Facebook Messenger now has Communities you can use without a Facebook Group
Meta has quietly launched Communities on Facebook Messenger, following the rollout of Communities in WhatsApp in 2022. With the new feature, you can connect with others directly on Messenger - the new Communities is not tied to a Facebook Group.
We make that distinction clear so as to not confuse this new feature with Community Chats, which launched in Messenger in 2022 as a way for people to connect with other members of Facebook Groups.
So this is not that. Communities let you create dedicated spaces for real-time communication in Messenger independently of any Facebook Groups, and all members of a Community can see all chat content.
Each Community features a dedicated Home space where admins can share updates and announcements, and up to 5,000 people can join a Community through shareable invites. Each Community can have multiple group chats on various topics.
While this feature works in a similar fashion to the one of the same name found in WhatsApp, the key difference is that the Messenger Communities are connected to Facebook's social graph - you can invite people to a Community just based on their Facebook profile, you don't need to have their phone number like in WhatsApp.
Communities on Messenger is now rolling out to all users globally.