In a post titled “Before You ‘Build a Community,’ Decide: Library or Coffee Shop?”, HAWK analyzes traffic data across Discourse-hosted communities, revealing a stark 382x difference in scale between high-traffic “library” communities and smaller “coffee shop” ones. Library-style communities (e.g., forums with 349M+ pageviews) function as knowledge repositories, attracting users via search engines seeking specific answers — most never post or sign up. In contrast, coffee shop communities (avg. 154K pageviews) thrive on social interaction: users return regularly to discuss topics like mechanical keyboards or Proust, fostering dialogue and belonging. The former values SEO, quick answers, and scalability; the latter values engagement, discussion depth, and social cohesion — constrained by Dunbar’s number (~150). HAWK emphasizes that both models work, but require different success metrics and are not mutually exclusive. The key insight: before building a community, decide whether you’re creating a scalable knowledge hub or an intimate social space — because they serve fundamentally different purposes and audiences.
We spent the last month examining traffic data across all the communities we host, and one statistic stands out: 38 communities generate 31% of all traffic on Discourse, while the other 5,000+ communities share just 11% among them.