GTM AI Index
Index Customer Community › Small business September 2026 Edition

Community platforms for small business buyers

Asked as “customer community platform”, and as “online community software for customers”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 55 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Contested
31% 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 a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Circle31%13%61endorsed leader
02Bettermode29%16%49accepted challenger
03Discourse18%5%41accepted challenger
04Discord9%41%29criticized challenger
05Facebook Groups4%41%17criticized challenger
06Zendesk Community2%0%11accepted challenger
07Slack2%50%20criticized challenger
08Higher Logic Vanilla2%58%19criticized challenger
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
13Khoros0%80%15criticized challenger
12Salesforce Experience Cloud0%70%10criticized challenger
11Gainsight Customer Communities0%45%11criticized challenger
09Mighty Networks0%16%37accepted challenger
10Skool0%11%18accepted 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
10
11
12
13
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Circle31%
02Bettermode29%
03Discourse18%
04Discord9%
05Facebook Groups4%
06Zendesk Community2%
07Slack2%
08Higher Logic Vanilla2%
09Mighty Networks0%
10Skool0%
11Gainsight Customer Communities0%
12Salesforce Experience Cloud0%
13Khoros0%

02What they warned about

Three of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, 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.
Discord
41%
12 of 29 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Slack or Discord... they are poor choices for customer communities” Gemini 3.5 Flash, paraphrase prompt
Higher Logic Vanilla
58%
11 of 19 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Verdict: Avoid for small businesses - too complex and expensive for SMB needs” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Facebook Groups
41%
7 of 17 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“"Rented" Social Networks (Specifically, Facebook Groups) ... Why to avoid/be highly cautious: Zero Data Ownership” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
Khoros
80%
12 of 15 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“Platforms to **Avoid** ... **Enterprise platforms like Khoros** ... Khoros averages $165K/year per Vendr data” Grok 4.1 Fast, 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

20 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. 180 links across 73 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 Logic9 answers · 10 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Circle9 answers · 9 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Bettermode8 answers · 13 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Guideflow7 answers · 10 citations · 2 models
7 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Gartner7 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
6 answers · 8 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 6 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 5 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Zendesk4 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 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 a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which online community software for customers would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top customer community platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer community platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a customer community platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer community platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Discord, Slack Communities
One alternativeTribe.so
against: LinkedIn Groups, Zappi/Qualtrics Communities
SlackChanged
Two alternativesDiscord, Mighty Networks
Bettermode
Nine alternativesCircle, Disco, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Influitive, Kajabi Communities, Skool, Swarm, Zendesk Community
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
Bettermode
Two alternativesCircle, Facebook Groups
against: Disciple
no first choiceagainst: Disciple, Discord, Facebook Groups, Gainsight Communities, Hivebrite, Reddit, Slack, Telegram
GPT-5.4 miniCircle
One alternativeHigher Logic Vanilla
against: Gainsight Customer Communities
CircleHeld
Two alternativesBettermode, Discourse
against: Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros
Circle
One alternativeZendesk
against: Khoros Communities
Discourse
Two alternativesCircle, Website Toolbox
against: Bettermode
no first choiceagainst: BuddyBoss, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud / Customer Communities, Sitejabber Business Suite
Gemini 3.5 FlashBettermode
Two alternativesCircle, Discourse
against: Gainsight, Higher Logic, Skool, Slack
BettermodeHeld
Three alternativesCanny.io, Circle, Discourse
against: Discord, Gainsight, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Slack
Bettermode
Five alternativesCircle, Discourse, Heartbeat, Mighty Networks, Swarm
Discourse
Four alternativesDiscord, Flarum, Heartbeat.chat, Skool
against: Circle, Slack
Circle, Discourse
Two alternativesBettermode, Mighty Networks
against: Gainsight CC, Higher Logic, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Slack or Discord
against: BuddyBoss, Discord, Facebook Groups, Gainsight Community, Khoros, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Self-Hosted Discourse, Skool, Slack
Perplexity SonarBettermode
Two alternativesCircle, Discourse
against: Higher Logic Vanilla
BettermodeHeld
Three alternativesDiscourse, Higher Logic Vanilla, LoftOS
Bettermode
Four alternativesCircle, Discourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Zendesk Community
Circle, Discourseagainst: Bettermode, Discord, Facebook Groupsno first choiceagainst: Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic, Hivebrite, Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Sprinklr
Grok 4.1 FastCircle, Discourse
One alternativeBettermode
against: Discord, Gainsight, Hivebrite, Khoros, Slack
DiscourseChanged
One alternativeCircle
against: Bettermode, Higher Logic Vanilla
Circle, Discourse
Four alternativesBettermode, Mighty Networks, Skool, Zendesk Community
against: Gainsight, Khoros
Discord, Discourse
Two alternativesFacebook Groups, Flarum
against: Bettermode, Circle, Mighty Networks
Discourse
Three alternativesBettermode, Circle, Zendesk Community
against: Gainsight, Khoros
against: Angi, Bevy, Circle, Disco, Discord, Discourse, Facebook Groups, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic, Hivebrite, Kajabi, Khoros, Mighty Networks, Nextdoor, Reddit, Slack, Thumbtack, Yelp, phpBB
Mistral SmallBettermode
Two alternativesCircle, Jatra
against: Discord
CircleChanged
Four alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Mighty Networks, Tribe
against: Higher Logic Vanilla
Circle
Four alternativesBettermode, Disciple, Discourse, Mighty Networks
Discord, Facebook Groups
Five alternativesCircle, Discourse, GroupApp, Mighty Networks, Telegram
Circle
Four alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Mighty Networks, Skool
against: Axero, Discord, Higher Logic Vanilla, Lounjee, Zapnito, vBulletin Cloud
DeepSeek V4 FlashDiscourse
Three alternativesCircle, Featurebase, Jatra
against: Bettermode
CircleChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Mighty Networks
Circle, Discourse
One alternativeMighty Networks
against: Bettermode, Discord, Slack
Bettermode
Five alternativesDiscord, Discourse, Facebook Groups, GroupApp, Skool
against: Circle, Gainsight, Higher Logic Vanilla, Mighty Networks
Bettermode, Circle, Disciple
One alternativeZendesk Community
against: Bettermode, Higher Logic Thrive, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros, Mighty Networks
Llama 4 MaverickHigher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeCircle
BettermodeChanged
Three alternativesCircle, Mighty Networks, Skool
Gainsight Customer Communities
Four alternativesBettermode, Influitive, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Circle
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse Basic hosted, Zoho Desk
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashBettermode
Three alternativesCircle, Mighty Networks, Slack
against: Microsoft Teams
CircleChanged
Two alternativesDiscourse, HubSpot Community
against: Slack
Circle
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Mighty Networks
against: Discord
Bettermode
Three alternativesDiscord, Facebook Groups, Mighty Networks
against: Circle
Bettermode, Circle
Four alternativesDiscourse, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
against: Aurora, Circle, Cisco Community, Discourse, Facebook Groups, Highrise/Hivebrite, Kajabi Communities, LinkedIn Groups, Mendix, SMF, Shopify Forums, Slack, WooBoard/WooCommerce plugins, phpBB
Kimi K2Circle, Discourse
One alternativeBettermode
against: Gainsight, Khoros
CircleChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Mighty Networks
Circle, Discord
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Slack
Bettermode
Three alternativesDiscord, Discourse, Facebook Groups
against: Circle
Bettermode, Circle
Three alternativesDiscourse, HubSpot Service Hub, Zendesk Community
against: Khoros, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Circle, Discord, Facebook Groups, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Hivebrite, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community/Gather
GLM 4.7 FlashXZendesk Community
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Influitive, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Discord, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities
BettermodeChanged
Two alternativesCircle, Mighty Networks
against: Influitive, Zapnito
Circle, Mighty Networks
Three alternativesDiscord, Discourse, Slack
against: Bettermode
Discord, Facebook Groups
Two alternativesSkool, Slack
no first choiceagainst: Facebook Groups, Gainsight Communities, LinkedIn Groups, Reddit Communities, Salesforce Community Cloud, Twitter Spaces
MiniMax M2.5Circle
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Skool
BettermodeChangedagainst: Higher Logic VanillaDiscord, Skool
Three alternativesCircle, Heartbeat, Mighty Networks
Circle, Discord
Three alternativesDiscourse, Mighty Networks, Slack
no 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
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:57no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:16yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:37yes1723 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:05yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:28yes09 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:34yes07 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:04yes015 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:27yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:13yes043 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:32yes025 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:26yes027 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:14yes017 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:24no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:10yes45 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:03yes921 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:20yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 01:07yes07 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:17yes06 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 00:35yes040 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:14yes01 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:56no038 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 00:36yes027 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:07yes087 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:44yes013 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:10yes88 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:23yes35 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:51yes2129 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:49yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-14 23:18yes08 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:23yes08 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:15yes031 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 22:53yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:34yes038 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:01yes043 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 05:01yes038 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:43yes018 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:39yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 02:04yes44 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:04yes3233 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:20yes2017 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:06yes07 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 22:55yes08 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:44yes017 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:52yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:15yes047 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:05yes031 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:20yes034 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:46no08 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:40no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:44no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:45yes1222 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:58yes178 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 03:53yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:16yes010 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 02:56yes016 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:18yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:40yes028 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:01yes043 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:07yes0105 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 22:52no08 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 01:39yes2712 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:07yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:26yes1623 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:22yes205 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-15 02:53yes09 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:57yes010 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:02yes021 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:20yes01 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:44yes073 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:06yes050 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:02yes040 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:16yes015 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
Aurora (IgniteTech)
Canny.io
Cisco Community
Discourse Basic hosted
Discourse Cloud
Drry
Forumbee
Gainsight Community
Heartbeat.chat
Highrise/Hivebrite
HubSpot Community
Khoros/Spredfast
Lounjee
MS Teams
Mendix
SMF
Salesforce Experience Cloud / Customer Communities
Shopify Forums
Sitejabber Business Suite
Slack or Discord
Tribe.so
Tribes
Twitter Spaces
Website Toolbox
WooBoard/WooCommerce plugins
Zappi
Zappi/Qualtrics Communities
Zendesk Community/Gather
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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