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9 Free Ning Alternatives And Some Open Source Solutions

A comic book-style scene of a community of people interacting --ar 16:9 --v 6.1 --seed 679901836

When Ning discontinued their free services, it left many communities scrambling for alternatives. Although some opted to transition to Ning’s paid plans, many sought new, cost-effective platforms to host their communities. Today, there are numerous robust options for building online social networks, from easy-to-use hosted solutions to fully customizable open-source platforms.

In this post, I’ll break down some of the best free or affordable Ning alternatives, including hosted services and open-source solutions, each offering powerful tools for social networking, community engagement, and collaboration.

Hosted Solutions

1. Discord

Originally built for gamers, Discord has evolved into a powerful community-building tool for anyone looking to create a real-time, interactive space. It’s especially popular with creators, brands, and organizations seeking to cultivate a close-knit community. Discord servers allow for text, voice, and video chat, making it a dynamic option for live interaction. Its flexible structure supports different channels for various topics, and with the introduction of community features like threads, moderation tools, and integrations, Discord has become a go-to platform for fostering active, engaged groups.

  • Key Features: Voice, video, and text chat, integrations, roles and permissions, bots for automation
  • Pricing: Free with optional paid tiers (Discord Nitro) for enhanced features

Helpful Tip
Use Discord’s roles and permissions feature to manage member access and encourage meaningful interaction in different parts of your community.

Check out how Discord servers can be structured to facilitate engagement.

2. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is one of the top community platforms available today. It allows you to create a branded social network with features like online courses, membership subscriptions, and event management. Mighty Networks focuses on engagement, helping communities thrive through a mix of social interaction and learning tools. It’s a fantastic solution for creators and businesses looking to monetize their communities.

  • Key Features: Courses, events, subscription tiers, community building
  • Pricing: Free plan available with limited features; paid plans unlock advanced tools

Helpful Tip
Use Mighty Networks’ built-in monetization features to grow your community into a thriving business.

Check out how Mighty Networks supports communities with a range of engagement tools.

3. Tribe

Tribe is a modern community platform built to integrate seamlessly with your website or product. Tribe offers a highly customizable social space where users can interact, share content, and engage in discussions. It’s a fantastic option for those seeking to add community features to an existing site or product, with easy integrations and detailed analytics to measure engagement.

  • Key Features: Custom branding, Slack and Zapier integrations, embeddable widgets
  • Pricing: Free for basic use; premium plans with additional features

4. Disciple

Disciple offers a customizable, mobile-first community platform. It allows creators and businesses to build independent, branded networks through iOS and Android apps, making it easy to stay connected with your audience. Disciple is great for anyone looking to foster community engagement while maintaining a strong mobile presence.

  • Key Features: Mobile apps, content creation, social and chat features, e-commerce integrations
  • Pricing: Paid plans starting at $55/month, no free plan

Helpful Tip
If mobile connectivity is crucial for your community, Disciple’s mobile app experience is a game-changer.

Disciple offers extensive mobile customization to keep users engaged on the go.

5. Hivebrite

Hivebrite is an all-in-one community management platform tailored for professional networks, alumni groups, and corporate communities. It offers comprehensive tools for event management, content sharing, and member engagement, all within a secure, branded environment. Hivebrite is ideal for organizations needing a community solution that’s highly customizable and private.

  • Key Features: Event management, monetization tools, user segmentation, analytics
  • Pricing: Custom pricing based on your organization’s needs

6. Circle

Circle is a simple and flexible platform for creating and managing online communities. Its clean interface and ease of use make it popular with creators looking to build discussion-based communities. Circle allows you to host live events, create paid memberships, and integrate with external tools like Zapier and Notion.

  • Key Features: Discussion forums, live events, membership options, integrations
  • Pricing: Plans start at $39/month; no free plan

Open Source Solutions

If you prefer to own every aspect of your community and require greater flexibility, open-source platforms offer an ideal solution. These platforms require more technical expertise but allow for complete customization and control over your community’s structure, design, and features.

7. Discourse

Discourse has become one of the most popular open-source platforms for building online forums and communities. Its modern design encourages engagement and allows users to participate in discussions, vote on posts, and follow specific threads. Discourse also offers robust moderation tools and a range of integrations to connect with external systems.

  • Key Features: Threaded conversations, upvoting, email integration, moderation tools
  • Installation Requirements: Server hosting required, or managed hosting through Discourse’s official service

8. BuddyPress

For WordPress users, BuddyPress is an essential plugin that turns your WordPress site into a social network. It’s perfect for those already familiar with the WordPress ecosystem and allows for easy integration of social networking features like activity streams, member profiles, and private messaging. BuddyPress makes it easy to transform a blog or business site into a fully-fledged social platform.

  • Key Features: Profiles, private messaging, activity streams, group creation
  • Installation Requirements: Requires WordPress hosting

9. Elgg

Elgg is a flexible open-source platform ideal for creating social networks, educational platforms, and collaborative environments. Its plugin architecture allows for extensive customization, making it a powerful solution for developers who want to build unique community experiences. Elgg is backed by a strong developer community and is used by organizations around the world.

  • Key Features: User profiles, group discussions, file sharing, plugins
  • Installation Requirements: Server with PHP and MySQL support

Helpful Tip
If flexibility and customization are key, Elgg’s extensive plugin library can help you build the perfect community experience.

Elgg is a favorite for educational and corporate social networks.

My Thoughts

Our expectations around online communities have shifted over the year, and maybe I’m getting old, but there’s something familiar and engaging about how Discord works. I always feel connected to my various communities and I feel like a real individual rather than a page view.

But if you’re looking for something a bit more Web 2.0, whether you’re it’s a hosted solution that takes care of all the technical details or an open-source platform that gives you complete control, the options available today for building online communities are more powerful than ever. Depending on your community’s needs—whether it’s ease of use, scalability, or customization—there’s a platform to match. As a lifelong WordPress guy however, I would probably build on BuddyPress because of its flexibility and control that many community leaders require.

If you’ve tried any of these platforms or know of other great alternatives, share your thoughts in the comments!

63 replies on “9 Free Ning Alternatives And Some Open Source Solutions”

Actually, Jon, Spruz do not specifically say unlimited storage. If you drill down further here, they say storage depends on the number of “Avg Daily Page Views.” Low traffic will limit you to 100 MB.

After a lot of comparisons, we decided to use SocialGo. Overall, I give it high ratings. Creating new page layouts is very easy, even if you don’t know HTML and CSS. I find inserting pictures to be an annoying process (and that could just be me). I’m also disappointed that there are no tag clouds for the blogs. However, SocialGo includes iFrames, which lets us import a lot of external content. And the pricing is very reasonable.

Great list of Ning alternatives! Spruz does seem to be the top pic, looking at the twitter buzz and news posts I’m reading.

[…] The wild search for alternatives to Ning is keeping many social network creators more than busy, especially in the educational sector. Migrating your social network from Ning is a daunting task. Several services have rushed to offer you a “Ning-Importer”, which in many cases just sends out invitation messages. If it does some kind of import, it will probably scramble non-English characters. You also have to check if profile questions are imported properly, in most cases they are not. Multiple choice profile questions? Not so easy, either. At least until now. […]

Another free alternative is mixxt.com, offering functionalities very similar to Ning but with some additions.

Some of the advantages are:
– Strong Community Management features (e.g., newsletter system, access control)
– Powerful sub-groups
– Full collaboration features including wikis, image albums, file systems, event-management and CMS
– Advanced customization

mixxt’s philosophy is different from Ning’s: it is based on White Labeled solutions for large institutions and enterprises, as well as Freemium services.

mixxt networks are especially popular among education, work-related and event networks.

Users wanting to import their Ning network to mixxt find a useful tool in our Ning importer (http://bit.ly/migrate-ning).

Give your own mixxt network a try for free here: (http://mixxt.com)!

For me the most important thing is storage, wackwall offers 5gb free (default), grou.ps offers 10gb same as ning,

The other thing is ownership, in ning you don’t own your network.

Based on your recommendations, I evaluated six of them. Here are my findings. I finally chose Webs to replace my Ning site. They’re not perfect, but I like them the most. Webs’ best feature, I think, is their account-manager/site-manager.

I think Zerista looks like the most promising of the bunch. It seems more customizable for more broad usage. They have general uses listed on the site, but it can be used beyond that.

I haven’t found any decent social networking scripts. I thought dolphin was going to be the bomb but I wasn’t thrilled with it. I did like buddypress with a social networking module but it isn’t exactly what I wanted, but it has been the best so far. Another hosted solution is the serve and share networks that can be found by clicking on my name.

I moved to Grou.ps. They offer 10GB storage, 100GB bandwidth and very flexible full customization option. If you know some html & css, it means you are holding magic wand in your hands. Grou.ps has many free features.

On the other side, all your destiny is in Grou.ps’ hands. But I cannot afford hosting costs and manage technical issues on my own now. I’m not an advanced user. So those open-source alternatives are not for me.

So far so good with Grou.ps. You can see the comparison from here http://grou.ps/move_ning.php
I also found this today – http://www.emresokullu.com/blogs/item/thoughts-on-ning-exodus-and-groups-socialgo–grouply-amp-others

Thanks for all other information here. I will check them as well.

How is grou.ps with you? Today i just got an email.. that i need to choose a plan payment. aww! i though i was free! oh well!

Well, about spruz, they said at first its going to be free. Now it force us to have at least 100 members , less features and pages so we stay free, since google removed the ads from it. So we have less bandwith or else if we want more pay to become premium. No good at all. I came back to this blog to search for another host.

Hey Jon and everybody else, since you asked for free Ning alternatives, may I shamelessly suggest our platform for Social Action/ Social Collaboration? The name is Amazee, we are a small team based in Switzerland and offer a free migration service for Ning Networks whose members aren’t willing or able to pay for the new payment scheme Ning has come up with. You can find all the necessary information and a link to the migrator here: http://blog.amazee.com/welcome-ning-refugees-2/. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, if you do have any!

I would be interested in people’s opinions regarding Google Sites Groups as an alternative.

I’ve been working/playing with Google Sites and Groups for a few months now and they seem pretty capable in offering a solution.

It appears the biggest drawback is the storage size limitations (which seems odd for a Google product).

Thoughts?

Thatstoday.com appears to be good, Groupsites.com makes you use your real name, otherwise, looks good. Blastgroups.com – for some reason, the registration form winks out and I cannot fill in all required fields. But it looks like it would be another good alternative. I wasn’t happy with Spruz, and if you don’t log in after a time, they delete your network anyway. There is Yuku.com but as good as the features look, the name puts me off a bit – looks too much like “yuck” I just used Boardhost to put all my Ning discussion posts but still would like a social network.

Jon,
Great summary. It sounds like we’ve gone through similar searches. The social networking landscape is constantly changing. As a result of my search for a solid platform for hosting inexpensive small community/social networks, I’ve started a web site to attempt to keep up with all of the options as well as allow users to offer their own ratings!

Please feel free to utilize it as a tool in your search as well as share your experiences and reviews!

http://www.social-networkreviews.com/

FWIW, our group has ultimately decided on implementing our solution in Drupal as none of the hosted sites were able to fulfill our feature list. One of the most common missing features is the ability to handle recurring/repeating events; a mainstay of local social communities.

The comment above by Rob Reinhardt is in fact the most helpful one I have found on this website. I highly encourage EVERYONE to go to the website he developed, where a very detailed and complete list of many (if not all) of the mentioned networks are clearly reviewed.

I was a ning user, turned off by how they treated us free users. I went to grou.ps as an alternative to star a new network, and am now searching for that magic alternative once again.

Rob’s web page was the ONLY place I saw the mentioned issues I am having with grou.ps, and that is largely unresponsive support from the creators of the group. I can assure you that bugs will occur, and you won’t get assistance for them.

After looking around Rob’s page, I am going to give Wiser Earth a try. Fortunate for me the aims of my organization fit in well with the mission of Wiser Earth,

Best of luck to everyone, and Rob if you are reading this… You rock!

Well, checked out wiser earth. Cool site, but does not offer the customization and/or layout I was hoping for. Also, it would not be recommended to use this as a main web-site as can be done using ning or grou.ps… If it wasn’t for the obvious issues with those networks…

Siggestion to all; look at the already created pages of other members before investing the time and energy to join a new network.

The search continues.

Hi John, Thank you for the kind words. Sorry that Wiser Earth didn’t work out for you. I hope my list will help you find a host that will finally meet all of your needs. As you may have caught on my site, there’s still not a site that meets all of our group’s needs either.

In any case, I’m glad to hear that you’ve found my site useful and invite you to add your own user reviews to the site. The true power of my site will be when many users offer their own views about the usefulness of each site. This is important since every person/group has their own concept of what an online social community should be like.

Cheers!

Hi Guys,

I hoping someone maybe able to please answer a question for me. We are a non-profit that plans to provide some classes on-line for our members. We were thinking of using a social network site like Ning or some others listed here. If we wanted to post a number of classes with video and audio, do these sites offer enough storage and bandwith to allow us to do that? Any suggestions?

Thank you,

Andrew

Andrew, we’d love to help you! Our Hoop.la application is free, offers unlimited usage, and has forums, blogs, chat, video/photo/other file upload, so it might meet your needs. Please feel free to email me directly If you have questions.

It offers several services including Drupal website installations. We also offer blog article posting and integration of Word Press blogs.Thanks for sharing the informative post.

I have 2 ning pro ning networks because I hate all the other options. Spruz in my experience is just about the worst of them all! I tried grou.ps and hate them as well but I love the interface and its easier to use than ning. I never honestly liked ning all that much to begin with because something told me that it was going to end, and it did so I was not the least bit surprised about it. What honestly can you find that is free anymore without having extensive web application knowledge for things like Drupal and well, I will not even begin to tell you how I hate the modern ones like facebook and twitter, well, nah, my opinion is I will check out a few of them and let you know what I think. So far, ning seems to work for me, but I am seriously thinking of switching to another site, I need all the same capabilities though as ning, but it would be so much easier if I went with something reliable two. Comercialisation is fine for me but when it comes to lying to clients or at least asking their opinions about charging for services like that, it is that which I have a problem with. Just because 1 company does it, does not mean that all of them have to. Let the idiot fail for once lol. My vote is grou.ps until further notice for free stuff even though they suck, as far as interface goes, I like it and the options are cool. Never give them your credit card information!

Nothing makes me more crazy than trying to deal with the SPRUZ TEAM. They SUCK and turn me into a maniac and of course, I don’t like being so angry.

I am a website builder/creator. I created The Cherokee Path on Ning. I was so shocked when they started charging for the websites on Ning. I had moved and was without internet and I lost my old email address and pass word to log into my website on Ning. Now they have it up for grabs. I spent years building The Cherokee Path and it was very enjoyable for me to create the site! If I had known when I was building The Cherokee Path that down the road they were going to start charging for the use of it…I would Not have put all my effort into building it. Excuse me but I feel like I have been robbed of my art!!!! These are my thoughts and feelings on how I feel about Ning not letting everyone Know at one point they would be charging for the use of their site!!

Yes, I detest what Ning did as well. I am very happy with Groupsite.com, but a heads up – they have just introduced new limits on free networks starting in late June. Free networks created before June 21 won’t be effected and can operate as they always have, without the new limits, but any new groups now are something like 25 membrs per free group, and then you have to pay to increase that limit. Only one manager/owner per free group now, and I forget what the other limits are. So, u until late June, I would’ve said Groupsite all the way. It has good features, and the support is very friendly and helpful. There is Blastgroups too, but you only get one forum per network “the Lounge” – not quite so great if you want several forums dealing with specialized topics. Wackwall is now Wall.fm and they’re okay. Yuku – I really don’t like the name of that domain, otherwise, very good looking setup.

Next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesn’t fail me just as much as this one. After all, Yes, it was my choice to read through, but I actually thought you’d have something helpful to say. All I hear is a bunch of moaning about something you could fix if you weren’t too busy seeking attention.

I have recently tested almost all of the social platforms in this list and would have to say that at least for us NING is by far the clear choice. Honestly I was hell bent on NOT using NING for a variety of reasons but after trying the others we decided that it was a no brainer.

We initlally decided to go with grou.ps and after one day realized there software lacks key features, things that I would call basics. For example, if someone posts a photo, they can’t post a description of the photo. Our site is a site for artists, we could not possibly operate without this basic option available to us.

Also they claim there site is ‘faster’ then NING. It’s not, in fact its very slow and very buggy. When adding my profile photo it got stuck (numerous times). Ultimately later I realized I had 9 profile photos – all duplicates. My partner in another state on a different computer had an identical problem.

I am not one to post negative reviews unless I am really unhappy but clearly grou.ps is not ready for prime time.

Also – a word of warning. If you close your group, they feel they own the content and can ofter it up to anyone if you discontinue paying them. This is clearly unethical and probably illegal.

Thomas,

That sounds awful! If you’re looking for a white label social networking solution that allows you (the creator of the online community) the ability to OWN all of the content you might want to look at SocialEngine. (Full disclosure, I work for SocialEngine)

We’ve been looking at this problem for a while and feel that the community should own all of the conversations and information and no one else. That’s our stance anyways…

Hope all is well,

Cheers!

Drew
http://socialengine.com

This article needs some updating as some better ones have come out. The two that are left out on this list is SocialEngine and phpFox. SocialEngine was the best alternative out there before phpFox recently came out with their newest version. I’ve been using SocialEngine for my own community and intend to move over to phpFox.

I wrote up my experience using SocialEngine here:
http://www.socialbuilders101.com/my-honest-review-of-socialengine/

There are some major issues when it comes to missing features. Do lots of research before buying a platform.

Believe it or not i tried all of the above. From all af them, paid ones, ALL OF THEM ARE A RIP OFF. The homepage is shiny and modern but the actual software to use for groups is a FUCKING JOKE!

Hi we are currently using Ning and looking to switch. We need better subscription /paywall functionality. Wanting to charge a subscription fee for part of the network, need a forum, profile pages and blog. We want to be able to manage subgroups and offer discounted subscriptions or be able to use promo codes. If anyone knows of a system that does this we would be grateful for the advice. Thanks in advance 🙂

Spruz seems to do that. The forum has better interaction that webs.com’s forum. Notifications are better, pricing plan is better and there is the ability to make groups within the group. There is quite a bit going for it and I’m only using the free version.

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