0 0 5 0 5 0 0 0
    Document Sharing 5 0 0 5 0 5 0 0 0
    Document Uploads 5 0 0 5 0 5 5 5 5

    Security & Authetication Features

    80 75 70 65 70 40 60 65 45
    Compliance with key standards and certifications 20 20 20 20 20 10 10 10 10
    Local compliances 10 10 10 10 10 0 0 10 0
    Vendor undergoes regular audits 10 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10
    Register and login directly or via SSO 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 10 5
    Encryption 10 10 10 5 10 0 10 5 0
    SAML2.0, oAuth2, OpenID SSO standards 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Link with CRM logins 10 5 10 0 0 10 10 10 10

    Moderation & User Management Features

    75 70 65 45 60 35 50 60 35
    Global moderation 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Flexible topic views 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Moderator assignment for different categories or topics 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Civil Tongue (Swear Word) 5 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0
    Avatars 5 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 0
    Basic spam detection based on sentiment and vocabulary 5 5 5 0 5 0 5 5 0
    Advanced spam detection based on machine learning and NLP 5 5 5 0 5 0 0 0 0
    Spam correction 5 5 5 0 5 0 0 0 0
    Multi-language spam detection 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Ban Spammers 5 5 5 0 5 0 5 5 0
    Flood Control 5 0 0 5 5 0 5 5 0
    User Card 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 5 5
    Collaborate with an unlimited no. of agents 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Browsing-data 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Activity 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

    Gamification & Engagement Features

    45 40 42.5 15 25 25 40 40 15
    Create user ranks and roles 5 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 0
    Automatic ranking or custom options 5 5 5 0 0 0 5 5 0
    User Activity Leaderboards 5 5 5 0 0 5 5 5 5
    Custom icons and badges 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Full notification capabilities for ranks and roles 5 5 5 0 0 0 5 5 0
    Display ranks and badges on user profiles / avatars 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Display relevant help content across your entire platform 5 5 5 0 5 0 2.5 0 0
    Curate company- and/or user-generated content automatically 5 0 2.5 0 0 5 5 5 0
    Enable community access within your own app or back-end environment 5 5 5 0 5 5 2.5 5 0

    Analytics

    90 60 55 70 60 80 80 70 70
    Analyze posts and other content 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Canned Reports 5 0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Customizable Reports 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Key stats and trends 5 5 0 5 5 5 5 5 5
    In-depth reporting 10 0 0 0 0 10 10 10 5
    Integrate with 3rd party reporting 10 5 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    User-friendly dashboards 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Monitor content generation 5 5 0 5 0 5 5 5 5
    Assess customer sentiment 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 5 0
    Contribute to customer health scores 5 0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Member growth and retention statistics 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 5 5
    User engagement metrics 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Support metrics 5 5 0 5 5 0 0 0 0
    Marketing engagement metrics 5 5 0 0 0 5 0 0 0
    Analytics Data Export 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 10

    Out of the box Integrations

    145 85 100 50 78 40 80 70 55
    Salesforce 5 5 5 5 2.5 5 5 5 5
    MS Dynamics 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    SAP 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Gainsight 5 0 0 0 2.5 0 5 0 0
    Google Analytics 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Alteryx 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Adobe Analytics (Omniture) 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Power BI 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Tableau 5 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0
    Zendesk 5 5 5 0 5 0 5 5 0
    Zapier 5 5 0 0 2.5 0 5 5 5
    JIRA 5 5 0 0 2.5 0 5 0 0
    Slack 5 5 5 0 2.5 0 5 0 0
    Github 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0
    WordPress 5 0 0 5 2.5 0 0 5 0
    Hubspot 5 5 5 0 2.5 0 0 0 5
    Adobe Marketo 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 5
    Social Media Platforms 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Federated Search Platforms 10 10 0 0 0 0 5 0 0
    Customizable embeddable widgets 10 10 0 0 10 0 10 10 0
    REST API 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Mobile SDKs 10 0 10 10 10 0 0 0 0
    Webhooks 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 10

    Organic Search Engine Optimization

    25 25 20 25 15 15 15 25 20
    Effective community ranking and content recognition by Google 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Google Search Console integration for optimal crawling results 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Support Open Graph metadata for community pages to provide automated crawling context to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Microsoft 5 5 5 5 0 0 0 5 0
    Community page structure and semantics optimized for search 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Custom (sub) domain support 5 5 0 5 0 0 0 5 5

    Services

    80 80 80 60 70 60 70 50 60
    Implementation 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Consulting 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 10
    Training & Education 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Support 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
    Migration 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 0
    Additional Customization Services 10 10 10 0 10 0 10 10 10
    Learning Academy 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 0 10
    Free Updates 10 10 10 0 0 0 10 0 0

    Customer Success, Suppport & Training

    70 55 65 65 65 55 55 55 35
    Multiple Support Levels 10 5 10 10 10 10 10 10 0
    CSM & Solution Engineer 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Live Chat 5 0 5 5 5 0 0 0 0
    Knowledgebase 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Ticketing & Email 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    FAQ/ Self Service Support 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Phone Support 5 0 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Onsite Training 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Technical Health Reviews 5 5 0 5 5 5 0 0 0
    Developer Support 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 0
    24*7 Support 5 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 0
    Tutorials 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Webinars 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
    Total Score 1000 796 763 632 644 635 709 745 577
    Community Vendor Rating
    Categories bettermode Khoros Salesforce Zendesk Higher Logics inSided (By GainSight) Vanilla Forums (By Higher Logic) Influitive Category Winner
    Pricing & Packaging 73% 43% 45% 55% 52% 63% 86% 48% Vanilla Forums
    Deployment 88% 69% 69% 88% 88% 44% 100% 75% Vanilla Forums
    General Community Features 81% 74% 72% 58% 73% 72% 74% 69% Bettermode
    Content & Ideation Features 76% 74% 55% 34% 79% 69% 76% 59% Higher Logic
    Security & Authetication Features 94% 88% 81% 88% 50% 75% 81% 56% Bettermode
    Moderation & User Management Features 93% 87% 60% 80% 47% 67% 80% 47% Bettermode
    Gamification & Engagement Features 89% 94% 33% 56% 56% 89% 89% 33% Khoros
    Analytics 67% 61% 78% 67% 89% 89% 78% 78% inSided, Higher Logic
    Out of the box Integrations 59% 69% 34% 53% 28% 55% 48% 38% Khoros
    Organic Search Engine Optimization 100% 80% 100% 60% 60% 60% 100% 80% Bettermode, Salesforce & Vanilla Forums
    Services 100% 100% 75% 88% 75% 88% 63% 75% Bettermode, Khoros
    Customer Success, Suppport & Training 79% 93% 93% 93% 79% 79% 79% 50% Zendesk, Salesforce & Khoros
    Overall Vendor % Rating 79.6% 76.3% 63.2% 64.4% 63.5% 70.9% 74.5% 57.7%
    Leader In (No. of Categories) 5 4 2 1 2 1 3 0
    Vendor G2 Capterra TrustRadius Gartner Peer Insights
    Overall Rating (Out of 5) No. of Reviews Positive Themes Negative Themes Overall Rating (Out of 5) No. of Reviews Positive Themes Negative Themes Overall Rating (Out of 10) No. of Reviews Positive Themes Negative Themes Overall Rating (Out of 5) No. of Reviews Positive Themes Negative Themes
    bettermode 4.6 89 Bettermode is a very easy platform to use, both for Admins and users. The interface is clean and easily configurable and affordable They have horrible support and are willing to leave clients behind, simple analytics 4.8 87 Amazing price, easy to use, fast response, domain transfer and customization No mobile app, no built in messaging 8.9 14 Value for money, Happy with feature set, smooth implementation Minor bugs and lack of mobile app NA NA NA NA
    Khoros 4.2 49 Loaded with features and customization capabilities, Excellent customer care teams, Better localization and moderation features, Secure platform and well documented APIs, Scalability & SEO Tricky to retrieve the data, Cumbersome engagement with Khoros Services, High Price and difficulty in Learning the Platform, Poor event management capabilities, Poor site search 4.4 9 Metrics dashboards, Configurability, Almost zero downtime, Excellent success support services, Platform Flexibility Expensive Packaging & Services, Low RoI, Limited Community Updates, Limited Search Capabilities 7.6 35 Excellent metrics, Scalability, Uptime, Customer Support, Customization Capabilities Non intuitive back-end, High Cost, Tough initial set up, Limited declarative personalisation tools, Clunky admin interface 4.4 12 Out of the box analytics, Wide range of APIs, Robust set of features and functions, Platform Flexibility Minimal case management functionality, Requires special skills to skin and customize, Limited Updates and Enhancements, High minimum commitment of more than a year
    Salesforce 4.1 143 Customization Abilities, Wide range of templates for various use cases, Friendly Interface, Seamless CRM and other clouds Integration Steep learning curve with definite man hours required to learn the platform, Poor RoI for SMEs, Poor OOTB Search, Lesser Security Features, Expensive Training and other Services 4.3 71 Very handy Customization Capabilities, Flexibility and Integration with other SF Offerings, Proven Product and strong brand, Easy to Setup and rollout – Drag and Drop, Easy to share files through Sharepoint and external sources through community Steep Pricing, Not intuitive, Not very feature rich, Difficult User Moderation, Limited Reporting and Dashborads 8.7 50 Flexible hierarchical security and sharing settings, Good at organizing content, Easy Configuration, Personalization Capabilities, Pre-built templates are sleek, Holds large amounts of data Moderation is Complex, Expensive Set-up & Cost for large number of logins, Training Time, Complex integration with non salesforce products, Below average automation and requires lot of manual efforts 4.4 117 Flexibility, extensibility, and ability to scale, Lot of plug in features available with other 3rd party tools, Customizable UI and functionalities, Easy sharing of data Poor OOTB Search Capabilities, Knowledge base search is very slow, Complex navigation, Post deployment support can be improved, Poor Mobile Interface, Confusing Product Documentation
    Higher Logics 4.4 147 Intuitive Software & user-friendly admin, Ease of use & navigation, Back-end Automation, Super configurable, Excellent automation rules Limited Reporting functionality, Low on innovation, Community Bugs, Lack of modern features, No multi language support 4.4 95 Low Cost & best RoI, Good peer-to-peer support tools, Very suitable for advocacy programs, Quick implementation, Very good and responsive Support Confusing navigation, Clunky admin interface, Lack of localization, Community Bugs, Very little customization 6.9 13 Microsites, Document libraries, Easy to use, Good technical support, Good integration capabilities Non user friendly CMS, Outages & bugs, Admin dashboard, Limited Updates and Upgrades, Very basic reporting capabilities NA NA NA NA
    Vanilla Forums (By Higher Logic) 4.3 78 Reasonable Pricing, Good Customization Capabilities, Intuitive & Easy to learn, Very responsive customer success team, Large pool of add-ons and themes Buggy Moderation, WYSIWYG editor lacking content control, No automation rules, No rich content editor, Lack of indepth analytics/reporting, No member directories 4.4 62 Actively developed and open source, Good Customization Capabilities & Support, Many handy plugins, Good Account management, Ease of Use Limited analytics, Very average product documentation, Moderation isn’t very flexible, Non refined search results, slow at fixing bugs 9 10 Smooth transitioning & migration services, Good gamification capabilities, Great API & Customer Service, Large number of add-ons, Offers both on-prem and cloud hosting options Limited SEO options, Creating visual themes can be difficult, Confusing Moderation, Less responsive development team NA NA NA NA
    inSided (By GainSight) 4.5 80 Good UI for modifications, Easy to navigate, Good SEO Infrastructure, Great knowledge base, Super smooth onboarding process Lack of a proper HTML editor, Gamification can be improved, Not many options for customization, Troublesome notification functionality, Private groups are difficult to manage 4.1 7 Flexible, Easy to use, Inclusion of customer ideas in product roadmap, Good moderation workflow, Super stable SaaS platform Bit expensive, No development options to make front-end or back-end changes, Analytics are lacking severely, One size fits all solution NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
    Influitive 4.4 333 Ready-made templates, Extensive metrics, Large library of resources, Granular and detailed reporting, Integration with SFDC, Eloqua and Marketo, Good level of personalization Rigid and not easy to make changes in discussions, Reporting tool is a bit cumbersome, Poor mobile responsiveness, Administrator user interface is not always intuitive, Custom additions can be expensive 4.7 229 Good Onboarding and training, Decent reporting functionality, User-friendly, Good Advocacy features and reward system, Pre-built campaigns and integration with marketing automation tools, Quick to respond support team, Plenty of bugs, Uploading content is slow and cumbersome, Limited community features, Mobile app can be improved, Doesn’t give full control to admins, Can get a bit stale for mature programs 9.1 123 Supports Mass personalization, Robust reporting features, Continuous improvement to the product based on user feedback, Excellent technical support, Drives scalable engagement Synchronization with the SalesForce or Marketo API can be improved, Average admin panel experience, Unattractive User profile pages, Limited out-of-the-box solutions, Ability to upload files directly is a challenge NA NA NA NA
    Zendesk NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

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