Alternatives to Groups.io with polls and calendars

June 1, 2022 6:28 AM

Groups.io has been my favorite discussion list option for a while now, but their free tier no longer offers calendars and polls. Are there are alternatives other than Google, and the like?

For what Groups.io does it is well worth the $20/month in my opinion; however, my partner is looking for an option for her small (5 people) book club and for that it is too expensive.

Ideally she would like to avoid Google Groups (for a number of reasons) -- and Facebook is a non-starter -- or any other BIG company where privacy may be a concern. Self-hosted options are ok if they can run on a shared hosting plan.

posted by terrapin to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

Nextcloud will give you calendaring and polls easily, and they apparently have a module to manage a listserv if you want to self-host and set that up. Or $24 Euros a year at https://owncube.com/admin_en.html will do it too, I think. You'd probably want to confirm about the listserv feature. I use Owncube for my personal Nextcloud and their service is solid.

I think Discourse will do all that too.

With 5 members, does she really need a discussion forum, or can a simple group email thread suffice?

Drupal would also work with modules for polls and a discussion forum.
posted by COD at 3:00 PM on June 1, 2022