Community platforms
Asked as “customer community platform”, and as “online community software for customers”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 47 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
01The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Recommended versus criticized
Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.
Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
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14Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Higher Logic Vanilla23%
Higher Logic Vanilla23%02Bettermode23%
Bettermode23%03Circle15%
Circle15%04Discourse13%
Discourse13%05Discord11%
Discord11%06Gainsight Customer Communities6%
Gainsight Customer Communities6%07Facebook Groups2%
Facebook Groups2%08Skool2%
Skool2%09Mighty Networks2%
Mighty Networks2%10Zendesk Community0%
Zendesk Community0%11Influitive0%
Influitive0%12Khoros Communities0%
Khoros Communities0%13Salesforce Experience Cloud0%
Salesforce Experience Cloud0%14Khoros0%
Khoros0%02What they warned about
A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Higher Logic Vanilla20%
9 of 45 labels negative · 8 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“The open-source **Vanilla Forums** is effectively abandoned, so avoid that specific variant.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Bettermode20%
8 of 40 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 3 hard negative
“eliminated its free plan and raised prices to $399+/month. No longer budget-friendly.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt
Circle23%
10 of 43 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid Creator-First Platforms (e.g., Circle, Mighty Networks, Skool)” Gemini 3.5 Flash, direct prompt
Mighty Networks35%
8 of 23 labels negative · 6 of 6 models · 3 hard negative
“Most complaints center on **billing, support, and UX**... **Mighty Networks** for billing/support friction” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
03What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: four of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
20 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 168 links across 70 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 2 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.
vendor site · Higher Logic10 answers · 11 citations · 3 models
8 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Gartner8 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Bettermode7 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Guideflow7 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Circle4 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Zendesk4 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
8 answers · 2 models
8 answers · 2 models
7 answers · 2 models
6 answers · 2 models
5 answers · 2 models
4 answers · 2 models
4 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 2 models
3 answers · 1 model
3 answers · 1 model
04How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best customer community platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which online community software for customers would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top customer community platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer community platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a customer community platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer community platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
05The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
Category-scoped readings
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
Commsor
Custom-Built React/HTML Portals
Freshworks Fan Community
Gradual
Hive (or Hive Community)
HubSpot Communities
InvisionPlus
Kustomer Community
MangoApps
NING
Slack + Bot integrations
Slack/Discord for Communities
Tiltify
Zendesk Communities
Zendesk Community/Sunshine
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.