TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Gainsight Customer Communities vs. Higher Logic Vanilla

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Gainsight Customer Communities

    Score8.8 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Gainsight Customer Communities is a centralized destination that brings customers, resources, and products together. The hub helps users to engage, retain, and delight customers by unifying customer resources, leveraging dynamic search and AI capabilities, building an influential user community.N/A

    Higher Logic Vanilla

    Score5.5 out of 10
    N/AHigher Logic Vanilla is a customizable and themable forum software. It can be used for support communities, Q&A Communities and more. There are numerous integrations, including SSO, and connectors to popular software such as Mailchimp, WordPress, Zendesk and Salesforce.N/A
    Pricing
    Gainsight Customer CommunitiesHigher Logic Vanilla
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Essential
    Contact sales team
    Corporate
    Contact sales team
    Enterprise
    Contact sales team
    Enterprise Plus
    Contact sales team
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Gainsight Customer CommunitiesHigher Logic Vanilla
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Gainsight Customer CommunitiesHigher Logic Vanilla
    Considered Both Products
    Gainsight
    Chose Gainsight Customer Communities
    Gainsight was the best combination of features, service, and price. HL/Vanilla ultimately did not impress, and Khoros was more effort than our small team could manage.
    Incentivized
    Chose Gainsight Customer Communities
    InSided tool was in our budget and provided us with more features. Other tools were way more expensive. The circle was great and cheaper and we worked with them before but InSided provided us with more features and integrations. Salesforce was almost triple the price so we have …
    Incentivized
    Higher Logic
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    88%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Gainsight Customer CommunitiesHigher Logic Vanilla
    Small Businesses
    Higher Logic Thrive
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Higher Logic Thrive
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    Score5.5 out of 10
    Khoros Communities
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Gainsight Customer CommunitiesHigher Logic Vanilla
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (8 ratings)
    9.0
    (10 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Gainsight Customer CommunitiesHigher Logic Vanilla
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Gainsight
    A great scenario that we use the community for is product adoption. That's one of the things we use it for. So sending our new customers as part of their onboarding flow to the community to learn from others and see the resources that are available and know that there's a place for them to ask questions and get their questions answered. That's probably one of our primary use cases and scenarios that it works straight in. I can't really think of something that it wouldn't work good for. That's a tough one to think of on the spot.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    For companies that want to customize almost anything and make the forum look like your site, Vanilla Forums is the one for you. Customization and automation of the data via the API with other systems is more than possible and they serve to be great as a hosting provider, dealing with all the upgrades, deployments and maintenance and threat management well. I would say they might be less turn key for a small application but the fact they have an open source community, the ability to find help and information can lower the barrier of entry for most.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Gainsight
    • They provide a ton of materials on best practices in setting up and using their platform
    • They provide materials on how to provide an exceptional customer experience, with podcasts, webinars, and blogs.
    • They support their community and walk the talk, so to speak in engaging their customers with each other.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    • Gamification: The ability to incentivise community members to get involved with ranks and badges is one of the main reasons that we purchased the tool.
    • Support: The Vanilla support team are incredible, often responding to issues very late at night and proactively fixing issues as soon as they occur.
    • Customisation: Vanilla can be completely styled with css allowing us to match it to the branding of the rest of our website.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Gainsight
    • The REST API could use some work with missing capabilities.
    • Speed; production instance can sometimes be noticeably slow, especially on the back-end.
    • Polls; the polling data is not easily accessible. It can be found in the data lake but that is not necessarily simple to access for some.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    • There are some features I wish Vanilla would implement that could improve ease of use in our specific community, but some of the ideas we have are not necessarily something that would benefit all of the forums that Vanilla works with.
    • In the past, we've had issues with releases breaking some of our specific site features they built for us, but this has improved drastically recently.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Gainsight
    Gainsight CC is very versatile and easy to update in the areas they provide for customization. There are still some limitations that surprise us, but I really we are pleased with the ability to make changes on the fly. Overall we are able to accomplish what we desire to accomplish, and appreciate how user friendly it is
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    It is very intuitive and simple to operate. Our customers immediately came up with the curve and began contributing content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Gainsight
    No answers on this topic
    Higher Logic
    They did an amazing job transferring our content from GetSatisfaction. We had almost 100% success in the transfer of 8 years worth of content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Gainsight
    Gainsight CC was a clear winner for us. Khoros was second, but we eliminated it from consideration due to cost and how hard it is to implement. Verint is a great platform, but lacks integrations. Circle is more of a small community platform and better suited to communities of practice.
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    From a footprint standpoint, Vanilla has less technical bloat than vbulletin or InVision, and it outdoes Lithium as far as features and service go. The bloat of other services and ability to use new ways of engaging communities such as through Reactions are part of the reason Vanilla was selected. However, the features are better on a couple more seasoned platforms and more equipped to deal with issues and technical problems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Gainsight
    • We are actually doing some work to prove return on investment for investing in Gainsight Customer Communities right now, and it's proving to be exponentially higher than we initially estimated. I'm not sure the exact numbers off the top of my head, but we're having a monumental impact compared to what we projected in terms of monthly recurring revenue and customer churn.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Higher Logic
    • Increased uptime and overall speed in the forum (compared to our previous phpbb solution)
    • Increased usage by users which resulted in a higher pages/session in a short amount of time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Gainsight Customer Communities Screenshots

    Screenshot of where to create a centralized, branded destination that brings together resources. This helps customers find answers faster and keeps teams engaged.Screenshot of how federated search pulls results from across locations, giving users one place to search and discover the content they need.Screenshot of where to build an interactive space where users can ask questions, share expertise, and learn from each other. This helps to create stronger customer relationships through conversation, with recognition, gamification, and insights that tie directly into customer success workflows.Screenshot of where to promote upcoming webinars, workshops, and in-person events where customers already connect. Boost participation, support education goals, and create opportunities for real-time engagement without relying on email alone.Screenshot of a display of everything needed to manage a community, such as recent activity, pending posts, and new users.Screenshot of where to launch new community pages using a drag-and-drop builder, WYSIWYG editor, and prebuilt widgets.

    Higher Logic Vanilla Screenshots

    Screenshot of Looks great on any device, including desktop, tablet or mobile device.Screenshot of We offer over 60 plugins that can add functionality to your community.Screenshot of Many different themes to choose from, which you can further customize as you like.Screenshot of You have full access to edit HTML and CSS of your theme, to make any changes you need.