commune

Commune vs. Bettermode: Which is Better for Your Community Success?

Written by Commune

Dive into our comparison of Commune and Bettermode to see how they stack up. We’ll guide you through their key features and differences, helping you find the perfect match for your community’s needs. Get ready to discover which platform can best support your community to flourish.

Commune vs. Bettermode

Navigating the landscape of community platforms usually leads you to two standout names: Commune and Bettermode. In this piece, we’re diving into what makes each platform shine and where they might fall short. It’s all about giving you the full picture so you can make the best choice for your community’s needs.

Summary

In a nutshell, Commune packs everything you need to kickstart and smoothly run your community management, from essential features like forums and Q&A feeds to advanced, data-driven tools for deep analytics and user journey insights. It’s built to make your community efforts highly informed and responsive, thanks to detailed tracking of user activities and leveraging vast data insights. With Commune, you’re not just launching a community; you’re setting it up for success by tailoring experiences to each member’s needs and activities. So, if you’re looking for a platform that prioritizes meaningful engagement and long-term community growth, Commune stands out as your go-to choice.

Commune Overview

Commune stands as the quintessential AI-powered, success-oriented community platform, unifying various customer communication channels into one seamless interface. It’s designed to simplify and enrich community management with a blend of intuitive design and strategic depth. The insights derived from the activities of millions of end-users serve as a powerful tool for those embarking on new community ventures.
 

Features

Commune is equipped with a comprehensive suite of features designed to meet and exceed the demands of modern community management, minimizing the workload on community managers while maximizing engagement and outcomes.

  • Essential community features: forums, Q&A, surveys, knowledge base, event management, gamification, and more, providing a robust foundation for engaging and managing your community.
  • Advanced features: a white-label app that enhances brand presence and offers a personalized user experience.
  • AI-powered automation and analytics: auto-segmentation of users based on their status and activities, enabling personalized engagement strategies.
  • Content recommendation and generation: tailored by analyzing users’ past interactions, relationships, and behavior, ensuring relevant and engaging content delivery.
  • Strategic consulting: Commune’s team of community experts offers bespoke strategic advice tailored to your unique business needs, with options for direct implementation and daily campaign management, ensuring your community strategies align with your business objectives.
 

Industry segments

  • Prepared to support any business model, including B2B, B2C, and nonprofits.
  • Versatile enough to serve a broad spectrum of industries, from SaaS and manufacturing to retail businesses, demonstrating its adaptability and wide-ranging applicability.
 

Primary use cases

  • Broad organizational application: utilized across various business initiatives such as community management, marketing, customer success, and product management.
  • Diverse business purposes: supports a range of objectives including community building, customer onboarding, education, scaling customer support and success, product ideation, feedback, research, and enhancing customer engagement.

Bettermode Overview

Bettermode positions itself as a comprehensive solution for brands and creators aiming to foster vibrant online communities. It emphasizes flexibility and customization, offering a suite of features that cater to a wide array of community-building needs.

Features

  • Core community functions: forum discussions, Q&A sections, event planning, ideation boards, comprehensive help centers, and resource libraries.
  • Customizable user interface: a collection of pre-made templates, enabling brands to tailor the look and feel of their community spaces to align with their visual identity.
  • Advanced embedding capabilities: including a React SDK that allows for the integration of community features into web and mobile applications, extending the reach and accessibility of the community.
 

Industry segments

  • Primarily focused on serving Software and SaaS products, highlighting its utility in tech-driven environments.
  • Consumer products and services, where brand engagement and customer loyalty are key.
  • Online training and cohort-based courses, providing platforms for educational communities to thrive.
 

Primary use cases

  • Customer self-service
  • Scaling customer support and success
  • Product ideation and feedback
  • Customer marketing and growth

Key Values Comparison

Success-driven features

Creating a community site that keeps users coming back is crucial. Here, the real battle is for user engagement and satisfaction. Commune has successfully built and nurtured communities for a broad spectrum of organizations, leveraging vast data on user activities to constantly refine and evolve its offerings such as effective components to boost user engagement, the built-in native training feature, and a white-label app. This focus ensures that the features not only attract users but also encourage their continued engagement.
 
Bettermode, while providing a functional base for community interactions, falls short in several areas critical for user engagement. It lacks features such as draft saving for content creation, post bookmarking, weekly digest emails, group chat functionality, and the option for users to follow each other. These omissions can significantly impact the user experience, as they are fundamental for fostering community interaction and connection. Commune covers all of these pain points.
 
Furthermore, Bettermode does not offer built-in solutions for course creation and learning management, which are increasingly important in communities focused on education, onboarding, and continuous learning, particularly in the B2B and SaaS sectors.
 
In contrast, Commune features a comprehensive training and learning system that supports no-code course creation, segment-specific content customization, video embedding, and quizzes. This not only enhances the learning experience but also supports user retention by directly contributing to their success within the community.
 
Finally, a pivotal distinction between Bettermode’s and Commune’s offerings is the availability of a white-label app. Commune provides a white-label app that allows for the seamless creation of brand-specific touchpoints on iOS and Android platforms while maintaining the original branding design. Such a feature empowers community members to carry their community with them wherever they go, facilitating ongoing conversations and learning.
 
On the other hand, Bettermode does not offer the option to develop a white-label app or even a generic app where users can log in with their community credentials. This limitation impacts the accessibility and overall usability of the community platform.

Analytics capabilities

For any community to thrive, understanding its dynamics through data is essential. 
 
Commune excels in offering analytics that provide a holistic view of the community’s state, from data on the community as a whole to segment data for each group, and even an individual’s every action taken in the community. Setting up the analytics displays is seamless and catered to specific needs such as cohort analysis of active users by month/week and analysis of power users. These analytics filters can be seamlessly utilized for creating segments, thereby allowing for personalized experiences and data-driven decisions. Exporting data to CSV is straightforward, and it’s also possible to instantly retrieve data via API or webhook to combine and analyze with other data. Commune shines in providing detailed analytics that cover the entire spectrum of community activities—from overall community health to the minutia of individual user actions. This depth of insight facilitates targeted engagement strategies and informed decision-making.
 
In contrast, Bettermode offers general web analytics features but lacks community-specific analyses such as cohort and power user analyses. It also does not provide the capability to automatically create groups based on analytics data, as Commune does, preventing the execution of seamless actions based on analysis data. Furthermore, Bettermode falls short in certain details; for instance, it doesn’t allow for the removal of staff from reporting (which can become a source of noise as the number of administrators increases) and does not support direct CSV exports, making it less than optimal for data-driven community management. Without detailed cohort analyses, power user identification, or the ability to create groups based on analytics, it’s challenging to tailor experiences or drive specific community strategies effectively.
 
G2 review on Bettermode

Strategic services

Launching a community platform is just the beginning; guiding it to success requires expertise, strategic insight, and continuous adaptation. Commune stands out by providing strategic consulting services, where its experts work closely with clients to craft and execute effective community strategies. This hands-on support covers both the granular details of day-to-day management and the broader strokes of strategic planning.
 
Bettermode, while offering product support and customer success guidance, does not match the depth of strategic consultancy provided by Commune. Its services, including design support for community setup, fall short of delivering operational insights and data-driven recommendations that can elevate a community to its full potential.
 
In summary, when comparing the key values of Commune and Bettermode, it’s evident that Commune’s focus on user experience, advanced analytics, and strategic services positions it as a more comprehensive solution for organizations aiming to create, grow, and sustain vibrant online communities.

Pricing Comparison

When it comes to selecting a community platform, pricing plays a significant role alongside features and services. Bettermode’s pricing structure is streamlined into two main tiers: the Advanced plan, which begins at $599 per month, and the Enterprise plan, tailored for larger businesses or those in highly regulated industries. It’s worth noting that some of Bettermode’s highlighted strengths, like custom space templates and SAML integration, are not included in the Advanced plan, potentially limiting some organizations seeking these specific capabilities without scaling to Enterprise solutions.

Commune, on the other hand, offers a more granular pricing model with four distinct tiers starting at a more accessible price point of $1,999 per month. This tiered approach provides a broader spectrum of options, catering to a wider range of business sizes and needs, including the number of admin seats. A standout feature of Commune’s pricing is the inclusion of strategic consulting services starting from the Growth plan upwards. This addition represents a substantial value, combining both platform access and expert guidance to not only launch but also grow and sustain a community successfully.

For businesses prioritizing a blend of advanced features, scalability, and expert support within a reasonable budget, Commune’s pricing model presents a compelling proposition.

Bettermode’s Pros

Customizable design

Bettermode offers customization with templates and design elements, though full capabilities require an upgrade to the Enterprise plan from the Advanced plan ($599/month).  In contrast, Commune allows basic no-code customizations starting at $399 and advanced, versatile  HTML embedding is available where UI manipulation is needed. A native white-label app is also offered to enhance the mobile user experience.
 

Moderation feature

Bettermode provides advanced moderation tools, including automated filtering and keyword flagging. Commune employs a dual approach to moderation, combining automated systems with human oversight to ensure double-layered quality assurance. This strategy allows for nuanced communication, providing space for the subtleties of human interaction.


Embedding

Bettermode’s embedding features enable seamless integration of the community into websites or apps, enhancing user engagement. Commune is set to introduce similar functionality in April 2024, aiming to provide comparable integration options.

Customer Reviews and Testimonials

G2 reviews

On G2, Commune is highly rated across almost every category, outperforming Bettermode. It receives particular acclaim for its user-friendly UI/UX, dependable analytics, and a range of detailed yet crucial features. Additionally, its approach to partnerships in community building and the quality of support are highly praised. Commune is also recognized for its product’s alignment with customer needs, demonstrating a comprehensive suite of features and services. While Bettermode is commended for its ease of setup and administration, it falls short in head-to-head feature comparisons with Commune, including contact synchronization, portal functionalities, gamification, and overall customer engagement.
Left: Commune, Right: Bettermode

Customer testimonials 

Bettermode users have voiced concerns over the absence of a mobile app and functionalities, noting issues with instant messaging and slow customer service response times. Additionally, the lack of support for group chats has been highlighted as an area needing improvement.

G2 review on Bettermode

Conversely, some feedback for Commune mentions that the admin interface could be more user-friendly but acknowledges that this does not impact the end-user experience, suggesting room for further refinement.

One notable distinction is in automation features; Bettermode users have reported challenges with manual tasks like adding users to groups, which could complicate scaling efforts. In contrast, Commune is recognized for its robust automation capabilities, allowing for the creation of dynamic user groups and personalized content access without manual intervention, streamlining community management processes.

Other reviews praise Commune for its agile development cycles, which allow it to ship out desired features in a timely manner.

G2 review on Commune

Final Thoughts

Commune offers a robust, data-driven platform for community management, featuring AI-powered analytics, mobile app integration, and strategic consulting. It excels in user engagement and has received positive feedback for its comprehensive support and feature set, making it ideal for those prioritizing community growth and engagement.

Bettermode focuses on customization and ease of use, with strengths in design flexibility and content moderation. However, it lacks a mobile app and has received mixed reviews regarding automation features and customer support.

In essence, Commune is preferred for its holistic approach to community management, while Bettermode suits those looking for specific customization options.

Interested in learning more about Commune? Book a quick call today!