Detailed comparison across 10 dimensions
Winner: Discourse
Discourse clearly comes out ahead of Circle on Staquest's weighted six-dimension score. Discourse has a free tier; Circle does not. Paid plans start at $89/mo for Circle and $20/mo for Discourse.
| Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | hybrid | saas tool |
| Company | CircleCo, Inc. | Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc. |
| Free Tier | ||
| Has API | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Learning Curve | - | - |
| Integration | - | - |
| Trending | Stable | Stable |
| GitHub Stars | - | - |
| Industries | MarketingDevelopmentEducation & EdTech | MarketingDevelopmentEducation & EdTech |
| Categories | customer-success | customer-success |
| Website | Visit | Visit |
Discourse
flat
flat
freemium
flat
flat
custom
| Feature | circle | discourse |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5% Transaction Fee | ||
| 15+ Plugins (Discourseconnect, Chat Integration, Solved, Github, Etc.) | ||
| 1% Transaction Fee | ||
| 20+ Plugins (Data Explorer, Automation, Oauth2, Openid Connect, Policy, Etc.) | ||
| 1Tb Storage | ||
| 50+ Plugins (Code Review, Saved Search, Topic Tooltips, Saml Authentication) | ||
| 2% Transaction Fee | ||
| Everything On Business | ||
| 200Gb Storage | ||
| Everything On Free | ||
| 500Gb Storage | ||
| Everything On Pro | ||
| Courses | ||
| Everything On Starter | ||
| Custom Branding | ||
| Expert Design & Development Services | ||
| Custom Domain | ||
| Free Domain (Your-Community.Discourse.Group) | ||
| Dedicated Customer Success Manager | ||
| Migration Services | ||
| Discussions | ||
| Social Logins (Facebook, Google, Github, Apple) | ||
| Events | ||
| Everything In Business | ||
| Everything In Professional | ||
| Flexible Spaces | ||
| Gamification | ||
| Live Rooms | ||
| Livestreaming | ||
| Migration Services For Payments |
Showing 30 of 30 features
Dashes mean the feature isn't listed in our data. The tool may still support it.
On Staquest's weighted six-dimension scoring, Discourse comes out ahead overall, though Circle can be the better fit depending on your priorities — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown above.
Circle's paid plans start at $89/mo and Discourse's start at $20/mo, so Discourse is the lower entry price. Check the pricing comparison for higher tiers and per-seat costs.
Discourse offers a free tier; Circle does not currently list one.
Discourse scores higher on pricing value in Staquest's analysis. It is the highest-weighted dimension in this comparison.
Discourse is open source. The feature comparison and dimension scores above cover the full breakdown.
