September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › Customer › Community › Enterprise · September 2026 Edition

Community platforms for enterprise buyers

Asked as “customer community platform”, and as “online community software for customers”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 52 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
40%
40Higher Logic Vanilla15Salesforce Experience Cloud13Khoros Communities31others

40% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Higher Logic Vanilla40%9%57endorsed leader
02Salesforce Experience Cloud15%35%54criticized challenger
03Khoros Communities13%25%55criticized challenger
04Gainsight Customer Communities12%7%41accepted challenger
05Discourse6%20%25accepted challenger
06Bettermode4%30%23criticized challenger
07Circle2%53%19criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08Zendesk Community0%0%17accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not enterprise.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Higher Logic Vanilla40%
02Salesforce Experience Cloud15%
03Khoros Communities13%
04Gainsight Customer Communities12%
05Discourse6%
06Bettermode4%
07Circle2%
08Zendesk Community0%

What they warned about

Two of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Salesforce Experience Cloud
35%
19 of 54 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Avoid platforms with per-user pricing (like Salesforce Experience Cloud at $2–$5 per login/member)” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Khoros Communities
25%
14 of 55 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“Khoros' customization options are limited and resource-intensive... glitches and platform instability can disrupt workflows” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
Circle
53%
10 of 19 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“Platforms to Avoid (Unsuitable for most large enterprises): Circle, Mighty Networks, Bettermode (formerly Tribe)” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
Mighty Networks
75%
6 of 8 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“similarly consumer/membership oriented, with the same kinds of limitations around enterprise search, control, and integrations” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt

What they cite

Four of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited.

Sites the answers cite

21 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 291 links across 131 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Higher Logic16 answers · 28 citations · 4 models
13 answers · 17 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Bettermode11 answers · 15 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Guideflow10 answers · 14 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Gainsight7 answers · 11 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Gartner6 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
6 answers · 7 citations · 3 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Reddit5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
5 answers · 5 citations · 3 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models
4 answers · 4 citations · 3 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best customer community platform”, “customer community platform”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Higher Logic higherlogic.com
Higher Logic Vanilla 40%, Higher Logic Thrive 2%, Higher Logic 0%
42%1191,9007912,921$10,173234
Salesforce parent site
Salesforce Experience Cloud 15%
15%99550,00060,632
Khoros Communities khoros.ai13%117400647
Gainsight CX gainsight.com
Gainsight Customer Communities 12%, Gainsight CX 0%
12%10250059,569582
Discourse discourse.org6%12249,5003,505134,3463
Bettermode bettermode.com4%1308801613,7807
Elcom4%
Hivebrite hivebrite.io2%22
Circle circle.so2%138301,000242,528215,494$1,570558
Zendesk Community zendesk.com0%1414025,365,445$16,18163

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 16 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (gainsight.com, gartner.com, higherlogic.com, reddit.com). The first result for “best customer community platform” is uscreen.tv.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best customer community platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which online community software for customers would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade customer community platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer community platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a customer community platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer community platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesCircle, Higher Logic
Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Five alternativesLinkedIn Customer Communities, Lithium, Microsoft Viva Engage, Slack, Zendesk Community
no first choiceHigher Logic Vanilla
Two alternativesKhoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Khoros Communities, Sprinklr
GPT-5.4 miniSalesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesDiscourse, Higher Logic Vanilla
Higher Logic VanillaChanged
Two alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choice
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeBettermode
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashGainsight Customer Communities
Four alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla
against: Khoros Communities
no first choice
Five alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Khoros Communities
Discourse
One alternativeHigher Logic Vanilla
against: Bettermode, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Circle, Discord, Flarum, Mighty Networks, MyBB, NodeBB, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Skool, Slack, Telegram, Unmanaged Discourse, phpBB, vBulletin Cloud
Perplexity SonarGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeSalesforce Experience Cloud
Bettermode, Higher Logic VanillaChanged
One alternativeHivebrite
Khoros Communities
Five alternativesDiscourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Circle
Two alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla
against: Bettermode, Slack, Zendesk
no first choiceagainst: Circle, Discord, Facebook Groups, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Slack
Grok 4.20Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Circle, Mighty Networks
Khoros CommunitiesChanged
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Bettermode, Circle
Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla
Two alternativesBettermode, Discourse
against: Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk
no first choice
Five alternativesBettermode, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
against: Discourse
against: Bettermode, Circle, Discord, Discourse, Facebook Groups, Flarum, Higher Logic Vanilla, Mighty Networks, NodeBB, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Slack, phpBB
Mistral SmallGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesCircle, Discourse, Khoros Communities
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros CommunitiesChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Pylon, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Circle
Higher Logic Vanilla
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Elcom, Higher Logic Vanilla
One alternativeKhoros Communities
no first choiceagainst: Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communitiesagainst: Axero, Higher Logic Vanilla, Zapnito
DeepSeek V4 FlashHigher Logic Vanilla
Five alternativesBettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Zendesk Community
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic VanillaHeld
Three alternativesDiscourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
against: Khoros Communities
Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesBettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities
against: Discourse, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Discourse
One alternativeHigher Logic Vanilla
against: Bettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Zendesk Community
against: Khoros Communities
against: Bettermode, Circle, Discord, Facebook Groups, Khoros Communities, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Skool
Llama 4 MaverickHigher Logic Vanilla
Two alternativesHivebrite, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Discourse, Higher Logic Vanilla, HivebriteChangedGainsight Customer Communities
Five alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
no first choiceno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashHigher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communitiesagainst: Community by CircleKhoros Communities, Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Two alternativesCircle, Hivebrite
Khoros Communities
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesCircle, Discourse, Mighty Networks
against: Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk
no first choiceagainst: Circle, Facebook Groups, Higher Logic, Mighty Networks, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Kimi K2Higher Logic Vanilla
Five alternativesBettermode, Discourse, Gainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic VanillaHeld
One alternativeKhoros Communities
against: Salesforce Experience Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Influitive, Salesforce Experience CloudHigher Logic Thrive
One alternativeDiscourse
against: Gainsight Customer Communities, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities
One alternativeDiscourse
against: Jive Software, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
GLM 4.7 FlashXGainsight Customer Communities
Three alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Influitive, Khoros Communities
Khoros CommunitiesChanged
Three alternativesBettermode, Gainsight Customer Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla
Five alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Influitive, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Salesforce Experience Cloud
Two alternativesHigher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities
no first choiceagainst: vBulletin Cloud
MiniMax M2.5Higher Logic Vanilla
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud
Higher Logic Vanilla, Salesforce Experience CloudChanged
Three alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Inwink, Khoros Communities
Higher Logic Vanilla
Four alternativesGainsight Customer Communities, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Zendesk Community
Bettermode, Elcomagainst: Circle, Higher Logic Vanilla, Khoros Communities, Salesforce Experience Cloudno first choiceagainst: Bettermode, Circle, Discourse, Lithium
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:55no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:19yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:41yes1630 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-14 23:35yes196 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 00:09yes010 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 01:37yes07 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-14 23:42yes027 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:16yes02 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:27yes030 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:38yes053 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:30yes022 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 00:52yes012 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:50no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:30yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:55yes2023 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:15yes177 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 01:47yes09 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:33yes08 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:33yes043 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:37yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:47no030 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:51yes030 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:59yes054 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:24yes013 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:27yes78 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:38yes67 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:45yes1827 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:37yes2020 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 04:38yes010 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:12yes09 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:39yes028 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 01:06yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 04:25yes024 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:54yes034 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 04:41yes088 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:22yes026 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 02:10yes1410 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:42yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:42yes2025 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:24yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 02:31yes09 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 00:07yes08 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 03:45yes031 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:48yes02 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:21yes042 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 04:26yes036 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:45yes028 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-14 23:08yes056 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:07yes1512 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-14 23:11yes311 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:45yes325 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:52yes2013 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 01:05yes012 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:19no014 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-14 23:38yes084 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 23:39yes01 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:49no039 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:16yes045 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 01:45yes026 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:00yes027 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:35yes2716 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:04no06 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 03:23yes1623 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:37yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 00:29yes08 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 05:04yes07 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:18yes029 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-14 22:58yes02 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:30yes055 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 03:11yes069 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 03:39yes021 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:53yes022 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Gainsight read as Gainsight Customer Communities
Gainsight Communities read as Gainsight Customer Communities
Gainsight inSided read as Gainsight Customer Communities
Khoros read as Khoros Communities
Khoros (Lithium) read as Khoros Communities
Khoros (formerly Spredfast) read as Khoros Communities
Salesforce read as Salesforce Experience Cloud
Salesforce Communities read as Salesforce Experience Cloud
Salesforce Community Cloud read as Salesforce Experience Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
Community by Circle
Inwink
LinkedIn Customer Communities
Microsoft Viva Engage (formerly Yammer)
SAP Community
Slack Community
Unmanaged Discourse
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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