What are professions communities?

Communities for professionals in specific career paths to connect with peers and advance in their field. Covers a range of industries and roles, with LinkedIn groups and dedicated platforms serving executive-track professionals and industry associations hosting member communities.

Where do most professions communities live?

Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (29% of 21 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

62% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical professions community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 241K members and the median is 27K. 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 (67%). Others that show up often include live chat, online/offline events, and job board.

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

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

Executive Summary

We analyzed 21 professions communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

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

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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Communities: 21
Platforms: 8
Avg members: 241K
Median members: 27K

Where Professions Communities Are Hosted

Independent Platforms
6(29%)
Facebook
3(14%)
Slack
3(14%)
Discord
3(14%)
LinkedIn
2(10%)
Circle
1(5%)
Mighty Networks
1(5%)
Reddit
1(5%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
10(48%)
Chat communities
6(29%)
Other platforms
3(14%)
Private membership
2(10%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (48%), but chat communities is also well represented (29%).

Independent Platforms leads, but Facebook 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
2(10%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
4(19%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
6(29%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
3(14%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
1(5%)

5 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (241K vs 27K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Professions Differs From Other Categories

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

Metric	Professions	Hive Index average
Free to join	62%	84%
Median members	27K	25K
Average members	241K	668K
Paid or apply-to-join	38%	16%
Live chat	52%	41%
Discord share	14%	17%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
67%
Live Chat
52%
Online/Offline Events
52%
Job Board
48%
Newsletter
38%
Paid Community
24%
Courses
19%
Requires Application
19%

Niche Features

Member Perks
14%
Pairing
5%

Live Chat appears on 52% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 40

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Independent Platforms	6	29%	9	23%
Facebook	3	14%	5	13%
Slack	3	14%	21	53%
Discord	3	14%	3	8%
Mighty Networks	1	5%	1	3%
Reddit	1	5%	1	3%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack gets 53% of clicks but only 14% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
24(60%)
Forum / feed-based
15(38%)
Private membership
1(3%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
33(83%)
Online/Offline Events
31(78%)
Requires Application
24(60%)
Forum
17(43%)
Newsletter
17(43%)
Job Board
14(35%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Large
17(43%)
Huge
16(40%)
Gigantic
1(3%)

Top-clicked listings

Fractionals United
15(38%)
WeCamgirls
8(20%)
Support Driven
4(10%)

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

Trends

Founded year

2008

2011

2012

2015

2019

2021

2022

2023

13 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2008.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 1 community has ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 1 community.

Rated examples

Fractionals United
Slack · 5.0 stars · 8K members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Professions. 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 professionals in specific career paths to connect with peers and advance in their field. Covers a range of industries and roles, with LinkedIn groups and dedicated platforms serving executive-track professionals and industry associations hosting member communities.
: Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (29% of 21 listings).
: 62% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 241K members and the median is 27K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (67%). Others that show up often include live chat, online/offline events, and job board.
: 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 Professions topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Professions communities

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