How fast can we be live?
Answer
About five minutes. Sign in, name your portal, and it is online at yourcompany.myforumcat.com. Nothing to install.
Compare
Customer community platforms, compared on price and setup
Twelve tools a support team really chooses between. Who each one is for, how its price works, and what to weigh before you sign. Ours is first, and it is marked as ours.
This list covers public customer Q&A and community tools. It does not cover help desks or ticketing, which we do not do.
Free for 7 days. No credit card. Live in about five minutes.
5 minfrom sign-up to a live portal
0servers to run or patch
$9one time for a working portal
7 daysfree, no card needed
How to read this
Fair descriptions, sourced numbers, no guesses.
We only print a competitor price when a public source gives one, and we name that source. Where a vendor publishes no number, we describe the shape of the price instead.
Every entry says what the vendor is good at before it says what to weigh. Most are older and bigger than we are.
Forumcat is the simple end of this shelf. A public question and answer portal for your customers, live in about five minutes, at one flat price.
The list
Twelve customer community and Q&A platforms
Sorted by how a buyer usually meets them, not by any ranking of quality.
- 1
Forumcat (ours)
- Best for
- Support and success teams who want a public Q&A portal on their own domain, running this week.
- Price
- $9 one time on a Forumcat subdomain, or $99 a month for your own domain. 7 days free, no card.
- Does well
- Live in about five minutes, with nothing to install. Search, votes, and one accepted solution per question. Private questions, five roles, and a REST API plus an MCP server on every plan.
- Worth weighing
- There is no importer, no widget, and no article editor. Replies sit in one flat stream, so teams start fresh here.
- 2
Answerbase
- Best for
- Companies adding a question and answer section to a product site or an online store.
- Price
- Per plan, hosted. Check their site for current answerbase pricing.
- Does well
- The same parts we use: questions, answers, votes, and one accepted answer. A long track record in product Q&A.
- Worth weighing
- The fit is best when Q&A sits beside products. Ask how the pages are hosted and which domain they live on.
- 3
inSided, now Gainsight Customer Communities
- Best for
- Enterprise customer success teams who want a community next to their customer data.
- Price
- Enterprise, quote based. One write-up puts Gainsight at "$2,400 to $4,200/user at the 10 user tier" (oliv.ai, as of Jul 2026).
- Does well
- A full community suite for large software companies, tied into customer success work.
- Worth weighing
- One buyer says implementation took six months (quoted below). Gainsight communities pricing is per user, so the bill grows with the team.
- 4
Khoros Communities
- Best for
- Large brands with a dedicated community team and many products to support.
- Price
- Enterprise, quote based. No public price list.
- Does well
- A mature suite built for scale, with moderation sized for big volumes.
- Worth weighing
- Sold through a sales team, with a contract and a rollout attached.
- 5
Vanilla Forums, part of Higher Logic
- Best for
- Enterprise community teams who want a hosted forum with the support use case front and center.
- Price
- Enterprise, quote based. One reviewer calls Higher Logic Vanilla "the most expensive" of the options they looked at (Reddit, as of Jul 2026).
- Does well
- A long-running forum with the pieces an enterprise community team expects.
- Worth weighing
- Reviewers report that setup and admin are confusing (quoted below). If you are shopping for a higher logic alternative, weigh how much of the suite you will really use.
- 6
Bettermode
- Best for
- Teams that want a branded community with many kinds of spaces, not only questions and answers.
- Price
- Per plan, hosted. Reviewers report the subscription moved "from $50 a month to $399 a month" (Trustpilot). One review adds that "API access costs $199/month extra" (group.app). Both as of Jul 2026.
- Does well
- Polished and flexible, with spaces for discussions, knowledge, and feedback in one product.
- Worth weighing
- It is a lot of platform for a support Q&A job, and API access sits behind an add-on. Buyers searching bettermode vs insided are weighing suite against suite.
- 7
Forumbee
- Best for
- Small and mid-size teams who want a hosted community sold for customer support and self-serve.
- Price
- Per plan, hosted. Check their site for current Forumbee pricing.
- Does well
- Aimed squarely at support and self-serve, so its shape is close to the job.
- Worth weighing
- A small vendor with little third-party review signal, so ask for references from teams your size.
- 8
Website Toolbox
- Best for
- Teams that want a low-cost hosted forum running on their own domain.
- Price
- Per plan, hosted, with a cheap entry tier. Reviewers say the entry limits are easy to pass.
- Does well
- Cheap to start, runs on your domain, and has been around for years.
- Worth weighing
- Weigh the caps on the entry plan and the price of the next tier before you commit.
- 9
Zendesk Gather
- Best for
- Teams already paying for Zendesk who want a community beside their help center.
- Price
- Per plan, sold alongside a Zendesk subscription.
- Does well
- It sits next to the tool your agents already use. One vendor, one login.
- Worth weighing
- It fits when you are on Zendesk and plan to stay. We compete with Gather, the community add-on, never with Zendesk Support. Buyers comparing discourse vs zendesk gather are choosing between a bundled add-on and a standalone forum.
- 10
Salesforce Experience Cloud
- Best for
- Enterprises that want a customer portal built on top of their Salesforce data.
- Price
- Enterprise, quote based, licensed through Salesforce.
- Does well
- Deep ties to CRM records, and an admin or partner can build almost anything.
- Worth weighing
- A site is a project with a budget and a timeline. Salesforce experience cloud pricing is quoted, not listed.
- 11
Stack Overflow for Teams
- Best for
- Teams whose audience is developers, in the Q&A format developers already know.
- Price
- Per user, per plan.
- Does well
- Votes, accepted answers, and a Q&A culture developers trust.
- Worth weighing
- The questions live inside the team space. Public customer answers on your own domain are a different job. That is what most people mean by a stack overflow alternative.
- 12
AnswerHub
- Best for
- Developer communities at larger companies, in a shape close to ours.
- Price
- Enterprise, quote based.
- Does well
- Q&A built for technical audiences.
- Worth weighing
- Sold through a sales team, so expect a longer buying cycle.
Side by side
The six things buyers ask us to compare
Two groups, because the vendors above fall into two shapes. Cells we cannot source say so.
| Forumcat | Enterprise community suites | Hosted forum and Q&A tools | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup time | About five minutes | Weeks to months. One Gainsight buyer reports six months. | Days to weeks, per vendor |
| Price shape | $9 one time, or $99 a month | Quote based, often per user | Per plan, hosted |
| Custom domain | Yes, on Pro | Usually, per contract | Varies by vendor |
| REST API on every plan | Check with the vendor | Check with the vendor | |
| MCP server for AI agents | Check with the vendor | Check with the vendor | |
| Private questions | Check with the vendor | Check with the vendor | |
| Who hosts it | We do | The vendor | The vendor |
Sourced numbers come from the quotes below, as of Jul 2026. Where a vendor publishes no number, the cell describes the shape instead.
What buyers say
Public reviews, quoted as written
These are the lines buyers send us when they explain why they are looking. Sources and links are below each one.
$2,400 to $4,200/user at the 10 user tier.
Implementation took us a good 6 months, and now we cannot consider switching because of how entrenched we are with it, even though it is obscenely expensive.
has everything we need. But the most expensive. I've used Higher Logic Thrive before and found it very confusing to setup and admin.
removing the free plan and raising the price of a subscription from $50 a month to $399 a month.
API access costs $199/month extra.
The simple end of the shelf
Name it, and it is online
You sign in, name the portal, and pick an address. That is the whole setup. There is no server to rent, no container to build, and no rollout to schedule.
$9 one time puts a working portal on a Forumcat subdomain. $99 a month moves it to your own domain, with SSL set up for you.
- No install, no plugins, no update day
- No per-user pricing, so the bill does not grow with the team
- 7 days free to try it, with no card
What your customers get
A portal that looks like part of your site
Your logo, your accent color, your domain. Customers read and search without an account.
Solved questions carry the accepted answer at the top, so the right answer is the first thing people read.
A portal, or a public Q&A site
Your own Q&A site, or someone else's
Some teams weigh a company portal against posting on a big public Q&A site. Both hold questions and answers, and they do different jobs.
On a public site, the page belongs to the site. Your brand is a line on it, you cannot moderate what stays up, and no question can be private.
On your own domain, the portal is yours. You set the categories. Your team answers with a role next to each name, and the page ranks under your domain.
That is the real split behind a quora alternative or a quora for business search. Most stack overflow alternative searches come down to the same thing.
API and MCP
Your own agents can read and answer
Every capability is a REST call and an MCP tool, on every plan. Paste one URL into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or your own agent.
We do not generate answers for you. Your team stands behind every reply.
Pricing
Two plans. Both flat.
The bill does not grow with traffic, questions, or seats. Pick a plan, and that is the price.
| Basic | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9 one time | $99 a month, or $990 a year |
| Portal address | yourcompany.myforumcat.com | Your own domain, SSL included |
| Team seats | 2 | Unlimited |
| Registered members | 1,000 | 10,000 |
| Questions | 10,000 | Unlimited |
| Media storage | 1 GB (≈2,000 images) | 50 GB (≈100,000 images) |
| Page views a month (fair use) | 100,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Search, votes, accepted solutions | ||
| Structured data, sitemap, markdown view | ||
| REST API and MCP server | ||
| Google sign-in under your brand | ||
| Analytics and search log | ||
| Free trial | 7 days, no card | 7 days, no card |
Unlimited seats and questions on Pro carry a quiet fair-use backstop, lifted for any real portal that reaches it. Page views are fair-use limits, not a meter.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask at this stage
What does it cost in month twelve?
Answer
The same as month one. $9 one time for a portal on a Forumcat subdomain, or $99 a month for your own domain. The bill never grows with traffic or questions.
Is the API an extra?
Answer
No. The REST API and the MCP server are on every plan, including the one-time plan. One vendor on this list sells API access as a paid add-on.
Can we import our old forum or help docs?
Answer
Not today. There is no importer. Most teams start fresh and let the new questions build the archive, which is live in minutes.
What happens to our answers if we leave?
Answer
They are yours. Every question and answer is readable through the REST API, so you can pull it all out any time.
Do we need Zendesk or Salesforce for this?
Answer
No. Forumcat stands on its own. It runs beside whatever help desk you already have, and your customers reach it on your own domain.
Does it replace our help desk?
Answer
No. Keep your help desk for one-to-one work. Forumcat is the public place beside it where the answers many customers share get written once.
Try the simple one first
Create a portal, ask it a question, and see how it reads. If it is too simple for you, the list above is still there.
Create your portalFree for 7 days. No credit card. Live in about five minutes.
