Here’s the fact:

Building communities is the future of greater economy.

No?

When it comes to community platforms, Circle and Mighty Networks are the two of the most popular community platforms out there.

So which one should you pick?

First, here’s a quick comparison table to get us started:

Features	Mighty Networks	Circle.so
💲 Starting price	$129/mo (community plan)	$89/mo (community plan)
💸 Transaction fees	0%	Hidden transaction fees not shown on pricing
📱 Mobile apps	Apps for iOS, Android and also completely whitelabel app (Called Mighty Pro)	Has both iOS and Android apps with whitelabel option
📚 Courses	Yes. But it lacks certificates, course compliance, video retention graphs, etc.	Yes. But lacks course certificates, compliance, video retention graphs, etc.
📷 Has native live streaming?	Yes	Yes
Integrations	Poor at native integrations. You need to use Zapier. It surprisingly lacks API!	Offers native integrations with over 10 apps and Zapier.
Explore 👉	🔗 Explore Mighty Networks	🔗 Explore Circle

Quick overview ✨

Circle started in 2019.

The founders came from Teachable – Sid Yadav (first designer), Andrew Guttormsen (VP of growth), and Rudy Santino (head of design).

Here’s something interesting:

Ankur Nagpal, who started Teachable, became one of Circle’s early investors and provided strategic guidance.

Mighty Networks started in 2017.

Gina Bianchini created it after working at Ning (which sold for $150 million in 2011). Ning was huge – it served over 100 million people.

She wanted to help creators build engaged communities (as an alternative to FB groups).

👉 First, both platforms were just community tools you could add to other systems. Now they do everything you need.

Quick decision

What do we like about Mighty Networks over Circle.so 👍?

• Extra features: You get events, a calendar, and location-based matchmaking
• Group messaging: Members can chat in groups up to 9 people (though this might create small cliques)
• Events calendar: See all your upcoming events and live sessions in one place
• No transaction fees: You keep all your money – no extra fees on any plan

Explore Mighty Networks

What do we like about Circle.so over Mighty Networks 👍?

• Simple to use: Circle feels like Slack – clean and easy to use. Mighty Networks can feel messy (it affects community engagement)!
• All in one tool: Circle is aiming to be an all-in-one tool. It even comes with email marketing abilities and rolling out a lot of features.
• Automation workflows: With Circle’s Business plan, you can automate tasks using triggers and actions
• Better community control: Circle blocks bad words and spam – perfect for big communities. Don’t try public communities with Mighty Networks!
• Embed widget: Put your Circle community right on your WordPress site or other platforms
• Better gamification features: Circle offers badges, leaderboards, and achievement systems to increase engagement – Mighty Networks lacks these key elements (remember your KPI = Engagement)

Explore Circle.so

Upfront Bottomline✨

Let me be clear: Circle wins this comparison.

It’s just easier to use than Mighty Networks.

Plus, Circle keeps getting better, fast.

They focus on what matters: automation, connecting with other tools, and marketing features.

But Mighty Networks?

They seem stuck. They’re not moving forward like they should.

Their interface is clunky and missing key features. This leads to less engagement from the community.

And the users with Mighty, keep asking for better integrations, but nothing happens. You know, deaf ears!

In essence, Circle is the clear choice. Even though it’s newer, it works better and keeps improving.

Interface

These platforms look quite different.

Circle keeps things clean and simple, like Slack.

The spaces sit neatly in the sidebar, just like channels in Slack.

If you’ve used Slack before, you’ll feel right at home with Circle. It works like a mix between Slack and forums – simple and familiar.

Let me show you something cool:

Circle.so has a community switcher tool.

Just one click and you can jump between different spaces or communities.

No need to keep logging in again and again.

Mighty Networks doesn’t have this – you have to log in separately for each community.

Now about Mighty:

The user interface of Mighty Networks is hard to use and confusing.

The UI elements in Mighty Networks need work.

Everything looks too big and clunky.

Also, when you open pages in Mighty Networks, they show up as pop-ups. This means you have to keep clicking the full-screen button.

This gets really annoying when you’re trying to study course content.

🏆 Winner: Circle. It’s interface is clean, simple, and fast. As they add new features, everything stays neat and organized. However, Mighty Networks have run into many issues trying to revamp their interface.

Understanding the organization

Let’s look at how these platforms organize things.

With both of them, you have:

1. Groups (you can put multiple spaces in one group)
2. Spaces (think of these like Slack channels or WhatsApp groups)

You can make separate groups for each training course in your community.

Let me show you the different types of spaces in Circle:

• Posts: A simple way to share content with your community members
• Events: Set up and run live events when you need to
• Chat: Talk with your members in real-time
• Course: Share your knowledge through online courses

Here’s something important: In Circle, each space can only have one type of content

Now, Mighty Networks does things differently.

You can turn on multiple features in one space:

• Feed: Share updates and news with everyone
• Events: Run webinars and workshops when needed
• Course: Create courses with lessons and modules
• Discovery: Help members find content and connect
• Members: See who’s who in your community
• Chat: Let members talk to each other

One more thing about Circle – you can also pick how each space looks by changing its layout.

Circle gives you three simple layout options to organize your content:

• Feed: Shows your posts in a scrolling list – great for active discussions
• List: Shows just the basics – title, when it was last updated, and how many likes and comments
• Card: Displays posts in a grid with cover images – perfect for visual content

The feed view works best for most communities.

Circle aims to be like Lego blocks – simple pieces you can put together to build your community. Their founder says they’re trying to be like Notion in this way.

They keep it simple: “Circle gives you the building blocks to bring your vision to life”.

🏆 Winner: Circle provides a simpler, more intuitive organization system. While Mighty Networks offers more flexibility with multiple features per space, Circle’s clean approach makes navigation easier for members.

Content and posts

After setting up your community, it’s time to start posting content.

Both platforms let you organize your posts neatly.

You can make folders or collections in each space to keep everything tidy.

Here’s how posting works in each platform:

Circle gives you a really nice editor for making posts.

It works just like Notion – you can add text, pictures, files to download, and even stuff from other websites.

Here’s something helpful: you can put a cover image on your posts.

This makes your full articles look great in your space.

Here’s something cool – Circle now has an AI helper.

It gives you ideas for posts and helps make your writing better.

But what about Mighty Networks?

Well, their editor is pretty basic.

You can’t do much formatting at all.

They do let you make different types of posts though – like questions and polls.

🏆 Winner: Circle. Their editor has more features, and their AI helper (with custom prompts) makes posting much easier.

Course builder 📚

Both platforms let you build courses.

You can make self-paced courses or run live classes.

In Circle, first pick “Course” as your space type.

You get three ways to run your course:

1. Self-paced: Students get everything right away and learn at their own speed
2. Structured: Content comes out bit by bit after students join. Each person gets new sections based on when they started
3. Scheduled: Everyone gets new sections on specific dates you set

Each course has sections and lessons inside it.

Circle gives you plenty of ways to build your lessons.

You can add text, videos, audio files, images, and downloadable files – all the basics you need.

Each lesson comes with simple building blocks that help you create your content just the way you want it.

Here’s something cool – you can drip out your lessons over time to keep students from rushing through everything at once.

Plus, students can leave comments on each lesson to share their thoughts.

Let me tell you about Mighty Networks.

Remember what I said earlier?

First, you’ll need to turn on the “Course” feature in your space.

It’s pretty simple – you can make different sections and add lessons or quizzes under each one.

Just like Circle, you can drip feed your content.

Here’s something cool – Mighty Networks lets you create quizzes in your modules.

You can make different types of quizzes:

1. Sequential
2. Timed
3. Scheduled

You can make students complete the quizzes before moving ahead.

This helps make sure they’re actually learning.

The system tracks how many students finish the quizzes and what scores they get.

This helps you see how well your students are doing.

🏆 Winner: Mighty Networks edges ahead with its quiz functionality. While Circle’s lesson builder is more flexible, Mighty’s ability to track student progress through quizzes provides valuable learning assessment capabilities.

Community access

Both platforms give you several ways to add members to your community.

You can add members in three ways:

1. Type in their email addresses
2. Upload a CSV file with contacts
3. Share an invite link

Let’s start with Circle.

Here’s something you’ll love – Circle lets you put up paywalls.

This means you can control who gets to see your content and charge money for access.

It’s pretty simple – just set your spaces to private or secret first.

Then set up your paywall.

Circle just made things even better with their new Circle Payments system.

Now you can accept different currencies and have more control over payments – no need to mess around with other payment systems.

Setting up memberships is pretty simple.

You can set the price, pick which Spaces members can access, and fill in all the membership details.

You can make the after-purchase experience better by:

• Creating a custom thank you page
• Sending them to any URL you want
• Writing your own thank you email

These paywalls let you:

1. Set up monthly or yearly subscriptions
2. Sell extra stuff and add-ons 🔌
3. Take one-time payments

You also get some nice extras with these paywalls – things like discount coupons, saved payment cards, different currencies, and easy upgrades.

But, what do people see when they can’t access your private spaces?

That’s where the lock screen comes in.

👉 This lock screen won’t replace your sales page, but it really helps get more people to join or upgrade their membership when they’re already in your community.

Mighty Networks works similarly – you can make each Space public, private, or paid.

Just like Circle, Mighty Networks lets you set up different plans and control which spaces members can access based on their plan.

👎 But there’s a catch – Mighty Networks doesn’t have a customizable login screen to show content to users who don’t have space access.

🏆 Winner: Circle’s intuitive community access controls and customizable lock screens provide a superior experience. Their new Circle Payments system offers more flexibility for monetization compared to Mighty Networks’ more basic access controls.

Design and customization options ⚙️

Circle lets you easily customize your community’s look and feel. You can change basic things like your community name, URL, logo, and brand colors without any coding knowledge.

Need to build landing pages? Circle 3.0 gives you a solid landing page builder with pre-made templates across different niches.

After picking a template, you can customize sections using their block-based editor.

If you’ve used WordPress before, you’ll feel right at home with their “sections” approach.

They also have global style controls that save you tons of time – update one element and it changes everywhere it’s used.

The builder includes basic elements like paragraphs, headings, buttons and links.

While the selection is somewhat limited, they do include a Code widget that lets you add custom HTML for more advanced functionality (like opt-in forms).

👉 For really fancy stuff like parallax effects, you’ll still need specialized tools like WordPress with Elementor.

Mighty Networks on the other hand, doesn’t have a landing page builder; it just comes with basic customization options.

Here’s something worth noting – they offer term editing functionality. This lets you customize what different parts of your community are called.

For example, you can change “groups” to be called “circles,” “committees,” “tribes,” or any other name that fits your community’s vibe.

Circle doesn’t have this feature.

🏆 Winner: Circle wins with its robust landing page builder featuring templates and block-based editing, though Mighty Networks offers unique term customization that Circle lacks.

Gamification and engagement features

A community platform needs good engagement features to work well.

Both Circle and Mighty Networks give you tools to keep members active and interested.

Circle’s gamification features really stand out here.

Members earn points for different activities:

• Creating posts and starting discussions
• Leaving comments and reactions
• Attending events and completing courses
• Logging in regularly

This point system creates healthy competition while encouraging more participation.

Achievement badges take this a step further.

Members get these virtual rewards when they reach milestones or complete specific actions. These badges work like status symbols and give immediate recognition.

Circle also has these helpful engagement boosters:

• Activity score: Shows how active members are with a simple number.
• Leaderboard: Highlights your most active members based on their scores.
• Weekly digests: Sends summaries of community activity to keep everyone in the loop.
• Member tags: Gives you an easy way to organize and label your members.

Let me explain activity scores and member tags a bit more, since they’re really effective for keeping people engaged.

Circle gives every member an activity score based on how they interact with your community.

This score looks at things like how often they show up, what they post, and how they connect with others.

You can use these activity scores to add special tags to member profiles. This makes your community more fun and gives people goals to work toward.

Mighty Networks keeps things simpler – they just have badges.

Members get these badges when they finish courses.

There’s also a neat feature that helps members find others who share similar interests.

When you look through your member list, you can easily find people based on how active they are, where they’re from, and if they’re online right now.

👉 Circle’s 3.0 update added basic gamification with activity scores and member tags, but it doesn’t match specialized platforms yet. For more advanced gamification, check out Skool with its robust points system or Kajabi with comprehensive engagement tools.

🏆 Winner: Circle takes the edge in engagement features with its activity scoring, member tagging, and new gamification system that encourages active participation and healthy competition.

Workflow automation

Circle added a new feature called workflows (only available in their $200/month Business plan).

It works like the automation rules in Kajabi.

Here are the different types of workflows:

1. Automation Workflow: Makes tasks happen automatically when certain things happen
2. Bulk Action Workflow: Lets you do many things at once to save time
3. Scheduled Workflow: Sets up bulk actions to happen on a schedule

Here’s what you can do with Automation Workflow:

1. Send a welcome message when new members join 💌
2. Add tags to new members 🏷️
3. Send event reminders ⏰
4. Add tags when someone pays for access 💰
5. Send congratulations when someone finishes a course 🎉

You can also choose exactly who gets these automated actions.

This means you can run automations for specific groups of people in your community.

The Bulk Action feature helps you save time by doing things for many members at once.

Here’s what you can do with bulk actions:

• Copy members from one space to another 🔄
• Send messages to everyone in a space 📨
• Add tags to all space members 🏷️
• Group similar members together 🧩
• Message members who share things in common (like interests or location) 💌

Want to learn more about workflows? Check out this link.

👎 Mighty Networks doesn’t have these automation features. You’ll need to use Zapier if you want to set up automations.

🏆 Winner: Circle outperforms Mighty Networks with its comprehensive workflow automation capabilities, offering time-saving features that Mighty Networks simply doesn’t provide without third-party tools.

Mobile app 📲

Both Mighty Networks and Circle have mobile apps that work on iPhone and Android.

These apps are easy to use and pack all the important features you need.

You can do quite a lot with these apps – run group coaching calls, host live events, and send push notifications to your members.

Want your own branded app?

Both platforms offer this through Circle Plus and Mighty Pro.

You can create and launch your own custom apps on Google Play and Apple App stores.

🏆 Winner: Both platforms offer excellent mobile apps with comparable features, though Circle’s cleaner interface and more intuitive navigation provide a slightly better user experience.

Moderation and security

Circle just added some helpful moderation tools.

You can now check for bad language, let members flag inappropriate posts, and stop spam.

For example, you can set how many reports it takes before a member gets flagged for review.

👎 On the other hand, Mighty Networks doesn’t have any moderation tools. This is a big problem for people running public communities.

🏆 Winner: Circle

Analytics and reports📈

Both platforms give you analytics to track your community’s growth.

Circle shows you helpful data about your members, engagement, traffic, top performers, messages, and spaces.

Here’s what you can track:

• Top members
• Active commenters
• Post starters
• Active spaces
• Active posts
• Etc.

Circle’s leaderboard is a neat feature – you can see your top members, most active posts, and busiest spaces from the last 30 days.

This helps you spot and reward your most engaged community members.

Here’s what Mighty Networks shows you in their analytics:

• Members – Shows you who’s active, who keeps coming back, and who’s contributing
• Content – Tells you how posts are doing and how members are engaging

Want to learn more about Mighty Networks analytics? Check out their full guide here.

🏆 Winner: Circle slightly edges out Mighty Networks with more comprehensive analytics dashboards and actionable insights, though both platforms provide essential metrics for community growth tracking.

Affiliate program

Mighty Networks has what they call an ambassador program to help grow your community.

If you’re on their Community or Business plans, your members can become ambassadors.

They move up through different levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold) as they bring in more people.

But here’s the catch – unlike a true affiliate program, you can’t track sales or handle payments through it.

Circle does things differently.

They let you set up a real affiliate program.

You can connect it to different payment options in your community.

A cool feature is – if a sale doesn’t automatically link to an affiliate, you can manually assign it to the right person.

This gives you lots of flexibility.

But there’s one downside – you’ll need to manually start affiliate payments by clicking ‘start payout in your dashboard.

Circle hasn’t added automatic payments for affiliates.

This can be annoying if you’re managing lots of affiliates.

🏆 Winner: Circle provides a more robust affiliate program with real tracking and payment capabilities, while Mighty Networks only offers a basic ambassador system without monetary compensation.

Integrations

Mighty Networks integrates with MailChimp, Thrivecart, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, and HubSpot.

This is great if you already use these tools.

For anything else, you’ll need Zapier.

Circle has an API advantage that gives you more flexibility.

While it lacks built-in integrations, its ‘Workflows’ feature can replace some Zapier functions and save you money.

Just note: Workflows aren’t available on the basic plan.

🏆 Winner: Circle provides more comprehensive integration capabilities with its API access and workflow automations, giving users greater flexibility to connect with external tools and services.

Pricing and discount 💰

Circle’s pricing starts at $89/month.

• Want all the good stuff? Get the $199 Business plan – you’ll get workflows and API access, but you can only create limited workflows.
• Need unlimited workflows and better tracking tools? You’ll have to pay $419 per month for the Enterprise plan.

3 shady things 🤫:

• All their plans are billed annually (see the asterisk *)
• The transaction fee is not disclosed in the pricing page.
• They don’t clearly mention how many workflows you actually get with their Business plan.

Now Mighty:

Mighty Networks starts at $109/mo billed annually. With this plan, you get features like courses, live-streaming, and Zapier.

You’ll pay more with Mighty Networks. Circle gives you these same features in their professional plan at $89/month.

For your own branded mobile apps, look at Mighty Pro – but you’ll need to ask support about the price.

🏆 Winner: Mighty Networks offers better value with unlimited members on all plans, while Circle restricts member counts on lower tiers despite comparable feature sets.

Support

Both platforms give you good help when you need it.

Mighty Networks has a YouTube channel, detailed help articles, and a community where you can ask questions.

Circle has help articles and a community too. But they don’t have any YouTube channel.

I like Circle’s help docs better because they’re detailed and use GIFs to explain things clearly.

🏆 Winner: Tie.

Wrap up

Both Circle and Mighty Networks are solid choices for building communities.

After trying both, I think Circle is the better choice.

Their team comes from Teachable, and they’re smart about adding new features like automation and marketing tools.

They’re following the path of successful platforms like Notion and Slack.

Mighty Networks has lots of features but feels cluttered and misses important things like API access and workflows.

If you want a clean, reliable platform with good features for your community, go with Circle.