New
Community servers, free for up to 500 people
Run a public server anyone can find and join, with a real moderation toolkit and no per seat bill. It is the same Waffle your team already uses, in its public form.
Last updated July 2026
What is a Waffle community server?
A Waffle community server is a public chat server that anyone can find and join, as opposed to a Waffle workspace, which is private and invite only. One community server holds up to 500 members for free, can list itself in a public directory, and comes with a moderation toolkit built in. It has no Waffle AI, and that trade is the point.
A Waffle team now has a kind. A workspace is what most people are in: private, invite only, billed per seat, with Waffle AI in it. A community server is the other kind. Nothing about an existing workspace changes, and one Waffle account can run both.
Workspace or community server: which do you need?
The two kinds differ in six ways that matter. Everything else, the channels, threads, direct messages, search, reactions, pins, and voice, is the same product.
| Capability | Workspace | Community server |
|---|---|---|
| Who can join | Invite only | Anyone with the link, or from the directory |
| Free member ceiling | 10 members | 500 members |
| Waffle AI | Included, from the free plan | Not available at all |
| Billing | Per seat, when you outgrow the free plan | Free. There is no subscription to buy |
| Moderation toolkit | Timeouts, bans, reports, and the mod queue | The same, plus AutoMod and lockdown |
| Found by strangers | Never | Only after an admin lists it in the directory |
Why is there no Waffle AI in a community server?
Waffle AI is not available in a community server at all. It is the one part of Waffle whose cost scales with use, so a class of team that can hold hundreds of strangers gives it up, and that trade is what makes the rest free.
We would rather say this on the pricing page than in a support ticket. If your team needs Waffle AI, run a workspace. If you are running a public community and want room for hundreds of people without a bill, run a community server. Nothing stops you doing both, and you switch between them in the same app.
How do people find your community?
Being a community server and being listed in the directory are two separate settings. A new community works by link only until an admin lists it, and to be listed it needs a description, rules, at least 5 members, and a day of age.
Turning a team into a community server does not publish anything. It unlocks the member ceiling, the moderation toolkit, and the community settings, and it says nothing about who can find you. Listing is a second, deliberate, audited action, and you can unlist at any time without breaking a single existing link.
Listed communities appear on the Discover page, where people search them, filter them by one of 8 categories, and sort by members, newest, or name. Every community also has its own public page at a handle you choose, which works whether or not you are listed.
The categories are Tech, Gaming, Learning, Creative, Science, Business, Social, and Other. The list is fixed rather than free tagged, because a directory is only worth browsing if browsing it is fast. Free text tags cover the long tail.
Who can join, and who can post?
A public server that anyone can walk into is a spam target, so joining is something you configure rather than something that just happens. Four controls, and they stack.
- Open or invite only. Open means one click from the link or the directory. Flipping to invite only pauses new joins instantly and deletes no invite link, so it is a reversible panic button.
- A verified email address, if you want one. Nothing else changes for the member.
- A minimum account age, which is the setting that actually stops a throwaway account raid.
- Rules that a new member reads and accepts before they can post. They can read the whole time they are deciding.
None of these gate reading. A visitor can always look at your public page and decide before taking part, and a member who has not yet cleared a bar can read while they sort it out. That is deliberate: a server nobody can look at is not a community, it is a locked door.
What moderation tools do you get?
Every Waffle server has the full moderation toolkit from the moment it exists: timeouts, bans with an optional message scrub, member reports in a queue, keyword filters that block or flag, and a lockdown control for a raid. There is no tier to reach and no second product to turn on, and every timeout and ban requires a reason that the member is shown.
Moderation is not community only. A private workspace gets the same tools, because "remove them and hope they lose the link" is not a moderation strategy there either.
- Timeouts. A timed out member can still read, but cannot post, react, or join voice until it expires. Presets run from one minute to seven days, up to a ceiling of 28 days.
- Bans, permanent or with an expiry, and optionally scrubbing that member’s messages from the last 7 days in the same action.
- A reason is mandatory on both, and the member is told what it was. It is a statement to the person, not a private note in a log.
- Member reports. Anyone can report a message; it lands in a queue with a snapshot of the text taken at report time, so it still means something after the author edits or deletes it.
- Keyword filters that either block a message before it is ever stored or flag it for a moderator, plus a cap on how many people one message may mention, and a switch that blocks links from members who have not met your verification bar.
- Lockdown. One control refuses open joins and puts a slowmode floor on every channel at once, for when a server is being raided. Someone invited by a member can still get in, and it lifts by itself.
- Role hierarchy that holds. Moderators cannot act on each other or on the owner, because the check is on role position rather than on a permission bit.
A moderator opens a member and sees what has already happened before deciding what to do about it.
The timed out member sees the reason and the expiry in place of the composer, and can still read.
Is Waffle a good Discord alternative?
Waffle community servers are a real Discord alternative for a community of up to 500 people who also want their work chat in the same app. Discord is better at scale, at large voice calls, and at third party bots, and Waffle has no bot platform at all. Waffle is better at moderation being complete on day one, and at every sanction carrying a reason the member is shown.
| Capability | Waffle | Discord |
|---|---|---|
| Members in one free server | 500, and stated as a hard number | Effectively unlimited for most servers |
| People in one voice call | 8, peer to peer with screen share | Far more, on their own voice infrastructure |
| Bots and third party apps | None. There is no bot platform | A large ecosystem |
| Public directory | Yes, and any community can list itself once it qualifies | Yes, with a much higher bar to be discoverable |
| Moderation on day one | Timeouts, bans, reports, keyword filters, and lockdown, all included | Comparable tools, some behind becoming a Community server first |
| A reason must be given | Required on every timeout and ban, and shown to the member | Optional, and not always shown to the member |
| Same app as your work chat | Yes. One account, one app, workspaces and communities side by side | A separate product from your work tools |
| AI assistant in the server | No, deliberately. Waffle AI is workspace only | No comparable built in assistant |
If your community is thousands of people, or it runs on bots, or it lives in a hundred person voice stage, Discord is the better tool and we would rather say so here than have you find out in week three.
What are the limits?
A Waffle community server holds 500 members and 100 channels, allows 8 people in one voice call and 25 MB per file upload, and one person may own 5 of them. None of these is a paywall and none of them changes if you pay Waffle. There is no Waffle AI and no bot platform.
| Limit | Community server | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Members | 500 | The number the current architecture carries well. Not for sale, and 50 times a free workspace. |
| Channels | 100 | The whole channel list and its permission map load with the server, so this is a load time bound. |
| People in one voice call | 8 | Voice is peer to peer, so everyone connects to everyone. The same on every Waffle plan and every kind of team. |
| File upload size | 25 MB | The same as a free workspace. Paid workspace plans raise this; a community server has no plan to raise. |
| Communities you can own | 5 | An anti spam bound. The cheapest way to ruin a directory is to create fifty empty servers. |
| To appear in the directory | 5 members, 1 day | Cheap for a real community, expensive for a spammer. A description and rules are required too. |
| Waffle AI | None | The trade that pays for everything above. Run a workspace if you need the assistant. |
Frequently asked questions
- What is a Waffle community server?
- A community server is a public Waffle server that anyone can find and join, rather than a private workspace people are invited to. It holds up to 500 members for free, it can list itself in a public directory, and it comes with a moderation toolkit: timeouts, bans, member reports, keyword filters, and a lockdown control. It has no Waffle AI.
- How much does a community server cost?
- Nothing. A community server has no per seat subscription and there is no plan to upgrade to. A community server holds up to 500 members for free, against 10 on a free workspace. That ceiling is not a plan limit and there is nothing to buy that raises it: it is the number the current architecture carries well.
- Does Waffle AI work in a community server?
- Waffle AI is not available in a community server at all. It is the one part of Waffle whose cost scales with use, so a class of team that can hold hundreds of strangers gives it up, and that trade is what makes the rest free.
- Is a community server public as soon as I create one?
- Being a community server and being listed in the directory are two separate settings. A new community works by link only until an admin lists it, and to be listed it needs a description, rules, at least 5 members, and a day of age.
- Can people read a community before joining it?
- They can read its public page, which shows the description, the rules they will be asked to accept, the member count, and the join requirements. Channels and messages are for members. There is no way to browse a server’s conversations without joining it.
- Is Waffle a Discord alternative?
- For a community up to 500 people it is a real option, and it is the same app as your work chat, so one account covers both. Discord is stronger on scale, on large voice calls, and on its bot ecosystem, and Waffle has no bot platform at all. Waffle is stronger on moderation being complete from day one and on every sanction requiring a reason the member is shown.
- Do I need a separate account for a community server?
- No. One Waffle account covers everything. Your workspaces and the communities you have joined sit side by side in the same app, and you switch between them the same way.
- Can a moderator remove a member’s past messages?
- Yes. A ban can scrub that member’s messages from the last 7 days as part of the same action, so cleaning up after a spam run is one step rather than a manual sweep. Moderators can also remove individual messages.
Give your team its extra member.
Waffle is in early access. Creating a team takes about two minutes, and Waffle AI is ready the moment you do.