Mighty Networks and Circle.so are the two most commonly compared community platforms for small-to-medium organisations. They're competitors in the same general market, but they were built with different primary use cases in mind and attract different types of community builders.
This comparison covers both platforms honestly, including where each falls short, and explains where the comparison becomes irrelevant for larger organisations.
Side-by-side comparison
| Feature | Mighty Networks | Circle.so |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $33/month ($396/year) | $89/month ($1,068/year) |
| Enterprise pricing | Custom (typically $5,000–$20,000+/year) | Custom (typically $3,000–$10,000+/year) |
| Primary audience | Creators, coaches, course sellers | Brands, creators, small communities |
| Community scale ceiling | Optimised under 10,000 members | Optimised under 5,000 members |
| Native mobile app | Yes (white-label Mighty app) | Yes (white-label Circle app) |
| Built-in courses | Yes (core feature) | Yes (available) |
| Member monetisation | Strong (subscriptions, gated content) | Moderate |
| Member analytics | Basic activity tracking | Basic activity tracking |
| Admin governance controls | Limited for large organisations | Limited for large organisations |
| Custom integrations | API available (limited depth) | Zapier + limited API |
| Data ownership | Mighty Networks' servers | Circle's servers |
| Platform ownership | Rented (SaaS) | Rented (SaaS) |
Five key differences that actually matter
Mighty Networks is course-first. Circle is community-first.
Mighty Networks was built around the creator economy model: sell a course, build an audience around it, monetise that audience. Community features exist primarily to support and retain paying learners. Circle took the opposite approach, building a clean, community-first product and adding course functionality later. If your primary goal is course delivery, Mighty is the stronger native choice. If your primary goal is community engagement with content as a secondary feature, Circle's architecture suits you better.
Mighty is more expensive at scale. Circle is cheaper at scale.
At the standard tier, Mighty Networks is significantly cheaper than Circle. But as you add members and features, Mighty's pricing structure accelerates. Circle's enterprise pricing tends to be more predictable for larger organisations. For communities pushing toward 5,000–10,000 members, Circle is often the more cost-efficient SaaS option of the two.
Both offer white-label mobile apps. Neither offers native branded apps.
Both platforms include mobile apps, but these are white-label wrappers built on the platform's infrastructure. Your members download an app that says 'Mighty Networks' or 'Spaces by Circle' in the App Store, with your logo applied on top. This is categorically different from a native branded app submitted under your organisation's App Store account with your name, your design system, and your features.
Neither scales well past 10,000 members for institutional communities.
Mighty Networks and Circle are both designed for creator and brand communities, not large institutional organisations. Alumni networks, nonprofits, faith communities, and professional associations with 10,000–100,000 members consistently hit architectural constraints with both platforms, around governance tooling, analytics depth, integration capability, and the ability to build features that reflect their unique community model.
Neither gives you data sovereignty.
On both platforms, your member data lives on the vendor's servers under their policies. If either platform changes their pricing, terms, or product direction, you have limited recourse. This matters most for organisations whose member data is central to their mission, faith communities, healthcare associations, alumni networks, where the relationship with the member data is itself a fiduciary responsibility.
Who should choose Mighty Networks?
Mighty Networks is the stronger choice if:
- Your community model centres on paid courses, memberships, and creator monetisation
- You're building an audience around your personal brand or expertise
- Your community has fewer than 5,000 members and is primarily content-driven
- You want the most feature-rich creator platform at the lowest entry price
Who should choose Circle.so?
Circle.so is the stronger choice if:
- Your community is focused on discussion, connection, and content sharing rather than course delivery
- You want a cleaner, simpler UX with less friction for community management
- Your community has fewer than 3,000–5,000 members
- You need a fast launch at the lowest possible cost
When both become the wrong choice
The Mighty Networks vs Circle comparison becomes irrelevant for a specific type of organisation: large, mission-driven institutions that need community infrastructure at scale.
If your organisation is an alumni network with 20,000 members, a faith community scaling to 50,000, a nonprofit with a decade of member history, or a professional association that considers its community platform core infrastructure, neither Mighty Networks nor Circle.so was designed for you.
At that scale, the relevant question shifts from "Mighty or Circle?" to "What do we need to own?" The constraints that matter, native apps with your brand, governance tooling for complex organisations, engagement architectures built around your community's specific model, data on infrastructure you control, can't be addressed by either platform at any price tier.
That's the inflection point where organisations move from SaaS community tools to custom-built, permanently owned infrastructure. The comparison above helps you choose between two platforms that serve the same general market. Once your community outgrows that market, the comparison is a different one entirely.