Gainsight Communities (Insided) Alternatives For Software Companies Building Community
Dec 21, 2023
Olivier van den Hoogen
Co-founder Turf
The limitations of Insided (Gainsight)
Insided (Gainsight) is a customer community platform focused on enterprise b2b SaaS. Insided allows you to host and centralize your knowledge base, product feedback & ideation, and product communication. With their product feedback and communication module you can communicate product releases, receive feature requests, and let users vote on your roadmap.
The platform does a relatively good job at centralizing the majority of the customer processes of SaaS and software companies but is missing key functionality to cover the entirety of the customer module ecosystem of SaaS and software companies. Most importantly, it lacks an inherent thread system within posts, hindering the ability to directly comment on a comment. This absence creates confusion about whether a comment is entirely new or a response to an existing one, introducing potential friction for members attempting to engage in conversations. Besides that, the platform is missing community business impact analytics, the ability to host technical documentation, the ability to host and manage online community events, and the ability to natively host your help desk (direct support) channels.
Here are the top 4 alternatives to Insided (Gainsight) for SaaS and software companies in 2024:
1. Turf
Turf is a customer community platform specifically designed for SaaS (Software as a Service) and software companies. The platform is tailored to make the customer community initiative reduce support costs and churn rates as much as possible and was first launched to solve the low-usage problem that a lot of existing SaaS customer communities were having. Turf increases customer community usage and engagement, by centralizing/integrating all your customer-facing modules in your customer community environment and making your community completely useable from within your SaaS application. Turf is the only community platform that allows SaaS and software companies to make their customer community environment the single meet point for every interaction that users and customers have with the company.
Turf has the functionality to host and centralize:
Knowledge base
Help Center
Roadmap communication
Product feedback
Changelogs
Bug reporting
Feature requests
Help desk
Academy
Courses
Technical documentation
Online events
By hosting and centralizing all these modules in your customer community environment, you give your users consistent incentives to come back to the community. Your users will have to go to your customer community environment for almost all actions that they want to perform and at the same time will be exposed to all the other modules located there. This doesn't only increase activity in the community but also increases usage of all other individual modules that are being centralized there.
Your users want to be active in your customer community when they are using your tool in real-time or when they have just used your tool. Therefore activity in your customer community environment is significantly higher when your users can interact with and participate in your customer community from within your application. Turf allows you to make your community useable from within your SaaS application through a widget that you can install by simply pasting a small code snippet in the header tags of the pages where you want it to show.
View more of the Turf platform here or directly claim a free trial of up to 100 community members by scheduling a call here.
2. Bettermode (Tribe)
Bettermode (Tribe) is a community platform focused on building any type of customer community, with the goal of improving the customer experience.
Bettermode (Tribe) allows you to host and centralize your knowledge base, help center, roadmap communication, product feedback, changelogs, feature requests, academy (resources/courses), online events, and a job board. The platform does a great job of centralizing the majority of other customer modules in your customer community environment but is missing key functionality to be able to also host your technical documentation, and natively host your help desk (direct support) channels. Note that Bettermode is not specifically focused on SaaS and software companies, but targets a wide range of companies looking to build a customer community.
Here is an example of a community built with Bettermode (Tribe):
Bettermode allows you to embed the social parts of your community into your website, web app, or mobile app. They do this through a method that makes it look like those social parts of your community are an integral part of the web app, website, or mobile app. Note that you will have to create new dedicated pages/areas for this in your application or website, which makes it more developer-intensive.
Bettermode (Tribe) offers a 14-day free trial and has 2 subscription plans. Both the Bettermode Advanced plan and the Bettermode Enterprise plan work with custom pricing and you can only purchase them or start your free trial by talking to the sales team and getting a demo first. The Bettermode Advanced plan starts from $599 per month and offers you all their features except enterprise-grade security, data residency, audit and activity logs, Uptime SLA, SAML authentication for SSO, and a master service agreement. The Bettermode Enterprise plan does not give an indication about what the base pricing is and gives you access to all their features and modules.
3. Khoros
Khoros is a community platform designed for enterprise-focused communities (not focused on SaaS or software companies). It stands out as a platform frequently customized by its users with their in-house development teams. This customization allows users to build upon the platform's core, incorporating functionalities not initially provided. While Khoros boasts a functional forum structure at its core, it lacks an integral thread system within posts, leading to confusion about whether a comment is new or a response to an existing one.
Khoros works with different modules that you can add (with additional cost) to your core community platform. Khoros allows you to host and centralize your knowledge base, ideation, and other resource-based modules like academy and product courses. Besides this you can customize your community environment and integrate other existing customer modules that will remain hosted on a third-party. Because of their general focus, Khoros is not actively taking into account the existing ecosystem of customer modules that the average SaaS company has and their community environment needs to seamlessly work with. Khoros is missing key functionality to natively host your technical documentation, roadmap display & communication, bug reporting, and feature requests.
Here is an example of a community built with Khoros:
Khoros does not allow you to embed or integrate your community environment in your SaaS application.
Details regarding the pricing structures for Khoros Communities are not publicly disclosed and require direct contact with the vendor. However, it is widely known that Khoros is one of the most expensive community platform providers, with subscription fees generally exceeding 100,000 USD annually.
4. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is focused on the use case of building 'communities of practice' for creators and brands.
Mighty Networks allows you to host and centralize courses, resource libraries, and live events, in your community environment. Mighty Networks is not focused on and built for software companies, meaning they dont take into account the existing ecosystem of customer modules with which the customer community environment needs to seamlessly work and fit into. If you are building a ‘community of practice’ as a creator or brand, Mighty Networks delivers exactly what you need with its centralized courses, resource libraries, live events, and ability to monetize your community. For software companies looking to build an engaged customer community, Mighty Networks lacks key functionality such as the ability to create or integrate a help center, knowledge base, roadmap display, bug reporting, feature requests, help desk, customer feedback, and technical documentation. Not being able to centralize or integrate these modules will lead to significant engagement and activity issues down the line.
Here is an example of a community built with Mighty Networks:
Mighty Networks does not allow you to embed or integrate your community into your SaaS application, software, or website, at the time of writing.
Mighty Networks offers a 14-day free trial for their Mighty Networks Community plan ($39/month) and their Mighty Networks Business plan ($119/month). When signing up for the free trial, no credit card is required. Their third plan, the Mighty Networks Mighty Pro plan can only be purchased by talking to the sales team and works with custom pricing. The Mighty Networks Community plan of $39 per month gives you access to all their features, except you can not brand and customize your community environment and its notifications, do not have the courses/academy functionality, can not host resources, do not get access to all the crucial community analytics, can not integrate with Zapier or Google Analytics, do not have access to the API, can not create your own community mobile app, and can store maximum 250gb of content in your community. The Mighty Networks Business plan of $119 per month gives you access to all their features, except you can not brand and customize your community environment and its notifications, do not have access to the API, can not create your own community mobile app, and can store maximum 1tb of content in your community. The Mighty Networks Mighty Pro plan is a plan with customized pricing and gives you access to all their features and modules. To start on this plan, you need to get in touch with their team.
