Back in February 2017, Brian, Max, and I started working on a side project with the goal of building a space for our own communities. After releasing an early prototype, people told us they also wanted to use it for their communities, so we decided to go all-in and build an open, inclusive home for developer and designer communities. Since officially launching the platform late last year, Spectrum has become home to almost 5,000 communities!

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Spectrum is joining GitHub!

GitHub has always been committed to making developers’ lives easier and fostering a strong community across the globe. All three of us are joining GitHub to continue to work towards those same goals, building the best community platform just as we always have. Now we’ll get to work with the talented folks at GitHub to make something greater than we could on our own.

What does this mean for you and your communities?

1. We’re 100% committed to having the best space for you and your community anywhere on the internet.

2. Every feature of Spectrum is now free. Every community will have access to our full suite of features - including unlimited moderators, private communities and channels, and community analytics.

3. Expect deeper integration with GitHub!

We love you all for taking a chance on Spectrum. We couldn’t be the best platform for communities without having the best communities, so we’re incredibly grateful that you’ve trusted us to take good care of you. We also want to thank everyone who invested in this vision through open source contributions, Pro memberships, and our angel investors. We wouldn’t be where we are now without your support!

Thanks for everything,

Brian Lovin, Max Stoiber, and Bryn Jackson

FAQ

What is happening to my community?

It’s now completely free and we’ll continue to support the best space for you and your community anywhere on the internet.

Can new members still sign up?

Of course!

Will Spectrum stay open source?

Yes! Spectrum will stay open source, and we’ll continue collaborating with the open source community to serve you the best way we can.

Who should I contact for support?

Email us for direct support ( [email protected] ), post feature requests to our support community and file bug reports on github.com/withspectrum

Should you have any further questions or thoughts, come hang out with us in the support community: https://spectrum.chat/spectrum

I’m a Pro user. What’s happening to my paid membership?

We’ve turned off payments for pro memberships and converted all “PRO” badges to "Supporter" and “β” badges to indicate our earliest supporters while we were still in beta. All additional benefits of the Pro membership are now available to everyone, but we wanted to make sure Pro users got something unique for showing their support.

Will there be any changes to Spectrum’s privacy policy?