Discourse

Khoros Communities

Khoros Communities provides a scalable platform for brands to create branded forums, knowledge bases, and social spaces where customers can engage, share ideas, and solve problems together. It integrates AI-driven moderation and analytics to turn conversations into actionable insights. The solution supports deep customization, gamification, and seamless integration with existing CRM, support, and marketing tools, helping enterprises deliver consistent brand experiences across digital touchpoints.

lemmy

Lemmy is a decentralised discussion platform for communities. It allows users to create and manage their own communities, with features such as posting, commenting, and moderation. The platform is designed to be community-driven and allows users to have full control over their own data.

Flarum

Flarum is a free, open-source forum software that allows users to create and manage online communities. It is designed to be simple, fast, and easy to use, with a focus on providing a great user experience.

Bettermode

Bettermode (formerly Tribe) is a no-code community platform that lets companies launch branded customer communities for discussions, Q&A, events, and product feedback without engineering resources. Its modular, drag-and-drop builder lets non-technical teams customize layout, spaces, and features, and it's used by companies like IBM, Webflow, and Lenovo for customer engagement and support deflection. The platform includes reputation and gamification systems, AI-powered search and onboarding, and native integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Intercom, and Segment for connecting community activity to CRM and support data. Pricing scales from a self-serve Starter plan to custom enterprise contracts with SSO, audit logs, and dedicated support.

Vanilla Forums (Higher Logic Vanilla)

Vanilla Forums, now sold as Higher Logic Vanilla following its 2021 acquisition by Higher Logic, is a customer community platform aimed at B2B and B2C companies looking to reduce support costs and boost retention. It provides Q&A discussions, federated search, and knowledge base-style self-service so customers can find answers and connect with each other outside of traditional ticketing. The platform includes a drag-and-drop layout editor for brand customization, gamification (badges, points, leaderboards), AI-powered insights and automation rules, and community analytics with both pre-built and custom reports. It integrates with major CRM and marketing platforms including Salesforce, and connects to other systems directly or via Zapier.

NodeBB

NodeBB is forum/discussion software built on Node.js that presents itself as a 'next generation' alternative to older forum platforms, with real-time posting, mobile-first responsive design, and native chat/messaging built in. It's open source (available on GitHub for self-hosting) but also offered as managed cloud hosting for teams that don't want to run their own server. Notable features include ActivityPub integration for connecting forums to the Fediverse (e.g., Mastodon), single sign-on, customizable themes and a plugin ecosystem, and built-in SEO and GDPR-compliance tooling. It powers community forums for organizations including Qt, Vivaldi, Opera, and MOZ.