I am using discourse from the last 2 years and really happy with its service.
Today, I was browsing across “Appsumo”, I came across a deal named “Tribe”, a cloud-based community platform.
At first, I didn’t look at this as I am using discourse…but after reading a lot of positive reviews, I took a look at the design and flexibility of this community.
And, I can say, the design is really awesome.
I am surprised if this is a direct competitor of “Discourse”.
One biggest difference between both is “Discourse Is Open Source” {Highly Useful}
Regular pricing of discourse is almost “zero” if we host it on our server…
But they are including hosting costs also for a lifetime.
I have a look at other products every year. Tribe is very attractive visually but under the hood it isn’t as strong as it says.
For example, moderation tools are limited in their free option so I would have to upgrade to a paid Tribe product (min. $399 per month) when I could keep my cheap Discourse site for as little as $5 a month or hosted for well under $100 a month
I’ve found that Tribe is more focused on selling themselves and selling products. That will suit sites that want that which is why the two aren’t really directly competing. But even if they were then Tribe skews their comparison with Discourse.
Ignores common features of Discourse:
Basic features such as groups
Plug-ins
Free to use
Fully featured e.g. moderation is not limited for free users
Open-source
Redefines common terms to suit their purposes. Using tooltips to hide the key criterion:
“community platform” says it is defined by the “social components on the community site”
“Embeddable widgets” says “in valuable social elements of the community inside the product or website”
Discourse could do with a swish plug-in “store” but have a deeper look at the attractive app store. Several Tribe apps are:
“coming soon”, still
really basic …
… and/or standard features in Discourse, e.g. Welcome Email
Incidentally, the Tribes comparison with Vanilla also suffers from many of the same biases.
I was looking at Tribe, especially after multiple posts Quora. Perhaps it suits someone, but personally I do not. The Tribe code is not open, I can’t install it, and have full control of everything (base, for example).
In my humble opinion Tribe cannot be considered a competitor to Discourse. They don’t even need to be compared. Too much difference in everything.
Much is defined by tasks. What a person wants to get in the end. Maybe someone is suitable Tribe, or Facebook. It could be.
I think name is a bit acute but hard work has been put into it. In terms of flexibility Discourse wins. Right now I wouldn’t call it a competitor at all.