Both are free. Only ours has the leaderboard and chats.
FluentCommunity is the modern challenger, and its free core leaves out the leaderboard and chat. Here’s the honest side by side, including what Fluent does better.
Danica LouweUpdated 6 min readPick FluentCommunity if you want spaces, digests and deep FluentCRM automation and are happy to pay for Pro. Pick MemBuild Community if you want levels, a leaderboard, chats, stories and reels free, and want to keep the membership, shop or CRM plugin you already run.
Who each one is for
The modern challenger, from the FluentCRM family.
For a community that wants spaces, polls, digests and deep FluentCRM automation, inside the Fluent ecosystem (FluentCart, FluentCRM), and is happy to pay for Pro to get the leaderboard and chat.
Free. The day-one basics included.
For a membership that wants levels, a leaderboard, chats, stories and reels without a Pro tier, and that would rather plug into whatever membership, shop or CRM plugin it already runs.
What you get, and what you pay for it.
MemBuild Community leads on what’s free, including the leaderboard, chats and polls. FluentCommunity leads on spaces, scheduling and CRM automation.
Pick FluentCommunity if these are your must-haves.
Fluent built a genuinely modern community plugin. If any of these is the centre of your membership, it is the better choice today.
Spaces
Separate spaces and space groups, each with its own feed, members and courses. MemBuild Community has one feed with topics and access groups. Spaces are not in the free plugin.
Scheduling and digests
Scheduled posts and daily and weekly email digests. We have pinned posts, polls and a daily email summary, and no scheduling.
Deep FluentCRM automation
If you already run FluentCRM and want the community to trigger and respond to automations in detail, Pro does that natively.
Pro’s extras
Moderation rules, analytics, documents, cloud storage (S3, R2, Bunny), SEO pre-rendering. Serious features for a serious community, and worth $199 if you use them.
Pick MemBuild Community if you want the basics free, on your own terms.
The parts members notice first are the ones Fluent holds back for Pro. We ship them free and leave your stack alone.
Levels, leaderboard, chats and polls, free
The things members ask “is there a…?” about on day one. On Fluent, the leaderboard, chat and polls are Pro.
No ecosystem to join
Keep the membership, shop or CRM plugin you already run. Access follows any WordPress role it gives buyers. You do not have to move to FluentCart to sell, though the plugin works with it if you do.
Stories and reels
Short vertical video and 24-hour stories, the format members already use elsewhere. Fluent’s feed is posts and polls.
Clear about what is free
Check Fluent’s free-vs-Pro list before you count on a feature. Our readme and this page list what is free, what is coming, and what the plugin sends us.
Same site, same members. Spaces become topics.
Your members are WordPress users already, so the move is about content and access, not people.
- 1
Install alongside
MemBuild Community sits at /community; Fluent’s portal keeps its own slug. Run both for a week with a few members.
- 2
Check, then import
Spaces become topics, and a private space becomes a members-only topic with a membership for the same people.
- 3
Check your courses
Modules, lessons, videos and progress come over. Quizzes do not exist here, so if you rely on them, pause.
- 4
Start the feed with a reason
Pin a welcome and announce the levels. The first week needs a next step, not a blank page.
- 5
Deactivate Fluent after a billing cycle
Keep the export of anything you want from Pro (documents, analytics) first. The free core can stay installed, deactivated, as a fallback.
Questions owners ask
FluentCommunity has a free version too. What is the difference?
Fluent’s free core is good, but it keeps several things for Pro: leaderboard and badges, real-time chat, polls and topics, emoji and GIFs, and the role manager. MemBuild Community ships levels, leaderboard, chats, polls, topics, stories and reels free.
Is Fluent faster?
It is fast, for a real reason: it skips your theme and other plugins and renders its own app. MemBuild Community does the same for the community screens. Neither is slow.
I already use FluentCRM. Isn’t Fluent the obvious choice?
If you want deep FluentCRM automations inside the community, Fluent Pro has them and we do not. If you just need the CRM to open and close access, MemBuild Community follows the WordPress role your membership plugin sets, which FluentCRM can drive too.
Can I move from FluentCommunity to MemBuild Community?
Same site, same WordPress users, so members are already there. Import brings posts, comments, reactions, spaces (as topics), and courses with their lessons and each member’s progress, even with Fluent switched off. Points are worked out from what came over. Chats do not move. Run both for a week before you switch.
What does MemBuild Community send to you?
Once a week, a random ID and version numbers, so we can count installs; our server also notes the two-letter country. “Share usage”, ticked by default on a card the overview shows once, adds what the community is about, which features are on, rough counts in ranges, and errors in the plugin’s own code. Never names, emails, your site’s address, posts or messages. Settings → News from MemBuild shows exactly what is sent and has a delete button; a filter turns it all off.
