The best Mighty Networks alternatives in 2026

We make Drry, one of the alternatives below, so read accordingly. The best Mighty Networks alternatives for a paid community are Drry, Skool, Circle, Kajabi, Discord, and Patreon, and the right one depends on whether you want a flat price or a percentage, and what your product actually centers on. Most "best alternatives" posts are written by one of the vendors and pretend otherwise; we would rather tell you in the first line and then earn your trust with the rest of the page. Every claim here is qualitative on purpose, prices and fee structures change, so verify current terms before you commit to anything, including us.

First, credit where due: Mighty Networks got a lot right. It bundles communities, courses, and a genuinely strong live-events and cohort layer, all with its own dedicated branded mobile apps. The reason people search for alternatives is rarely that Mighty is bad; it is that Mighty is a lot. The surface area is large and takes real setup, there is no free plan, it charges a platform transaction fee on member payments on every plan (which shrinks on pricier tiers but never hits zero), landing pages are templated with no funnel analytics, and member email runs through a built-in Kit integration on higher plans rather than fully natively. We unpack what that fee structure actually costs at different revenue levels in our Mighty Networks pricing guide. If those are your frustrations, here is the honest field, including us. For a feature-by-feature look at just the two of us, see Drry vs Mighty Networks.

Drry: the simpler fee-free one (ours)

Our product, so treat this section as a pitch with the numbers you can check. Drry is a paid-community platform for coaches: community feed, video courses, audio, member emails, and funnels in one branded space, at your own address like grace.drry.com or your own custom domain on paid plans. The whole point is less platform than Mighty and no cut of what you earn.

• Best for:coaches who want Mighty's community-plus-courses shape without the heft, with a real free plan to start, landing pages and email built in, and no cut of member payments.
• Pricing structure: a genuinely free plan (100 members, 5 GB, unlimited courses, one funnel, no card), then flat subscriptions at $29 (Creator) and $99 (Growth) a month. 0% of member payments on every plan; money flows through your own Stripe account.
• What you give up:Mighty's deep native live-events and cohort machinery has no full equivalent here, and there are no dedicated branded mobile apps. Drry is a fast web app that lives at your own domain, not an app-store presence.

Skool: the focused-community one

Skool is the anti-Mighty in temperament: one community, one course area, one calendar, strong gamification, and almost no feature sprawl. If Mighty feels like too many rooms, Skool feels like one well-lit room.

• Best for: coaches who want a single focused community with leaderboards and points, and who value simplicity over breadth.
• Pricing structure: a flat monthly price with no free plan, plus a transaction fee on every member payment (steepest on the entry plan).
• What you give up: no free plan to validate on, no landing pages or funnels so you bolt on a page builder, and your community lives on skool.com rather than your own brand. See Drry vs Skool for the side by side.

Circle: the polished premium one

Circle is probably the most refined community product on this list: clean spaces, events, courses, and a professional feel that suits established brands. It is the closest thing to a default choice for well-funded creator businesses.

• Best for: creators and companies who want a premium, design-forward community and are happy to pay a real subscription for it.
• Pricing structure: paid plans only (after a trial), and a platform transaction fee on member payments on every plan, smaller on the pricier tiers.
• What you give up:there is no free plan, the fee means the platform grows with your revenue, and seeing each member's activity is reserved for the top Business tier. See Drry vs Circle for the detail.

Kajabi: the heavyweight marketing suite

Kajabi is a different animal: a full course-and-marketing suite with funnels, email sequences, podcasts, and websites. Community exists but is a bolt-on, not the center of gravity; the pitch is replacing your whole marketing stack.

• Best for: established course businesses that want funnels, email automation, and courses in one heavyweight tool and can absorb a suite-level bill.
• Pricing structure:notably pricier, with no free plan. Payments have a catch: Kajabi's 0% claim requires its in-house processor, which keeps billing locked to Kajabi; outside processors pay a platform fee.
• What you give up: community depth (it is a feature, not the heart), the entry price, and payment portability. If you mostly want a home for members rather than a marketing machine, you are paying for a lot of machine. See Drry vs Kajabi.

Discord: the free one

The honest budget answer. Discord is free, real-time, and your audience may already live there. Plenty of thriving paid groups run on it. But Discord is a chat tool, not a membership business tool, and the difference shows up exactly where the money is.

• Best for: free communities, gaming and dev audiences, and coaches validating an idea before spending anything at all.
• Pricing structure: free, genuinely. Paid cosmetic upgrades exist but nothing you need.
• What you give up:nearly everything a paid membership needs natively. No built-in payments for your membership (you wire up third-party bots and checkout tools yourself), no courses, no landing pages, no member email, and a fast-scrolling chat where yesterday's gold is buried by lunchtime. Great energy, weak structure, and you own the duct tape.

Patreon: the percentage one

Patreon is the lowest-friction way to charge for your work: fans pledge, you post. For artists and podcasters with an existing audience it remains a fine answer. For a coaching community it gets thin quickly.

• Best for: creators monetizing content and behind-the-scenes access, where a post feed is the product.
• Pricing structure: free to start, then Patreon takes a percentage of everything you earn, forever. No monthly fee, but the cut scales with your success.
• What you give up: a real home. Courses are limited, there is no true community space or course home beyond posts and comments, your page lives on Patreon with limited branding, and the percentage cut compounds as you grow. See Drry vs Patreon.

How to actually choose

If you want the side-by-side version of this with every dimension laid out, our comparison hub covers each of these platforms against Drry in detail, and Drry vs Mighty Networks zooms in on just the two of us, same disclosure, same rules: qualitative claims, verify current terms.