Thinking about moving over to Honeycommb from Mighty Networks (we’ve had many do this) or doing research to understand which solution is the best fit?

We created this overview to cover the few primary and the more nuanced differences between Honeycommb and Mighty Networks who both share quite a number of capabilities.

Dedicated, Professional Mobile Apps

Unique to both Honeycommb and Mighty Networks, network owners can start with or upgrade to professional (native), dedicated, branded mobile applications at any time. Mighty Networks charges a large, flat, upfront annual fee in the tens of thousands of dollars whereas Honeycommb charges an initial small apps launch fee and monthly subscription based on the number of users in your network. With Honeycommb, network owners can upgrade to dedicated mobile apps themselves at any time, with a short turnaround time to apps launched. Unique to Honeycommb, network owners can easily manage their mobile apps settings, like app name, descriptions, marketing url, categories, art and more right in their Honeycommb Control Center.

Modern Social Network Experience

Both Mighty Networks and Honeycommb are community-first platforms with many opportunities for social engagement; profiles, content creation, feeds, groups (“Spaces” on Mighty Networks), direct messaging, and more. Many of the differences are nuanced and relative to the kind of community experience network owners want to provide. Objectively, Mighty Networks is more akin to a modern forum, where posts are more often in an article (long-form), web-page format. Mighty Networks has a very distinct look and feel or “chrome” that is pervasive throughout the user experience. Honeycommb aligns its user experience to common, modern social networks, like Instagram, with a clean aesthetic that gets out of the way and allows the network’s brand to shine through and “own” the experience.

Customizations

Whereas network customization capabilities are available on Mighty Networks, this is where Honeycommb excels with a large number of simple but impactful customizations that allow network owners to take control of the experience members have with their network. From major customizations like public or private community settings, turning on or off major functionality, and language customizations - to small brand-oriented touches like a custom like icon or emoji reaction set for livestreams. See the full list of customization options here.

Subscriptions

Both Mighty Networks and Honeycommb provide a native subscription solution. The differences between the two solutions are less subtle. Mighty Networks relies on what some have described to be a confusing privacy setting that is tied to subscriptions. You can offer “bundled” subscription products on Mighty Networks. Please see Mighty Networks documentation for more information.

Honeycommb’s subscription system is an independent system that can easily be added and activated to any Honeycommb network. When added, network admins can quickly and easily connect their Stripe account, set up and activate their subscription offering, and create as many subscription products and product plans as they like, including a freemium (free) product tier. Products can include premium content, premium groups, premium events, and premium features. Honeycommb allows network owners to create two kinds of subscription product types; 1. Community Subscription, 2. Group Subscriptions. Unique to Honeycommb, members can carry more than one subscription at a time and, a pain-point on other platforms, network members can easily upgrade and downgrade between subscription products and plans, including plan proration, at any time. Honeycommb also has a payment recovery automation system to fix payment failures and collect members dues with more consistency.