Vanilla Forums
Customer community software that drives business value
Founded
2009
Starting Price
Contact Sales
Category
Customer Support
Last updated March 15, 2026
About Vanilla Forums
Vanilla Forums (now Higher Logic Vanilla) is a cloud-based customer community platform that enables B2B and B2C companies to build branded, self-service communities for support, engagement, and product feedback. It combines discussion forums, Q&A, gamification, AI-assisted answers, and analytics in a single hosted solution. Founded in 2009 and acquired by Higher Logic in 2021, it powers communities for enterprises like Smartsheet, TeamViewer, and Anaplan.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Mature feature-rich platform with 15+ years of development covering forums, Q&A, and gamification
- No-code drag-and-drop editor makes customization accessible without developer involvement
- Strong integrations with Salesforce, Zendesk, Mailchimp, WordPress, and SSO providers
- Scalable from SMB to enterprise used by Smartsheet, TeamViewer, and Anaplan
- AI-powered support deflection surfaces relevant content to reduce ticket volume automatically
Key Features
Discussion Forums & Q&A
Threaded discussions and structured Q&A with accepted answers to crowdsource community knowledge
Drag-and-Drop Layout Editor
No-code page builder with a widget library for banners, buttons, and custom layouts
Gamification
Badges, points, reputation levels, and leaderboards to reward participation and drive engagement
AI-Suggested Answers
Surfaces relevant past discussions and content to answer new questions automatically
Federated Search
Cross-platform search that pulls results from external sites, docs, and knowledge bases
Automation Rules
Behavior and time-triggered workflows for moderation, notifications, and user lifecycle actions
Sentiment Analysis
AI-powered monitoring of community tone and engagement health metrics
Pricing
Essential
Contact Sales
- Core community features
- Forums & Q&A
- Basic analytics
Corporate
Contact Sales
Best For
Customer Support Deflection
Build a searchable Q&A community where customers resolve issues peer-to-peer reducing support ticket volume
Customer Onboarding & Success
Centralize onboarding resources, peer learning, and product documentation in a branded community hub
Product Feedback & Ideation
Collect structured feedback, run polls, and let customers vote on roadmap features
Customer Advocacy & Marketing
Generate authentic user-created content, surface brand advocates, and build a loyal user base
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