Circle and Mighty Networks Alternative on WordPress

Looking for a Circle alternative or a Mighty Networks alternative? This video asks three questions of any community platform, where the members live, who decides what it can do, and what happens if you leave, and answers them on a WordPress site you own.

Transcript

Looking for a Circle alternative, or a Mighty Networks alternative? Start with what you want a community platform to do. Spaces for each topic. Paid membership. Courses and events. And emails that reach your members. Most platforms promise all four. So do not stop at the feature list. Ask three questions. Where do the members live? Who decides what the platform can do next year? And what happens to the community if you ever leave? On a hosted platform, your members live in an account you rent. It sits beside the other places you rent, and none of them is yours. Every month the community grows there, the habit gets stronger, and so does the cost of moving. Here are the same four wants on a WordPress site you own. Spaces by topic. This one is open, so anyone can read and join. A space can also be private, where you approve each person, or secret, where the only way in is an invitation. Paid membership. This space is for paying members, so a free member sees the door and not the room. The plans page shows the price and what each plan opens. A visitor can compare the plans before paying anything. Courses. A student sees their own courses, with the progress saved. And a course can have its own room in the community, where students ask each other about the lessons. Events. A member registers in one click, and everyone can see how many people are going. Now the owner side. Payments run through a payment account in your own name, such as Stripe or PayPal. Emails to members. A welcome series is written once and sent to every new member on a schedule. You can see how the community is doing, in numbers that stay on your own site. And the answer to the first question. The members live on your list, and you can export it. So, the three answers. Your members live on your own site. You decide what it can do, because on WordPress you can add a forum, a job board or a directory when you need one. And you never have to leave, because nobody else owns the place. If you already run a community somewhere else, you do not have to move it in a day. Start your own site. Open one space. Invite your most active members first, with one invite link. Then bring the rest over when the new home is already busy. Side by side. Members on their site, or on yours. A plan you rent, or a plugin you install. Their roadmap, or whatever you choose to add. And if you leave a hosted platform, you rebuild. On your own site there is nothing to move later. Each new member on a rented platform is one more person to bring across. The move is never smaller than it is today. BuddyNext is the free community plugin for WordPress. Open your first space on your own site this week. Get BuddyNext. The link is below.