What are community building communities?

Communities for people who build and manage communities, covering engagement tactics, moderation, platform selection, and monetization. Slack and Discord host active practitioner communities, with discussion spanning online community design for brands and startups to managing large Discord servers and growing Skool communities.

Where do most community building communities live?

Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (34% of 29 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

76% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical community building community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 2K members and the median is 495. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Online/Offline Events is the most common (83%). Others that show up often include live chat, forum, and newsletter.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Community Building topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Community Building Communities Report: Stats, Platforms,...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 29 community building communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: community building communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated 2026-04-26

Browse all Community Building communities Know a community we're missing? Add it

Communities: 29
Platforms: 12
Avg members: 2K
Median members: 495

Where Community Building Communities Are Hosted

Independent Platforms
10(34%)
Slack
4(14%)
Discord
3(10%)
Facebook
1(3%)
Reddit
1(3%)
Nas.io
1(3%)
WhatsApp
1(3%)
Disco
1(3%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
12(41%)
Other platforms
8(28%)
Chat communities
7(24%)
Private membership
2(7%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (41%), but other platforms is also well represented (28%).

Independent Platforms leads, but Slack and Discord also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
1(3%)
Small
20-100 members
2(7%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
11(38%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
10(34%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
1(3%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
0(0%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

4 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (2K vs 495), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Community Building Differs From Other Categories

Community Building is less free-to-join, smaller, more platform-diverse, more chat-heavy, and more paid or gated, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Community Building	Hive Index average
Free to join	76%	85%
Median members	495	25K
Average members	2K	669K
Paid or apply-to-join	24%	15%
Live chat	79%	38%
Discord share	10%	16%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Online/Offline Events
83%
Live Chat
79%
Forum
69%
Newsletter
62%
Job Board
38%
Member Perks
34%
Paid Community
21%

Niche Features

Courses
14%
Pairing
14%
Requires Application
3%
Token
3%
Tools
3%

Live Chat appears on 79% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 41

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Independent Platforms	10	34%	9	38%
Slack	4	14%	1	4%
Discord	3	10%	3	13%
Reddit	1	3%	1	4%
Nas.io	1	3%	5	21%
Disco	1	3%	2	8%
Skool	1	3%	2	8%
Mighty Networks	1	3%	1	4%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Independent Platforms hosts 34% of listings and 38% of clicks, so supply and interest line up.

Most-clicked formats

Forum / feed-based
10(42%)
Other platforms
7(29%)
Chat communities
4(17%)
Private membership
3(13%)

Most-clicked features

Online/Offline Events
20(83%)
Live Chat
19(79%)
Newsletter
16(67%)
Forum
14(58%)
Member Perks
12(50%)
Paid Community
6(25%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Medium
8(33%)
Large
7(29%)

Top-clicked listings

Nas.io Community Builders
5(21%)
Founders and Mentors
3(13%)
Talklean
3(13%)

Most clicks go to forum / feed-based and other platforms communities.

Trends

Founded year

2011

2014

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

12 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2022.

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Community Building. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•This is a smaller slice of Hive Index's database, so read trends as directional.
•Last updated 2026-04-26

FAQ

: Communities for people who build and manage communities, covering engagement tactics, moderation, platform selection, and monetization. Slack and Discord host active practitioner communities, with discussion spanning online community design for brands and startups to managing large Discord servers and growing Skool communities.
: Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (34% of 29 listings).
: 76% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 2K members and the median is 495. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Online/Offline Events is the most common (83%). Others that show up often include live chat, forum, and newsletter.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Community Building topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Community Building communities

Related reports