# Discourse מול Invision Community
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [17 בינואר, 2023, 6:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059 "2023-01-17T18:05:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2023, 5:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/23 "2023-01-19T17:45:35Z")
Well, free tier is not actual option. But 10USD is. And even then there is a big gap.
But, when wanted to compare real situation shoud compare prices of same same tech. And Invisions doesn’t fish small fishes like me, and then should compare what hosting here costs against prices of Invision.
Those are different type solutions even they are working at same segment. So, I don’t know totally what is the point to compare; it is like compare some e-audi and e-bmw and the telling that Nissan Leaf is really cheap 😉
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### Author:  [@twofoursixeight](https://meta.discourse.org/u/twofoursixeight)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2023, 5:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/24 "2023-01-19T17:51:29Z")
> [@Jagster](#):
>
> Well, free tier is not actual option. But 10USD is. And even then there is a big gap.
> [@hiddenseal](#):
>
> Invision starts $89/month.
Judging by those hosting prices, I would go with the Discourse forum. It can just save you a good amount of money. (save about $800 per year doing this)
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### Author:  [@volanar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/volanar)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2023, 5:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/25 "2023-01-19T17:51:53Z")
> [@hiddenseal](#):
>
> I’d personally say Discourse is not the best option for you. Why try and stretch a platform designed for asynchronous discussions into something that’s inherently different?
Groups are a mini community within a community and are also intended for discussions. This fits well into the concept of discourse. Such an extension will be useful, I hope it will appear in less than six months. Platforms are evolving and users are becoming more demanding. This means that over time, discourse will have even more opportunities
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### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2023, 5:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/26 "2023-01-19T17:53:04Z")
> [@2468](#):
>
> It can just save you a good amount of money
At company level those sums are just coffee money 😉
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [19 בינואר, 2023, 6:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/27 "2023-01-19T18:09:38Z")
> [@hiddenseal](#):
>
> it’s only practical if it’s an official plugin: i.e. there’s a team of engineers who are paid to ensure it’s compatible with newer releases of Discourse
There are more than enough freelance engineers or cooperatives like Pavilion that will happily agree on a maintenance contract for your plugins.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [20 בינואר, 2023, 2:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/30 "2023-01-20T02:17:13Z")
> [@hiddenseal](#):
>
> While this is true, it’s only practical if it’s an official plugin: i.e. there’s a team of engineers who are paid to ensure it’s compatible with newer releases of Discourse.
Once we release our own plugin (discussed earlier) it will be official.
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### Author:  [@PeakProsperity](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PeakProsperity)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 5:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/31 "2023-01-24T17:39:10Z")
If I could summarize (correct me if I’m wrong @merefield and others):
- Ability for users to invite users to group = exists in “Group Invitation Plugin” currently available
- Ability for group to appear as category in sidebar = exists in “Discourse Category Home” currently available
- Ability for users to create their own group = exists in “Custom Wizard Plugin” currently available
- All of the above will be available in one single plugin sometime in the next 6 months
Do I have it right? And, would members of a group be able to create their own forums that are exclusive to that group? Thanks again.
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 5:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/32 "2023-01-24T17:50:25Z")
I would just say that more or less anything is possible if you have enough budget (and time)
The plugin eco-system is very mature and you can dream up more or less any bespoke functionality not handled by the core system and get it built.
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### Author:  [@PeakProsperity](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PeakProsperity)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 6:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/33 "2023-01-24T18:06:32Z")
> [@merefield](#):
>
> The plugin eco-system is very mature and you can dream up more or less any bespoke functionality not handled by the core system and get it built.
Right - we’d just like to limit how many plugins we have to layer on top. Core functionality is always preferred, and the groups topic has given our team pause when comparing off-the-shelf Discourse vs Invision.
That said, and speaking of dreaming up ideas, here’s a good one we’d like to see. I call it "3D Groups " or “Ven-Groups” and it would be the ability for groups to overlap each other for users that are members of multiple groups. Here is a practical example of how it might work:
Two groups exist: “Backyard Chickens” (people who raise chickens) and “Northeastern US” (people who live in the northeast). If a user belongs to both group, they would see a sub-forum inside of each group that is “Backyard Chickens + Northeastern US” so that people who raise chickens in the northeast could more easily find each other and connect. This would be awesome. PS, I don’t think Invision can do this at the moment either.
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/34 "2023-01-24T18:10:27Z")
> [@PeakProsperity](#):
>
> That said, and speaking of dreaming up ideas, here’s a good one we’d like to see. I call it "3D Groups " or “Ven-Groups” and it would be the ability for groups to overlap each other for users that are members of multiple groups. Here is a practical example of how it might work:
Groups can overlap in default Discourse. You can be a member of more than one group. In fact once promoted to Trust Level 1 you are a member of Trust Level One & Zero.
> [@PeakProsperity](#):
>
> “Backyard Chickens + Northeastern US”
If each of these was a Category, someone could have access to both, neither or one of them.
You could make them Sub-categories and someone could have their primary group permissioned for the parent Category and using that plugin I referred to, the parent Category could be their home, allowing them to dip into either of these Sub-categories.
I think you should start building things and see how you go 🙂
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### Author:  [@PeakProsperity](https://meta.discourse.org/u/PeakProsperity)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 6:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/35 "2023-01-24T18:16:21Z")
> [@merefield](#):
>
> Groups can overlap in default Discourse. You can be a member of more than one group. In fact once promoted to Trust Level 1 you are a member of Trust Level One & Zero.
Right, but would it create a specific forum area for members of BOTH groups? Maybe this exists already, but I obviously haven’t played with any of these groups plugins yet.
> [@merefield](#):
>
> I think you should start building things and see how you go
Agreed - just need to get permission from the team to move forward!
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/36 "2023-01-24T18:18:39Z")
> [@PeakProsperity](#):
>
> Right, but would it create a specific forum area for members of BOTH groups? Maybe this exists already, but I obviously haven’t played with any of these groups plugins yet.
The configuration I just suggested is semi-automated … but critically only staff can configure that.
Something you could start with perhaps, unless you already have this functionality and it would prevent you migrating.
I’d argue that you might want to retain central control more than you might think. Users could always ask staff member for when they need a new space?
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/37 "2023-01-24T18:42:49Z")
Hi Aaron!
Did you make a similar topic on the Invision official forum to get opinions from their own perspective regarding the features you need? Can you share a link if you did? That could be an interesting read! 🙂
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### Author:  [@volanar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/volanar)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 7:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/38 "2023-01-24T19:09:33Z")
> [@Canapin](#):
>
> Hi Aaron!
>
> Did you make a similar topic on the Invision official forum to get opinions from their own perspective regarding the features you need? Can you share a link if you did?
I don’t think that Aaron needs to create a topic on the forum, since the functionality he needs is described in detail on the invision website
[https://invisioncommunity.com/features/clubs/](https://invisioncommunity.com/features/clubs/)
[https://invisioncommunity.com/solutions/micro-communities/](https://invisioncommunity.com/solutions/micro-communities/)
Of course, soon it will appear in discourse
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [24 בינואר, 2023, 7:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/39 "2023-01-24T19:27:27Z")
Sure; I was wondering about their opinion overall, not over this feature in particular:
> [@PeakProsperity](#):
>
> Can anybody here provide any insights or opinions into the pros and cons of using Discourse vs Invision? It’s been hard finding reviews with head-to-head comparisons. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [25 בינואר, 2023, 11:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/40 "2023-01-25T11:28:54Z")
> [@PeakProsperity](#):
>
> Right, but would it create a specific forum area for members of BOTH groups
I think the way to do this would be to automatically tag topics by the geographic region. I’m not aware of a plugin that does that, but it shouldn’t be difficult to create a plugin that adds a certain tag when a topic is created by members of a certain group.
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### Author:  [@volanar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/volanar)
#### Post date: [27 בינואר, 2023, 4:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/41 "2023-01-27T04:23:25Z")
> [@Falco](#):
>
> That’s not doable today, groups and categories can only be created by staff. After they are created, both categories and groups can be self organized via category moderators and group owners.
>
> That said we are currently working on a plugin to allow this very use case.
I want to clarify. Are you working on a plugin that does the same things as clubs in invision?
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [27 בינואר, 2023, 4:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/42 "2023-01-27T04:42:52Z")
I have not used Invision for almost 15 years now, but we are working on a plugin that allows groups to self organize in a way similar to Reddit sub-reddits, which is very much what OP described above.
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### Author:  [@volanar](https://meta.discourse.org/u/volanar)
#### Post date: [27 בינואר, 2023, 5:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/43 "2023-01-27T05:25:50Z")
This is similar to Facebook groups (socialengine, phpfox (metafox)), but adapted for forums. When adding third-party extensions (videos, blogs, music, chat, events, etc.), the corresponding tabs appear.
[https://demo.ipsviet.com/clubs/2-funny/?do=overview](https://demo.ipsviet.com/clubs/2-funny/?do=overview)
[https://invisioncommunity.com/features/clubs/](https://invisioncommunity.com/features/clubs/)
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [28 בינואר, 2023, 2:30am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-vs-invision-community/252059/44 "2023-01-28T02:30:46Z")
That “club” overview page is the same thing I get from our group page like in [Discourse team - Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/g/team/activity/posts) 🤔
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