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Social Media · head to head

Determ vs Khoros

Determ logo

Determ

Social Media

Media monitoring and PR intelligence with published European pricing and unlimited users on every plan

From
€99/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Khoros logo

Khoros

Social Media

Enterprise social media management and branded community platform, now owned by IgniteTech

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Determ there is no print media monitoring, so any organisation with a press cuttings obligation or a board that still reads newspaper coverage has to buy a second service alongside it.; Khoros igniteTech, part of ESW Capital, acquired Khoros in May 2025 and around 116 staff were made redundant within weeks, and ESW has a documented pattern of running acquired software on minimal cost bases, so support responsiveness and roadmap delivery are legitimate contract-negotiation issues rather than theoretical risks.
  • They diverge on capability: Determ covers Real-time mention alerts, Khoros covers Branded communities.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Determ and Khoros actually diverge.

Attributes where Determ and Khoros differ
AttributeDetermKhoros
Starting price€99/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer month by topic and mention volumequote
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, iOS, Android, API

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Social Media).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Determ

  • Real-time mention alerts
  • Unlimited keywords
  • Sentiment analysis
  • Influencer identification
  • Boolean query builder
  • Reporting and exports
  • Mentions API
  • Crisis alerts

Only in Khoros

  • Branded communities
  • Community gamification
  • Social publishing
  • Social customer care
  • Moderation tooling
  • Listening and analytics
  • Aurora and Iris AI
  • Knowledge deflection

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Determ

  • A European trade association giving unlimited member-organisation staff access to the same media alerts without paying per seatnot Khoros
  • A communications team needing alerts within minutes of a negative story breaking in a regional language outletnot Khoros
  • A PR agency running monitoring for several clients where seat-based pricing would make sharing dashboards uneconomicnot Khoros
  • A public sector body tracking coverage of a policy announcement across news, forums and social without a six-figure contractnot Khoros

Khoros

  • A telecommunications operator that wants a public support community whose accepted answers measurably deflect contact centre volumenot Determ
  • A consumer brand consolidating a dozen regional social accounts under one publishing approval workflow with regional role permissionsnot Determ
  • A games publisher running player forums where moderation load and volunteer moderator tooling matter more than publishing featuresnot Determ
  • A bank that needs social service messages tracked against the same SLA framework as its email and chat queuesnot Determ

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Determ

  • There is no print media monitoring, so any organisation with a press cuttings obligation or a board that still reads newspaper coverage has to buy a second service alongside it.
  • Mention allowances are the real constraint and a single viral news cycle can exhaust a 1,000-mention monthly quota in days, after which you either upgrade mid-contract or lose visibility exactly when you need it most.
  • Long-range historical reporting is thin, so year-on-year share of voice analysis and multi-year campaign retrospectives are awkward compared with the larger monitoring suites.
  • Facebook coverage is restricted and LinkedIn profiles cannot be monitored, limits imposed by those platforms but which still leave gaps in any brand where the conversation happens there.
  • It is a monitoring tool rather than a PR suite, with no media database, no journalist contact list and no pitching workflow, so agencies replacing Cision or Muck Rack will find half the job undone.

Khoros

  • IgniteTech, part of ESW Capital, acquired Khoros in May 2025 and around 116 staff were made redundant within weeks, and ESW has a documented pattern of running acquired software on minimal cost bases, so support responsiveness and roadmap delivery are legitimate contract-negotiation issues rather than theoretical risks.
  • Community migration is genuinely hard: moving years of threads, accepted solutions, member reputation and SEO-bearing URLs off Khoros later is a project measured in quarters, which makes the switching cost far higher than the annual licence suggests.
  • Pricing is not published and the platform is sold on annual enterprise contracts with substantial implementation and design services, so the first-year cost is materially higher than the recurring licence and hard to benchmark.
  • The publishing and listening side inherited from Spredfast has been outpaced by dedicated social suites, so social-first teams frequently find themselves keeping a second tool for scheduling and analytics and paying for overlapping capability.
  • The product is the result of merging two large codebases and has now changed private-equity owner twice, and reviewers consistently report that community administration and social management still feel like separate systems sharing a login rather than one product.
  • Khoros Community Classic is being sunset in favour of the new Aurora AI community platform, so existing customers face a forced migration of an already hard-to-move asset, on the acquirer timetable rather than their own.

Pricing, plan by plan

Determ

€99/month
  • Focus$99/month
    • 1 topic
    • 1,000 mentions per month
    • Unlimited keywords
  • Expand$299/month
    • 5 topics
    • 5,000 mentions per month
    • Unlimited keywords
  • Command$499/month
    • 10 topics
    • 10,000 mentions per month
    • Unlimited keywords
  • Custom$undefined/year
    • Custom topic and mention volumes
    • Enterprise onboarding
    • Quoted individually

Khoros

On request
  • Khoros$undefined/year
    • Branded communities
    • Social publishing and governance
    • Social customer care queue

Which should you pick?

Choose Determ if

  • You need real-time mention alerts.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want unlimited keywords.
Determ review

Choose Khoros if

  • You need branded communities.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, API.
  • You also want community gamification.
Khoros review

Questions people ask

Is Determ or Khoros better?
Neither clearly leads. Determ starts at €99/month and Khoros at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Determ or Khoros?
Determ starts at €99/month and Khoros at On request.
Does Determ or Khoros run on more platforms?
Determ runs on Web, iOS, Android. Khoros runs on Web, iOS, Android, API.
What is Determ best used for?
Determ is most often used for a european trade association giving unlimited member-organisation staff access to the same media alerts without paying per seat, a communications team needing alerts within minutes of a negative story breaking in a regional language outlet, a pr agency running monitoring for several clients where seat-based pricing would make sharing dashboards uneconomic, a public sector body tracking coverage of a policy announcement across news, forums and social without a six-figure contract. Of those, a european trade association giving unlimited member-organisation staff access to the same media alerts without paying per seat and a communications team needing alerts within minutes of a negative story breaking in a regional language outlet are not what Khoros is typically brought in for.
What can Determ do that Khoros cannot?
Determ covers Real-time mention alerts, Unlimited keywords, Sentiment analysis, Influencer identification. Khoros covers Branded communities, Community gamification, Social publishing, Social customer care.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Determ: Is Determ the same as Mediatoolkit?

Yes. Mediatoolkit rebranded to Determ; older reviews and directory listings still use the previous name.

Khoros: Who owns Khoros now?

IgniteTech, an ESW Capital company, acquired Khoros on 27 May 2025. Vista Equity Partners, which created Khoros by merging Lithium and Spredfast, is no longer the owner.

Determ: How are users charged?

They are not. Every published plan includes unlimited users and unlimited keywords; you pay for topics and monthly mention volume.

Khoros: Why does the website say khoros.ai?

The company moved its corporate domain from khoros.com to khoros.ai as part of an AI-first relaunch under IgniteTech, centred on its Aurora and Iris AI capabilities.

Determ: Does it monitor print or broadcast?

No. Online and social only.

Khoros: Is pricing published?

No. Khoros quotes privately on annual enterprise contracts, and implementation services are a significant separate cost.

Determ: What happens if I exceed my mention limit?

You stop receiving new mentions on that topic for the period unless you upgrade, so set queries tightly before a campaign launch.

Khoros: Should the ownership change affect my decision?

It should affect your contract. Ask for written roadmap commitments, named support staffing and exit or data-export terms before signing a multi-year community deal.

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