Creating a community and considering Buddyboss? Let us show you a few Buddyboss alternatives you should consider before you get started.
By Joanna Taylor • Updated 26 October 2024
If you're considering switching from BuddyBoss or just exploring options for your online community, you're in the right place.
Here’s an in-depth look at a range of community platforms options that could be perfect BuddyBoss alternatives, whether you're focused on community building, learning management systems, or a combination of both.
Choosing an Buddyboss alternative might be the right move if you’re running into specific limitations or outgrowing its features.
While BuddyBoss is a solid solution for online community building and e-learning, it isn’t a perfect fit for everyone. Here’s why you might want to explore alternatives:
Let's take a look at our top picks for the best Buddyboss alternatives for 2024.
When considering these options, we've tried to cover the various requirements of community managers and creators who want to host online learning environments.
Kourses comprehensive membership platform designed for creators looking to expand their online courses, communities, and membership sites while monetizing their content.
PeepSo is a WordPress plugin that lets you create a social network within your site, making it a strong alternative to BuddyBoss.
While BuddyBoss excels in combining online community-building and e-learning, PeepSo focuses on providing an engaging social network experience.
PeepSo is a WordPress plugin that lets you create a social network within your site, making it a strong alternative to BuddyBoss.
While BuddyBoss excels in combining online community-building and e-learning, PeepSo focuses on providing an engaging social network experience.
Pricing varies between yearly and lifetime licenses, with discounts available for multi-year purchases.
BuddyX is a WordPress theme that works with BuddyPress or BuddyBoss to help you build an online community site.
It’s a cheaper alternative to BuddyBoss if you need something easy to set up and customize. The main focus of BuddyX is making your site look good and work smoothly with different plugins like WooCommerce for online stores or LearnDash for online courses.
Free Version: Basic features to start building an online community.
BuddyX Pro: $79/year – offers more designs, WooCommerce integration, and better features.
Lifetime License: $199 for lifetime access to all features and updates.
BuddyPress is an open-source social networking plugin for WordPress, making it a strong alternative to BuddyBoss for those who prefer free solutions.
BuddyPress helps users add social network-like features to their WordPress site, allowing for member profiles, activity streams, groups, and more.
While it lacks some advanced design options that come with BuddyBoss, it’s highly customizable with third-party plugins and themes.
BuddyPress is popular among developers due to its flexibility and the large community of contributors supporting it.
bbPress is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add discussion forums to your website, making it an easy-to-use Buddyboss alternative.
Its main focus is on simplicity and speed, allowing users to create forums without slowing down their website.
bbPress is lightweight and works well with most WordPress themes, making it popular for those who want a community feature on their site but don’t need all the advanced tools of a full social network platform like BuddyBoss.
Mighty Networks is an all-in-one community-building platform, making it a popular Buddyboss platform alternative.
It allows creators and businesses to build online communities, run courses, and offer memberships all from one platform.
Unlike BuddyBoss, which is heavily focused on WordPress integration, Mighty Networks is a standalone solution.
It is ideal for those looking to create branded experiences for their members, and it even allows for the creation of mobile apps through their premium plan.
Disciple is a community-building platform that offers a flexible, branded space for creators, businesses, and organizations.
Unlike BuddyBoss, which integrates with WordPress, Disciple is a standalone platform. It allows users to create private, members-only communities that can be accessed via a website or mobile app.
Disciple focuses on helping creators manage and engage their audience through various tools like groups, direct messaging, and content sharing.
It's ideal for anyone looking to grow a dedicated following or monetize their community.
Hivebrite is a comprehensive community management platform that offers powerful tools for organizations to build, manage, and engage their communities.
As a Buddyboss platform alternative, Hivebrite focuses on creating customizable and professional community environments for various sectors, such as education, non-profits, and professional networks.
Unlike BuddyBoss, which is more suited for creators and small businesses, Hivebrite is geared toward large, organized communities that require complex management features and in-depth member engagement tools.
Hivebrite’s pricing is based on a custom quote system, which means you need to contact their sales team for specific costs.
Pricing typically scales with the size of the community and the features required, making it ideal for larger organizations with complex needs.
Circle is a community platform designed for creators, brands, and businesses to engage their audiences with private spaces, courses, and memberships.
It's a standalone solution that includes all the community features you would expect from viable Buddyboss alternatives. It provides a clean, intuitive interface and is popular for building online learning community sites.
Circle is ideal for those who need a simple yet powerful platform to host members, courses, and discussions without the complexity of WordPress integration.
Basic Plan: $39/month or $29/month when billed annually, includes 10 spaces, unlimited members, and basic features.
Professional Plan: $89/month or $69/month when billed annually, adds live streams, courses, and more customization options.
Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing for large communities, includes premium features like API access, advanced analytics, and a dedicated customer success manager.
Kajabi is one of the best buddyboss alternatives if you're looking for an all-in-one platform designed for building online courses, hosting your entire community as well as the marketing features required to grow your customer base.
Whilist it's not one of the cheaper alternatives, Kajabi provides native features that mean you probably won't need to purchase many other third party services to run your business.
With the vast range of Buddyboss alternatives available online, it can be tricky to make the right choice for your community platform.
Most importantly, you firstly need to decide if you want to base your membership or community on WordPress, or whether you'd rather choose a hosted platform.
WordPress will give you more flexibility, whilst a hosted platform like Kourses will mean you have less internal work to manage your community.
You should also consider if you need online course facilities, messaging features, or sales and marketing features like funnels and checkouts.
If you're considering a hosted platform, Kourses will give you a simple, powerful platform that means you can run your community and membership worry free from any technical headaches.
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