Most community platform decisions are made badly. Organisations shortlist platforms based on marketing, run demos of features they may not need, choose based on the shiniest UI, and discover 18 months later that the platform can't do what their community actually requires at scale.
The cost of getting this wrong is high. Community platform migrations are disruptive, expensive, and risk member attrition. The average large community organisation changes platforms once every 7–10 years. Getting the decision right matters.
This framework is designed for organisations making major community platform investments: typically 5,000+ members, significant annual budget, and a long-term commitment to community as core infrastructure. If you're launching a new community of 200 people, this framework is overkill. If you're an alumni network, a nonprofit, a faith community, or a professional association, it's designed for you.
Stage 1
Define your community model before evaluating platforms
The most common mistake in platform selection is starting with the platform rather than with the community model. Before you open a single product demo, document what your community actually needs to do: How do members find and connect with each other? What events and programmes does the community run? What content needs to be created, curated, and consumed? How are members recognised for contribution? What does onboarding look like for a new member? What does the governance structure require from an admin perspective? The answers to these questions determine which platform features are load-bearing and which are decorative. A community whose primary activity is event-based looks completely different from one whose primary activity is discussion-based or mentorship-based.
Stage 2
Identify your non-negotiables
Non-negotiables are requirements where no alternative is acceptable. They're different from preferences, where trade-offs are possible. Common non-negotiables for large community organisations include: data sovereignty (for organisations with board-level fiduciary responsibilities around member data), native mobile apps (for communities where mobile is the primary channel and platform-branded apps are unacceptable), specific integrations with existing infrastructure (CRM, identity provider, payment processor), regulatory compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, or sector-specific data regulations), and scale performance (documented performance at member counts comparable to yours). A platform that fails a non-negotiable is eliminated regardless of its strengths elsewhere. Running the non-negotiable filter first saves significant evaluation time.
Stage 3
Separate the ownership decision from the platform decision
The choice between SaaS and custom-built is a separate decision from which SaaS platform to choose. Many organisations conflate the two and end up evaluating SaaS options while missing the question of whether any SaaS option can actually meet their needs. The ownership decision hinges on: the organisation's time horizon (short-term vs 10+ year platform operation), the organisation's scale (SaaS platforms are typically optimised for communities under 20,000–30,000 active members), the economics (the break-even point on custom ownership vs SaaS rental for your specific contract value), and the governance requirements (whether data sovereignty, native apps, and full infrastructure control are non-negotiable). If you reach the end of an honest ownership evaluation and conclude that SaaS is the right model for your organisation at this stage, proceed to SaaS platform evaluation. If the ownership question resolves to custom, skip the SaaS comparison entirely.
Stage 4
Run a structured evaluation across all shortlisted options
For SaaS platforms: issue a written RFP with specific questions about data ownership, pricing escalation, mobile architecture, integration depth, and vendor stability. Require written answers before demos. Conduct reference calls with organisations of comparable size and community model (not the vendor's cherry-picked references). Build a 5-year and 10-year cost of ownership model including all costs, not just the headline licence fee. For custom development: evaluate potential development partners against their portfolio of comparable builds (not their general web development portfolio), their approach to ongoing support and feature development, their transparency about build costs and timeline, and their track record with similar community types. In both cases, weight the reference calls heavily. Platform demos show best-case scenarios. References reveal real-world performance.
Stage 5
Stress-test the decision before signing
Before committing, run the following scenarios against your chosen option: What happens if the vendor raises prices by 40% next year? What happens if the vendor is acquired? Can you export all your data within 48 hours and take it somewhere else? What happens if you need a feature the platform doesn't offer? What is your disaster recovery scenario if the platform experiences a major outage during your largest annual event? What does year 7 look like, financially and operationally? These aren't hypothetical worries. They're the scenarios that organisations that made platform decisions without stress-testing them regularly encounter. The platform decision you make today will likely govern your community infrastructure for 5–10 years. The cost of stress-testing the decision is low. The cost of making the wrong decision is high.
Quick-reference guide by community type
If you want a faster shortcut to the right starting point:
If you are: Community under 5,000 members, limited budget, fast launch needed
Answer: Mighty Networks or Circle.so. Both are cost-effective, fast to deploy, and well-suited for smaller communities. Neither is designed for institutional scale.
If you are: Alumni network or professional association, 5,000–30,000 members
Answer: Evaluate Hivebrite alongside the custom ownership question. At this scale, the 10-year economics of ownership may already be competitive with Hivebrite's enterprise pricing.
If you are: Faith community, healthcare association, or mission-critical member relationship organisation
Answer: Prioritise data sovereignty above all other criteria. Most SaaS platforms are structurally incompatible with genuine data sovereignty requirements. Custom ownership is likely the correct answer.
If you are: Organisation with 30,000+ members that needs native mobile apps and custom governance
Answer: Custom-built platform. No SaaS option at this scale provides native mobile apps, custom governance tooling, and data sovereignty simultaneously at any price tier.
If you are: Organisation currently on Hivebrite paying $40,000+/year and hitting feature limits
Answer: Model the custom ownership economics immediately. At $40,000+/year, the break-even on a custom build is typically 4–5 years, and you retain platform equity permanently thereafter.
The most common platform decision mistakes
Choosing based on demos rather than references. Product demos show best-case scenarios, presented by salespeople. Customer references from organisations of comparable size and model are more informative than any demo. Always conduct them.
Evaluating features without evaluating architecture. A feature list tells you what a platform can do in its standard configuration. It doesn't tell you how the platform performs at 50,000 members, what the actual mobile experience is like, or what happens to your data if you leave. Architecture questions reveal far more than feature lists.
Treating the annual fee as the cost of ownership. Implementation, annual escalation, add-on modules, integration development, staff time, and eventual migration costs are all real costs. Evaluate total cost of ownership over 5 and 10 years, not just the first-year subscription fee.
Skipping the ownership question. The SaaS vs custom decision is not the same as which SaaS platform to choose. For a significant subset of large community organisations, no SaaS platform is actually the right answer. Skipping that question and proceeding directly to SaaS evaluation produces a suboptimal result for those organisations.
Under-weighting data sovereignty. For organisations whose member relationships are core to their mission, data sovereignty is a governance concern, not a technical detail. The question of who owns your member data, where it lives, and what happens to it if the vendor changes should be a primary filter, not an afterthought.