Higher 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.
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Workplace from Meta (discontinued)
Score8 out of 10
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Workplace was a business communication tool from Meta with features like Live Video and Groups, that connected employees. Its discontinuation began in August of 2025, and by June 2026 a full shutdown is anticipated.
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Well suited: - leadership communication. When our CEO posts a video to all company - it always gets the highest engagement - recognition/achievements posts - live streams for education, knowledge sharing - we are a company of 12000 associates and there is no other corporate channel for us to gather more than 500 people in one place. Less appropriate: - sharing some very targetted messages - it's impossible to do at Workplace without creating a group. So we use email channel for such targetted communications - instant communication like in a chat (probably it's less appropriate in our specific case because we use MS Teams for such quick communication instead of WP chats)
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Bring groups of people together to share info, stories, updates, etc.
The chat app is pretty decent.
Workplace Live is a good large-group meeting broadcast platform.
It's pretty intuitive to use for anyone who's used Facebook.
It provides different levels of "security" for groups, allowing you to have open, closed, and "secret" groups.
It's easy to paste images into your posts and comments, without having to necessarily go through the process of saving an image as a file, etc.
It has search capabilities for finding old information.
It's available for both desktop/laptop and mobile devices.
It's secured to allow only those within the company to see company-related info (but it also has a few inter-company groups, which can be useful, too).
Workplace Chat has the ability to set it to Do Not Disturb.
You can set notifications, including email notifications, if you want to be alerted to new activity in your groups, etc.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It would be helpful if a review confirmation checkbox was able to be placed by files that needed to be read or reviewed. Along the same line, approve, review again, etc. would be helpful checkboxes to add by files, proposals.
The layout is clean but suffers a bit from the center column width with two sidebars and a lot of empty space. It almost looks like a going out of business sale retail store where you notice the empty shelves. Workplace feels a bit bare at times. I think some good design modifications can help. Now on mobile, it is a great layout. I am addressing specifically the desktop browser login.
An admin control dashboard would be really effective and even more so with more users on the platform.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Having to download multiple apps just to use the tool is very cumbersome. Facebook would have make this better by wrapping it in as a main feature within their app, but having to use multiple apps to see discussions and walls is so frustrating.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Workplace by Facebook is an excellent fit in respect of support and documentation. It has excellent tutorials and documentation, as well. The UI and UX are already great as it is developed and maintained by Facebook, so most of the times, there is no need for any support or documentation.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Workplace by Facebook is so much more than just a project management tool like Basecamp or Slack. The ability to disseminate information to employees is easier and better with Workplace by Facebook. It can also be used for informal messaging and sharing of information. It combines the best features of both with the same look and feel as Facebook.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We can meet the project times, that with the communication in real time.
We provide solutions to our suppliers in a reliable and efficient manner.
When a business can save time and at the same time respond to the demands of customers, this translates into greater market capture of action for the company.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info