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Higher Logic Thrive vs. Jive-x (Discontinued) vs. Khoros Communities

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Higher Logic Thrive

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AHigher Logic Thrive is a private community platform that empowers members, customers, support and product teams to create and manage meaningful, engaging online communities. The solution is designed to keep users coming back. They can find support, best practices, peer-to-peer connections, resources, events, and networking, all in one destination.N/A

    Jive-x (Discontinued)

    Score4 out of 10
    N/AJive-x (formerly Jive Engage) is Jive's external facing community platform for prospects and customers. It is a leading product in the space and most often competes with Lithium Community and Telligent Community.N/A

    Khoros Communities

    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Khoros Communities is a fully-featured community platform, built for self-service support, education and collaboration. Organizations can host a vibrant space where customers can find answers, develop expertise, share experiences, and connect with their brand.N/A
    Pricing
    Higher Logic ThriveJive-x (Discontinued)Khoros Communities
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Higher Logic ThriveJive-x (Discontinued)Khoros Communities
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——Pricing is variable based on the needs of the customer.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Higher Logic ThriveJive-x (Discontinued)Khoros Communities
    Considered Multiple Products
    Higher Logic
    Chose Higher Logic Thrive
    Higher logic is comparatively cheaper than Khoros Communities and has lots of features.
    Incentivized
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Chose Jive-x (Discontinued)
    For the money, it just happens to fit best with our original use case. Now that it's been sold to Aurea, which essentially halted any support or dev for the product before selling it off to Lithium, we will have to eventually move off of it (this assumes Lithium won't hire devs …
    Incentivized
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Chose Khoros Communities
    Large companies and organizations with complex community needs are well served by Khoros communities. The platform's advanced analytics and reporting features helps organizations seeking deeper insights. The gamification is the best way to boost user engagement, Khoros …
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    These are the reasons
    Enterprise Focus: Khoros Communities is known for catering to large enterprises and organizations with complex community needs.
    Advanced Analytics: The platform's advanced analytics and reporting features may be appealing for organizations looking for …
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    I evaluated several different community platforms when Jive-x was being discontinued and ultimately chose Khoros as it had much more customization options compared to the other platforms out there. It also seemed to be the most robust and powerful, had the most features, and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    Khoros Communities was always one of our frontrunners during the selection process. Some communities had more integrations or better UI/UX for admins on the backend. Ultimately we went with Khoros because it integrated better with some 3rd party tools we already use and it had …
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    A lot of small and key features which are not available on other platforms
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    One thing we miss from Jive is the ability to post an article in multiple places. We also think building layouts in Jive was easier. But overall Khoros Communities (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium) has met our expectations and goals of using SSO to capture leads, gating content, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    • Khoros had a clear migration path for Jive users.
    • Khoros is a platform that can scale.
    • Khoros allows us to spread and share knowledge while allowing us to continue to build trust and credibility with all our loyal fans.
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    Additional products not listed. Salesforce, Insided, Hivebrite. Khoros was the overall winner, with the right combination of function and flexibility we needed.
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    Khoros's features are more robust, interface is more user-friendly and analytics are better. It's the clear leader in the space right now.
    Incentivized
    Chose Khoros Communities
    Khoros is much more established and feature-rich than Salesforce's Community offering. E.g., gamification is implemented well in Khoros (except for Missions and Journeys) whereas Salesforce's offering is rudimentary.
    Jive is mainly used for internal communities, whereas Khoros …
    Chose Khoros Communities
    Were reviewing 2 other products. Aside from price, the integration to Salesforce.com was the big decider. At the time we were evaluating, Khoros did the community for Salesforce.com themselves.
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Would buy again
    70 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    80%
    Delivers good value for the price
    4 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    64 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    38 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Higher Logic ThriveJive-x (Discontinued)Khoros Communities
    Small Businesses
    UUKI
    Score7.6 out of 10
    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
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    Score5.5 out of 10
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    Score5.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Higher Logic ThriveJive-x (Discontinued)Khoros Communities
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (18 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.4
    (95 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    4.1
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    6.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.8
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (5 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    4.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (86 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Higher Logic ThriveJive-x (Discontinued)Khoros Communities
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Higher Logic
    Higher Logic works very well for our business purposes. We can very easily create new communities when we need to (and this is often!). Our association isn't as concerned with driving engagement, but the tools Higher Logic provides allows us to take a closer look at the engagement level of our committee members when needed
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Jive-x is great for external communities for support deflection or customer communication and document sharing/editing. If you spend the money on the available add-ons and integrations, you could use it for customer education/learning. It's less appropriate for use as a revenue -generating tool or a lead-generating platform.
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Khoros Communities is my go-to when I'm part of a big company with lots of customers who want to help each other. It's awesome for talking about products, giving ideas to make them better, and getting help when I need it. If my team is spread out or we're working from home, Khoros Communities is handy for sharing updates and working together. It's also a good tool for events, helping with planning and discussing what happened. But if my group is small or not very active, or if I just need a simple place to chat without too many extras, Khoros Communities might be more than I need. Plus, I've got to be ready to keep an eye on things to keep the community positive, and it works best when I have a plan to grow and keep the community lively.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Higher Logic
    • Higher Logic product managers are probably some of the best in the industry. They know their products and aren't pushy in trying to sell them to you. Don't get me wrong, they do try to sell you a product, but they understand that not everyone who is tasked with learning more is also a decision maker. That doesn't stop them from being professional and thorough in their demonstrations or explanation of fees.
    • Their technical support is top notch. Not only do they work to resolve issues, they also work with you to help you with non-issues. Our initial redesign was done by an agency that worked with HL directly to set up the new site. When I was tasked with a mini-redesign this year, HL technical support offered me a lot of insight on how to best do this using just my skills and HL.
    • They offer training on their platforms to ensure your success as an administrator. There is no cost and you can either go to their onsite two days "boot camp" or you can access a plethora of training videos and webinars through their online users' community.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • I write these from the perspective of the Community Manager - You can choose your level of moderation on Jive to match the policies of your organisation. From full on content pre-moderation to to completely reactive moderation, you can take your pick. We chose the latter end of the spectrum, trust your colleagues to be professional and you will be rewarded with professional content.
    • The ability for users to set up their own groups very easily with out the need to revert to developers is great as this allows individuality. This allows for organic growth with out impact on the budgets of departments and teams to get their work done on Jive. The option is always there to get 'someone in to fancy it up a bit' however you will find that your own people will develop those skills themselves. Your users will also learn from each other and you should actively encourage stealing of best practice from across your organisation.
    • The knowledge repository or Question and Answer features are the most value-adding for me. Having searchable history that allows your to get answers quickly so the next question can be asked is the reason why you should have a collaboration platform in the first place, Jive makes that easy.
    • Single Sign On has been a excellent addition for us, if Jive does not make your colleagues lives easier then they won't use it.
    • You can customize and brand Jive to reflect your company identity.
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • Increase in suggestions from our clients to know what we should improve.
    • Reduce technical support costs and incredibly increase sales.
    • It helps to interact with customers and we receive positive and negative reviews and based on their comments we can make changes that increase sales.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Higher Logic
    • Reporting is copious but you cannot build your own reports so you may have lots of information in several different reports and have to pick and choose across several to combine manually. Exporting functionality is there but there are some reports that are only a screen shot and you cannot export them.
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • No QA environment. It's cloud-based so you need to purchase another instance to set up a QA environment.
    • The gamification system is not as user intuitive as you'd expect. The admin spends more time setting up opportunities than they should need to.
    • Jive-x was bought out by three different companies in the last 2 years. There is an uncertainty of how long it will be supported and updated.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • Self Service, Low and No Code. The Community Managers should be able to some UI Tasks by self with doing any code updates.
    • Salesforce Integration: The basic Integration should also include the basic level of business requirement. (Contacts and Accounts Mapping)
    • Slack Connector Update: There is no update on this connector till the time its launch. The other team has lot of options to push the notification in multiple slack channels. And unfortunately Khoros does not. This creates a lot work for Community team to bring internal teams to the community to respond or acknowledge an post.
    • More Integrations: Since now the Khoros communities does not comes up with the integrations with basic support tools like JIRA, Confluence, Github etc.
    • Search Improvisation: Apart from last search update there is no updates we see in this feature. The team should think of Putting Some AI based Search into the community which helps the Community managers to manage the content accordingly
    • Some update on AI and Gen AI: Khoros communities did not shared any thoughts about their plans for putting these technology in community
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Higher Logic
    They are a great company that offer great products - primarily their community. As they continue to grow and expand their offerings, I believe they will increase the number of products that offer and in turn grow their client base. We use their community, activity synch, and volunteer manager currently.
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    For a large company the cost can quickly escalate so this must taken into account when renewing. For me, the decision to review will be taken with upgrading to the cloud version in mind as well. My power users love Jive for it versatility but it is important to note that you must be prepared to constantly train and coach the non-power users
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give Khoros Communities a solid 8. The system is extremely easy to use, enabling our team and community members to navigate and interact with the platform with ease. The wide range of features offered by Khoros Communities has greatly enriched our online interactions and improved the efficiency of our customer service. The technical support team has also been extremely helpful, could be quicker sometimes for answering our questions but they efficiently resolving any problems we have encountered. The platform is perfectly scalable, capable of handling our growing user base without any performance problems. What's more, Khoros Communities offers excellent integration capabilities with our other software tools, making our operations smoother and more efficient
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Higher Logic
    The software is not that simple to use when you have to get volunteers involved in the content assembly process. The content management system that is native to Higher Logic could improve to make the task of training volunteers far easier. Given its simplicity, it is hard for the system to rival more developed websites that use advanced CMS software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    The end user should be able to find what they need. They don't even need to be logged in to search for content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Like every backend, it can always be improved upon. The excellent thing is that Khoros have a hugely active customer support community as well as a fantastic case management system to triage support issues and requests. So regardless of your level of knowledge or familiarity, you're well supported out of the box.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    I've hardly ever seen downtime in any of their production communities. There's the occasional reboot needed for config reasons or if patches are applied, but these take place after customer approval and typically last only a few minutes.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    It works wonders. My only gripe would be that there are some customizations you can't make without hiring a vendor with coding experience to implement them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Higher Logic
    Higher Logic's support is sub-par at best. It can be difficult to get in contact with anyone from the support team, and when you do, it seems as if they don't want to talk to you and don't even have the answers to your questions. Within the past few months, we've contacted them twice and both times have been very disappointing. The first time was to let them know there was an inconsistency between the analytics report and the heat map. They basically said that they already knew about the problem but didn't have any set plans to fix it because they were working on other "more important" things. The second time was for a conference call to go over some additional features that we wanted to implement. And the lady we spoke with seemed very disgusted to have to speak with us and then rushed us off the phone because she had another call.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    The support has been fantastic when we have been trying to code our own apps. Jive have went above and beyond what was required to help us out. Bugs fixes are generally very good and they are upfront when they are unable to help or a 'problem' is actually in need of Professional Services
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    They are responsive and proactive. They are really on top of things. They send personal emails to check in on you. It feels like they really know you. You only get emails from 3-4 people at Khoros – they must be customer assigned.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    I think it is engaging and has good instructors.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    It was out of the box training - pre-recorded/ not live. There was nothing for more advanced topics like APIs. They do have a good knowledge base and community that you can access and folks in there are responsive. I would however like more advanced training options.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    We were up against a hard stop with Jive’s contract ending and Khoros connected us with a deployment partner to do accelerated deployment using a template approach. It could have happened in 2 weeks. We did not end up going that way since we wanted more customization. Lithium handled technical stuff like migration, but a lot of the process is self-deployment. It’s one of the ways they teach use of the system is having the user self-implement.

    Overall, the implementation was super easy to do. Doing single sign-on (SSO) was the only hard part. The implementation ended up taking nine weeks total, but in hindsight, we could have done in it six. Most of the implementation time was spent in course work, which consisted of on-demand training - approximately 7-8 hours that you are required for you to do, before they turn on the system. During this nine week period, about 50% of my time was spent on implementation.

    We had a deployment manager who we were able to email 1-1. I leaned on him heavily. He was great at all hours, for example, they would call back at 7pm PST. They were very responsive.

    Content migration strategy is important to consider. Moving from an existing community you need to strategically choose how your layout will be. Two different systems will have two different ways to format communities. For example, Jive has communities with sub-communities, whereas Khoros has community, category, and boards.

    Contact migration is also an important consideration. You need to think through how you are going to move contacts from your old community to a new one. For example, are you going to create new logins and passwords? We were hoping to use the integration with Salesforce.com to be a portal, but ended up using an in-house solution that works well to maintain same the same logins. The next related question is are you going to be able to keep them connected to all the posts in your old community? We migrated old posts. If you have a tech-savvy team, you can do a self-migration. Khoros has a migration services team that we utilized. It cost us $10k to move content and posts were kept tied to the user.

    The next consideration is your launch/promotion plan. Khoros helped us out and gave us a lot of examples. They shared pre-launch email dates, follow-up emails, FAQ pages (e.g. to explain why switching, why better).
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Higher Logic
    We are just in the early stages of looking into HubSpot Service Hub to determine if it will be a viable replacement for Higher Logic Community. We have other uses for the ServiceHub so there is an appeal to have it be a "one stop shop" for us. The big question however is how it will stack up to Higher Logic for the online communities. Candidly, while Higher Logic may be tough to beat in this area, it is something we will be looking closely at in the next 12 months.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    For the money, it just happens to fit best with our original use case. Now that it's been sold to Aurea, which essentially halted any support or dev for the product before selling it off to Lithium, we will have to eventually move off of it (this assumes Lithium won't hire devs for code they didn't build, and that's not a bad assumption). So, while I recommend it, it's with the caveat that it's been sold and will be evolving in the near future.
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    Large companies and organizations with complex community needs are well served by Khoros communities. The platform's advanced analytics and reporting features helps organizations seeking deeper insights. The gamification is the best way to boost user engagement, Khoros Communities has a rich feature set. Also with customization options offered by Khoros Communities, companies can develop a unique and customized community experience.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Higher Logic
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    No answers on this topic
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    I think I would give Khoros an overall 7, while there were things we really liked about it. I also saw things that just did not work well for us. We like using iG but it was not the friendliest in using it on that platform. Sometimes the software would glitch or lag which is not helpful during high critical moments
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Higher Logic
    • Understanding preferences-- Higher Logic helps us tap in to how our members want to hear from us.
    • Data collection-- Since we started using Higher Logic the amount of data we get from our members has increased greatly.
    • Consolidation of tools-- Higher Logic replaced 2 or 3 additional SAAS options being utilized by us. This helped save money!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • Hard to quantify the results...but I also left the company before we had built a mature instance of Jive in-house so the final results/impact were yet to be fully realized and measured.
    • The use of Jive brought together multiple-departments for the first time in our 50+ year old company to truly build an "end-to-end" approach to our marketing/sales/fulfillment/customer service engine. It was truly phenomenal to watch how the internal life-cycle of a prospect-turned-customer literally transformed and unified our inter-departmental teams through the use of Jive Engage.
    Incentivized
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    Khoros (Formerly Spredfast + Lithium)
    • We are able to see what our different cohorts of customers are doing within the community, and we are able to create content and programs based on the engagement we get from these different groups.
    • We have been able to start an Idea Exchange space where our customers can share, vote, and comment on features they would like to see in our products. It quickly became a very popular place within the Community.
    • With the discussion forums, we are able to use the Accepted Solutions functions to help deflect tickets and Support interactions working on a 1-to-many scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Higher Logic Thrive Screenshots

    Screenshot of Higher Logic Thrive Community logged in view
Bring members together 24/7. Discussions, Q&A, events, and engagement tools like automation and a mobile app – Higher Logic Thrive Community provides everything you need to bring members back from wherever they are.Screenshot of Higher Logic Thrive Community logged out view
Your value proposition shines on the logged out view of Higher Logic Thrive Community. Use this valuable space to remind members and prospects about the important work your association does.Screenshot of Target groups
Tailor every email or automated campaign with dynamic content, segmentation, and personalization. Integrations with your AMS or online community make adding contacts and creating compound distribution lists a breeze.Screenshot of Message designer
Save time with pre-built email templates and automated campaigns based on nearly two decades of association experience.Screenshot of Reports
Refine your programs with data. Gain insight from email interactions and web tracking so you can refine your offerings and prove ROI.Screenshot of Engagement scoring
See how engaged your members are so you can be sure you are providing value.

    Khoros Communities Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Khoros Communities solution, and some of its tools available to build an enterprise-class online community and scale member engagement.Screenshot of discussions, which can be enabled to connect product experts and brand-enthusiasts through peer-to-peer discussions. Both newbies and experienced users can read, post, and easily respond in forums.Screenshot of where community members can submit, vote on, and discuss ideas to improve products, and share insights, all while driving engagement, and building brand loyalty. Idea boards deliver value for product managers, marketers and customers.Screenshot of events, that provide a platform to schedule, announce, inform, and discuss everything from the smallest group gathering to the largest user conference. These community-hosted activities harness the enthusiasm generated by interactions between members, company, and brand ambassadors and foster deeper connections with audiences. Users can integrate Zoom meetings and webinars within the community, or host live-stream video outside the community with URL links to any video hosting platform like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or others.Screenshot of where to design a brand-approved community without custom code. It includes expert-created templates and a drag-and-drop interface to customize page layouts, navigation, and brand themes.Screenshot of some of the dashboards, reports, and benchmark data used to track visitors, usage, trending topics, interaction preferences, and agent responsiveness.