
The creators and brands who spent a decade renting attention on other people's feeds are now buying software to build private homes instead. Skool, Patreon, Podia and a stack of quieter forum companies are all fighting to be the front door.

Six platforms - from open-source Discourse to enterprise Khoros and Salesforce - are quietly fighting over the same thing: the conversations your customers have about you. Building that crowd turns out to be the easy part. Owning it is where it gets expensive.

Almabase, Hivebrite, Gravyty, Zapnito, Threado, Khoros and a pack of forum-software veterans are all selling one promise - a place your people gather that you actually own. The market got crowded, then it started eating itself.