What are podcasting communities?

Communities for podcast creators covering gear, growth, production, and monetization. Slack and Discord host the most active podcaster communities, with Facebook groups for general support and spaces focused on specific niches like women in podcasting and culture-centered shows.

Where do most podcasting communities live?

Facebook is the most common platform in this report (24% of 25 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

68% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical podcasting community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 56K members and the median is 4K. 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?

Forum is the most common (56%). Others that show up often include live chat, paid community, and online/offline events.

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 Podcasting topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Podcasting Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 25 podcasting communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

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

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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

Communities: 25
Platforms: 8
Avg members: 56K
Median members: 4K

Where Podcasting Communities Are Hosted

Facebook
6(24%)
Independent Platforms
5(20%)
Slack
4(16%)
X / Twitter
3(12%)
Skool
3(12%)
Discord
1(4%)
Discourse
1(4%)
Reddit
1(4%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
13(52%)
Chat communities
5(20%)
Other platforms
4(16%)
Private membership
3(12%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (52%), but chat communities is also well represented (20%).

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

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
5(20%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
8(32%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
7(28%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
1(4%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

4 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (56K vs 4K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Podcasting Differs From Other Categories

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

Metric	Podcasting	Hive Index average
Free to join	68%	84%
Median members	4K	25K
Average members	56K	673K
Paid or apply-to-join	32%	16%
Live chat	40%	41%
Discord share	4%	17%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
56%
Live Chat
40%
Paid Community
32%
Online/Offline Events
24%
Newsletter
16%

Niche Features

Member Perks
4%
Tools
4%

Forum appears on 56% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 44

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Facebook	6	24%	2	5%
Independent Platforms	5	20%	14	32%
Slack	4	16%	17	39%
Discord	1	4%	10	23%
Discourse	1	4%	1	2%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack gets 39% of clicks but only 16% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
27(61%)
Forum / feed-based
17(39%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
30(68%)
Forum
14(32%)
Online/Offline Events
6(14%)
Paid Community
4(9%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Large
18(41%)
Huge
9(20%)
Medium
3(7%)

Top-clicked listings

The Podcasters Community
10(23%)
True Crime Obsessed
10(23%)
AcquiredFM
7(16%)

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

Trends

Founded year

2011

2013

2014

2015

2017

2019

2021

16 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2019.

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Podcasting. 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.

FAQ

: Communities for podcast creators covering gear, growth, production, and monetization. Slack and Discord host the most active podcaster communities, with Facebook groups for general support and spaces focused on specific niches like women in podcasting and culture-centered shows.
: Facebook is the most common platform in this report (24% of 25 listings).
: 68% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 56K members and the median is 4K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (56%). Others that show up often include live chat, paid community, and online/offline events.
: 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 Podcasting topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.