GTM AI Index
Index Customer Community › Enterprise September 2026 Edition

Community platforms for enterprise buyers

Asked as “customer community platform”, and as “online community software for customers”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 52 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Contested
38% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Higher Logic Vanilla38%6%52endorsed leader
02Gainsight Customer Communities12%6%34accepted challenger
03Salesforce Experience Cloud12%36%50criticized challenger
04Khoros Communities8%21%38accepted challenger
05Discourse6%20%25accepted challenger
06Khoros6%35%17criticized challenger
07Bettermode4%30%23criticized challenger
08Circle2%53%19criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09Zendesk Community0%0%17accepted challenger
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.

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 →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Higher Logic Vanilla38%
02Gainsight Customer Communities12%
03Salesforce Experience Cloud12%
04Khoros Communities8%
05Discourse6%
06Khoros6%
07Bettermode4%
08Circle2%
09Zendesk Community0%

02What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. 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.
Salesforce Experience Cloud
36%
18 of 50 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Avoid platforms with **per-user pricing** (like Salesforce Experience Cloud at $2–$5 per login/member)” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Circle
53%
10 of 19 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“Platforms to **Avoid** (Unsuitable for most large enterprises): **Circle, Mighty Networks, Bettermode (formerly Tribe)**” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Khoros
35%
6 of 17 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Khoros' customization options are limited and resource-intensive... glitches and platform instability can disrupt workflows” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
Mighty Networks
75%
6 of 8 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“similarly consumer/membership oriented, with the same kinds of limitations around enterprise search, control, and integrations” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: four of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

21 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 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. 198 links across 98 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Higher Logic11 answers · 17 citations · 3 models
10 answers · 14 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Bettermode8 answers · 11 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Guideflow8 answers · 11 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Gartner5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Gainsight4 answers · 5 citations · 3 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
vendor site · Salesforce3 answers · 5 citations · 1 model
3 answers · 3 citations · 1 model

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.

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 an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which online community software for customers would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade customer community platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer community platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a customer community platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer community platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Khoros, Salesforce Community Cloud
Two alternativesCircle, Higher Logic
Salesforce Community CloudChanged
Five alternativesLinkedIn Customer Communities, Lithium, Microsoft Viva Engage, Slack, Zendesk Community
no first choiceHigher Logic Vanilla
Two alternativesKhoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Khoros, Sprinklr
GPT-5.4 miniSalesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesDiscourse, Higher Logic Vanilla
Higher Logic VanillaChanged
Two alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities
against: Salesforce Community Cloud / Experience Cloud
no first choice
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeBettermode
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashGainsight Customer Communities
Four alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla
against: Khoros
no first choice
Five alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Khoros Communities
Discourse
One alternativeHigher Logic Vanilla
against: Bettermode, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Circle, Discord, Flarum, Mighty Networks, MyBB, NodeBB, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Skool, Slack, Telegram, Unmanaged Discourse, phpBB, vBulletin Cloud
Perplexity SonarGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeSalesforce Experience Cloud
Bettermode, Higher Logic VanillaChanged
One alternativeHivebrite
Khoros Communities
Five alternativesDiscourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Circle
Two alternativesGainsight, Higher Logic Vanilla
against: Bettermode, Slack, Zendesk
no first choiceagainst: Circle, Discord, Facebook Groups, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Slack
Grok 4.1 FastHigher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Circle, Mighty Networks
Khoros CommunitiesChanged
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Bettermode, Circle
Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla
Two alternativesBettermode, Discourse
against: Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk
no first choice
Five alternativesBettermode, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
against: Discourse
against: Bettermode, Circle, Discord, Discourse, Facebook Groups, Flarum, Mighty Networks, NodeBB, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Slack, Vanilla Forums, phpBB
Mistral SmallGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesCircle, Discourse, Khoros Communities
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros CommunitiesChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Pylon, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Circle
Higher Logic Vanilla
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Elcom, Higher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeKhoros Communities
no first choiceagainst: Discourse, Khoros, Vanilla Forumsagainst: Axero, Higher Logic Vanilla, Zapnito
DeepSeek V4 FlashHigher Logic Vanilla
Five alternativesBettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Zendesk Community
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic VanillaHeld
Three alternativesDiscourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Khoros Communities
Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesBettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities
against: Discourse, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Discourse
One alternativeHigher Logic Vanilla / Thrive
against: Bettermode, Gainsight inSided, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Zendesk Community
against: Khoros
against: Bettermode, Circle, Discord, Facebook Groups, Khoros Communities, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Skool
Llama 4 MaverickHigher Logic Vanilla
Two alternativesHivebrite, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla, HivebriteChangedGainsight Customer Communities
Five alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
no first choiceno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashHigher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communitiesagainst: Community by CircleKhoros, Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Two alternativesCircle, Hivebrite
Khoros Communities
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesCircle, Discourse, Mighty Networks
against: Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk
no first choiceagainst: Circle, Facebook Groups, Higher Logic, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Kimi K2Higher Logic Vanilla
Five alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic VanillaHeld
One alternativeKhoros Communities
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Influitive, Salesforce Experience CloudHigher Logic Thrive
One alternativeDiscourse
against: Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Khoros, Vanilla Forums
One alternativeDiscourse
against: Jive Software, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
GLM 4.7 FlashXGainsight Customer Communities
Three alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Influitive, Khoros Communities
Khoros CommunitiesChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla
Five alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Salesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities
no first choiceagainst: vBulletin Cloud
MiniMax M2.5Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesGainsight, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Three alternativesGainsight, Inwink, Khoros
Higher Logic Vanilla
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Bettermode, Elcomagainst: Circle, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloudno first choiceagainst: Bettermode, Circle, Discourse, Lithium/Turf
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
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:55no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:19yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:41yes1630 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:35yes196 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 00:09yes010 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:37yes07 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:42yes027 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:16yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:27yes030 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:38yes053 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:30yes022 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:52yes012 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:50no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:30yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:55yes2023 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:15yes177 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:47yes09 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:33yes08 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:33yes043 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:37yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:47no030 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:51yes030 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:59yes054 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:24yes013 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:27yes78 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:38yes67 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:45yes1827 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:37yes2020 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 04:38yes010 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:12yes09 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:39yes028 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:06yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:25yes024 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:54yes034 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:41yes088 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:22yes026 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:10yes1410 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:42yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:42yes2025 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:24yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:31yes09 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:07yes08 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:45yes031 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:48yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:21yes042 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:26yes036 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:45yes028 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:08yes056 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:07yes1512 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:11yes311 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:45yes325 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:52yes2013 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:05yes012 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:19no014 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:38yes084 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:39yes01 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:49no039 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:16yes045 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:45yes026 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:00yes027 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:35yes2716 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:04no06 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:23yes1623 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:37yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 00:29yes08 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 05:04yes07 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:18yes029 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 22:58yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:30yes055 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:11yes069 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:39yes021 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:53yes022 s

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
Salesforce read as Salesforce Experience Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
Community by Circle
Gainsight CX
Higher Logic Vanilla / Thrive
Inwink
LinkedIn Customer Communities
Lithium (now part of Khoros)
Lithium/Turf (now under IgniteTech)
Microsoft Viva Engage (formerly Yammer)
SAP Community
Salesforce Community Cloud / Experience Cloud
Slack Community
Unmanaged Discourse
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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