What are remote communities?

Communities for remote workers and distributed teams covering async workflows, home office setup, finding remote jobs, and the lifestyle aspects of working from anywhere. Slack and Discord host active communities, with Facebook groups and dedicated platforms for digital nomads and entrepreneurs embracing location-independent work.

Where do most remote communities live?

Slack is the most common platform in this report (27% of 26 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

69% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical remote community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 390K 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 (62%). 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 Remote topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Remote Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends &...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 26 remote communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: remote 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: 26
Platforms: 7
Avg members: 390K
Median members: 4K

Where Remote Communities Are Hosted

Slack
7(27%)
Independent Platforms
7(27%)
Reddit
7(27%)
LinkedIn
1(4%)
Telegram
1(4%)
Mighty Networks
1(4%)
Circle
1(4%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
14(54%)
Chat communities
8(31%)
Other platforms
2(8%)
Private membership
2(8%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (54%), but chat communities is also well represented (31%).

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

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
4(15%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
3(12%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
4(15%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
1(4%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
6(23%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
2(8%)

6 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (390K vs 4K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Remote Differs From Other Categories

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

Metric	Remote	Hive Index average
Free to join	69%	84%
Median members	4K	25K
Average members	390K	668K
Paid or apply-to-join	31%	16%
Live chat	58%	41%
Topic pageviews / mo	583	842

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
62%
Live Chat
58%
Online/Offline Events
42%
Job Board
31%
Newsletter
27%
Paid Community
23%

Niche Features

Pairing
12%
Requires Application
12%
Courses
8%
Member Perks
8%

Live Chat appears on 58% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 135

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Slack	7	27%	100	76%
Independent Platforms	7	27%	10	8%
Reddit	7	27%	14	11%
LinkedIn	1	4%	6	5%
Mighty Networks	1	4%	1	1%
Circle	1	4%	1	1%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack hosts 27% of listings and 76% of clicks, so supply and interest line up.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
100(76%)
Forum / feed-based
24(18%)
Other platforms
6(5%)
Private membership
2(2%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
106(80%)
Job Board
71(54%)
Newsletter
64(48%)
Paid Community
61(46%)
Member Perks
55(42%)
Forum
29(22%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Large
57(43%)
Small
29(22%)
Massive
12(9%)
Medium
11(8%)
Gigantic
7(5%)

Top-clicked listings

Remote Work Slack
50(38%)
Remotely Founders
27(20%)
Creative Tribes
7(5%)

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

Trends

Founded year

2009

2010

2011

2013

2014

2015

2016

2020

2023

15 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2009.

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

Remotely Founders
Slack · 5.0 stars · 50 members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Remote. 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 remote workers and distributed teams covering async workflows, home office setup, finding remote jobs, and the lifestyle aspects of working from anywhere. Slack and Discord host active communities, with Facebook groups and dedicated platforms for digital nomads and entrepreneurs embracing location-independent work.
: Slack is the most common platform in this report (27% of 26 listings).
: 69% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 390K 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 (62%). 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 Remote topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Remote communities

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