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Gradual Explained
May 1, 2025 ¡ Last updated on November 7, 2025

Gradual Explained: Spaces vs. Clubs

Gradual Explained: Spaces vs. Clubs
# About Gradual

Learn about the differences in utilizing spaces vs. clubs in your community

Gradual Explained: Spaces vs. Clubs
Spaces and Clubs both offer access to specific member groups, but in different ways. This resource helps break down the differences and works to guide you in finding which feature is the best option for your use case and membership.
A simple way to think about it is Spaces are the behind-the-scenes access groups, where members don't know their assignment, and Clubs are the forward-facing/visible groups where members do know their assignment and have a designated area or hub in the community.

Spaces

Spaces function as an administrative tool to control who sees what. They limit access to specific content, events, forum boards, community channels, and roundtables to only those members who are added to the space.
  • Space assignment is done entirely in the dashboard by dashboard admins
  • They are used to restrict content, events, and forum board access to specific members and groups
  • This means space-assigned content or events will not appear in the community landing pages, via search, or by direct link to anyone EXCEPT those who are added to the same space.
  • Content and events can be assigned to one or multiple Spaces
  • Space assignments are not visible to members (they don't know what spaces they're in)
  • Members can belong to multiple Spaces
IMPORTANT: Those in spaces see everything that's public, member-only, etc. PLUS what is assigned to their space(s).

Use cases and suggestions

Forum discussions
Space-restricted forum boards are great for discussion threads that should only be accessible to certain members, but don't particularly apply to a club or interest group. This could be an internal team board, or customers at a certain level or of a certain product that don't need a full club (don't have content or events applicable to them), but need a place to exchange ideas in a forum board.
Content series
If you have content like event video replays that are for only a certain set of members, like attendees who attended at a certain ticket level, you can restrict the video content pieces to the space, and assign all the right ticket holders to that space. Then, when they log in and view the content tab or the collection, they'll see those replays! Someone who wasn't added to the space would not see the event video replays on their content tab or from search.

Clubs

Clubs are a forward-facing community feature, providing hubs for interaction, and elements like discussion threads, videos, and events specific to club members.
  • Clubs provide visible places for members to engage and interact, either by geographic location or by interest
  • Feature events, content, discussions, and leaders specific to the club all in one place
  • Events and content created within a club are, by default, only visible and accessible through the club's page. However, you can choose to promote individual events or content pieces to the broader community.
  • Allow members to explore and choose which club to be a member of
  • Dependent on the access settings of the clubs
  • You can also have secret, invite-only clubs where you control membership and visibility

Use cases and suggestions

Geographic Chapters
Clubs are a great option for geographic chapters, where members can explore and join a group that includes other members from their region to attend local events, have forum discussions in their dialect, etc.
Secret/VIP Boards
A secret interest group is a great solution for a Customer Advisory Board, to host their meetings, provide blogs and resources for them in a secret, hidden hub. You'd create the secret club, add the members on the CAB to the club via the dashboard, and then when they navigate to the Clubs tab, they would see the CAB group, and the contents within all in one spot. This keeps their resources and space private, and provides them a one-stop shop for all their CAB needs.

Learn more about Spaces & Clubs

Check out the resources we've created to get more information about Spaces and Clubs.
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