Best K-Pop Forums & Online Communities
With Korean music becoming more and more well-known globally, many new listeners are getting into K-pop for the first time. However, depending on where you live, it can be hard to find other people who share the same interest. This is where online communities and forums can help!
When I first got into Korean music back in 2014, I remember that it was hard to find anybody who shared this interest. While some people were familiar with the bigger groups of the time (Girl’s Generation, Bigbang and Exo particularly) I didn’t know anyone else who actively listened to K-pop.
Although times are changing, and K-pop is becoming more popular every day, it can still be hard to find people to talk to regarding the topic. This might be especially true if you come from a smaller town like me.
Luckily, these days there are tens (if not hundreds) of large online communities for anyone that loves K-pop. Many famous idols even have their own followings who discuss the latest news and events. No matter where in the world you are, these communities can be accessed within seconds.
In this article, I want to look at some of the best communities for K-pop lovers as well as the best forums for K-pop discussions. These communities are all active and have a variety of news, activities, chats, and more. They are a great way to meet people with similar interests and in some cases, even to make friends.
Of course, there are tons of communities out there and I can’t possibly fit them all into this post. With that being said, I will include some of the biggest and most active here. If you feel like a community is missing, please leave a comment and let me know! I’ll add it if possible.
This post focuses solely on K-pop websites for discussion. If you are interested in websites that sell Kpop merchandise, I have a dedicated post covering the topic! If you are interested in Kpop fashion, you can learn more in this article covering the best Korean fashion websites.
Best K-Pop Communities & Forums
Before diving into this list I did want to mention that I made the conscious choice of not including some platforms. Lysn is a big platform that I have heard a lot about but after using it for a few hours (and also reading the comments on the Appstore) it was full of hateful people. As such, I chose not to include it on this list and I don’t recommend it to anyone. At least until they actually hire some moderators.
Another popular platform that I didn’t include is Universe. This one was okay in terms of the actual platform, but it had so many issues in regards to load times and crashing. As such, it’s also not a platform that I would recommend simply due to the frustrations of using the app.
1. Reddit
Nearly everyone is already familiar with Reddit. However, if you aren’t then I will give a very brief explanation. Reddit is a forum that is made up of thousands of sub forums (sub-Reddits, also called ‘subs’). Each of these subs is dedicated to a different topic.
Every group and almost every idol will have a preexisting sub. However, if you find that a sub for someone is missing then you can create one very easily. People can choose to subscribe to subs in order to receive the latest updates and to see new posts in their home feed.
The biggest K-pop sub is aptly named r/kpop. This community has been around since 2009 and currently has over 700,000 members. As the name suggests, this community is dedicated to K-pop overall and you will find news and content from many different groups here.
If you are looking for a more narrow sub then you can easily search. There are subs for nearly everything and they will have a varying number of members. R/bangtan has almost 200,000 members discussing everything related to BTS.
If you particularly like a few idols it is more than likely that they also have their own subs! Reddit is a massive place and no matter what your interest, there will be others who share it on the platform. Here are a few Kpop subs to get you started:
2. TheQoos
I recently discussed TheQoos in my post about the best apps for K-pop lovers. The app also makes it into this list because it’s an app that is very community-focused. Even further though, it offers some very unique and cool opportunities to users.
I’ve covered TheQoos and how to use the platform in more detail already. In short, it works similar to Reddit in that you can choose specific group communities to join. Once you join a community, you can see all of the latest news, fan posts, chats, and more. You can also see all of the albums and songs they have ever released.
This app offers further interaction compared to platforms like Reddit. On Reddit, all discussion takes place through comments on posts and posts themselves. However, while TheQoos does offer this functionality, it also offers chat rooms that have live chats dedicated to each group.
What makes this app truly stand out, however, is the fan Q&A section. In this section, fans can ask their favourite artists or groups questions. If they are lucky, the celebrities themselves might answer! Recently A.C.E answered fan questions on the app and soon Chungha will be doing a Q&A!
3. Kpopsource
I only recently stumbled upon this community website and it was entirely by accident. I’m happy to have found it though, as it’s a friendly community that is very active. The website is also relatively new, being only a few years old.
While Kpopsource is dedicated to K-pop, they do also have off-topic forums and you may find other topics under discussion. With that being said, the vast majority of the discussion is related to K-pop groups, idols, and music.
What makes Kpopsource so unique is that it is a website dedicated entirely to K-pop and built for this purpose. Other forums are often limited as they are built on a platform (such as Reddit). However, Kpopsource is built from the ground up to be a K-pop community.
This means that the site has completely customizable profiles, signatures, and more. Users can get a wide variety of awards, banners, and trophies. Perhaps more interestingly, users can also collect idol cards from performing quests. These cards can then be traded or collected.
If you are looking for a more friendly community with stricter mods who care then Kpopsource is a good website to visit. The customization that users have is also quite incredible and users can have a lot of creativity when building their profiles and signatures.
4. K-Pop Amino
Another community that has been around for a few years and is very popular, K-pop Amino makes this list due to its constant activity and many users. K-pop Amino is based on the Amino platform and can be downloaded as an app or accessed through your browser.
K-Pop Amino can be a bit confusing at first as there is just so much to see and the layout can make it seem overwhelming. However, once you take the time to figure out the site it quickly becomes a good place to share news, meet others, and discuss idols.
Similar to Reddit, Amino offers other communities for groups and idols. The actual K-Pop Amino covers everything related to K-pop and has around 800,000 members hundreds of members online at a time. Communities like BTS have hundreds of thousands of members with a lot of new content daily.
Many types of content are shared here, but it’s mostly new videos, news, and users’ thoughts. As with most social platforms, this content can be liked and commented on, allowing for interaction between users. Similar to TheQoos, K-Pop Amino also offers a variety of chatrooms for users to discuss.
5. Allkpop Forums
Allkpop is well-known for being a news website that shares the latest and breaking news stories related to K-pop and idols. While the news site does allow for comments and upvotes, the real interaction happens on the Allkpop forums.
While the forums are a great place to discuss, Allkpop also offers access to a Discord community. This community is still quite small (under 1000 members) but with how common Discord has become it’s nice to have the option as many people will already have the app downloaded.
The forums themselves are much more active and appear to have thousands of users with hundreds online at a time. Currently, there are over 2000 new posts per day! This is by far one of the most active K-pop communities on the internet.
The Allkpop community isn’t as friendly as the community on sites like Kpopsource. However, it is still well moderated and I haven’t had any harmful experiences on the site – it’s just not as heavily moderated as some other sites.
Also similar to Kpopsource, users on the Allkpop forums can create custom profiles with images, gifs, badges, and custom signatures. While there is no live chatting on the site itself, the Discord server offers a better chat experience anyway.
6. WeVerse
If you’ve done any research into the best Kpop communities online then you are likely already aware of WeVerse. This website boasts an incredible amount of users – well over 1 million active daily users. On top of this, the company that created WeVerse, Hybe, is also the company behind BTS. They also own a range of other labels that manage artists such as Zico and groups such as NU’EST and Seventeen.
All of this is to say that this website and app has a lot of support. It’s probably the most active Kpop community out there today and this is reflected in the fact that for big groups such as Blackpink there are new posts every few seconds.
While using WeVerse I found that the community aspect wasn’t as strong as some other apps, websites, and forums mentioned in this post. Many comments were asking for likes or not really discussion-orientated. Rather, this platform excels as a news source where users can discuss the latest announcements from their favourite idols and groups.
WeVerse does best as an app that’s easy to open and spend a bit of time every day to catch up with what your favourite groups and idols are doing. However, for deeper discussion, I recommend using another platform such as the forums on Allkpop or Kpop Source.
7. KProfiles Forum
KProfiles Forum appears quite similar to Kpopsource at first glance as the UI is quite similar. However, there is a bit more to KProfiles that differentiates it from other Kpop forums on this list! Most interestingly, KProfiles is a larger site that actually hosts a range of other content also.
The homepage of KProfiles has a range of articles from the latest news to Kpop facts. They also run a range of polls, quizzes, and other activities. These activities and articles can then all be discussed in the KProfiles forum! This range of activities means that the forum is quite active, and I’ve never seen less than 200 members online at a time.
Another factor that drives community engagement is the credit system. Users can earn credits by following KProfiles on social media and also by simply posting threads and comments on the forums. These credits can then be used to purchase digital stickers in the store. These give users a unique way to decorate their posts and represent their favourite idol or group.
There are a ton of threads for all popular groups and idols. Many smaller groups also have threads, however, they aren’t as active as the bigger groups. Further, the platform also has threads dedicated to non-Kpop Korean music and even off-topic discussion.
8. Soompi Forums
Soompi is yet another website that is most famous for its news coverage of the Kpop industry. However, they also have a Kpop forum section that a lot fewer people are familiar with. Soompi’s forum acts very similarly to the Allkpop forum except that it generally seems to have less active users.
The forum itself is very clean and a lot of users will appreciate using it for this fact alone. It’s very easy to navigate, isn’t overwhelming, and generally speaking, has good moderation. The forum has also been around for a very long time, with many of the threads being created 10 or more years ago!
While I do recommend Soompi often for their coverage of the Kpop world, it’s harder to recommend their forums. While some people may still enjoy using them, they are nowhere near as active as many of the other communities and forums on this list. However, if you’re looking for a calmer forum experience this might be the one for you!
9. OneHallyu
If you’re interested in not just Korean music, but also Japanese and Chinese music, then OneHallyu is a great place to start a discussion. Even if you’re only into Kpop, there is still a lot to discuss here! The forum is one of the more active ones and many forums have multiple comments from within the past day.
OneHallyu is sorted a bit differently from most of the other forum sites as it includes not only threads dedicated to specific groups and idols but also has threads dedicated to more general music themes. For example, you can find threads discussing all of the latest releases, news and gossip, chart rankings and more.
Another factor that makes OneHallyu interesting is that many smaller groups have a large presence here. While many forums are dominated by the top groups (currently BTS, Blackpink and Twice), OneHallyu has a large presence of smaller group communities.
While by no means small groups, groups like A Pink, Gfriend, N.Flying and more all have active fans on this Kpop forum. These groups will usually have communities on other sites as they are still big, but their communities are generally a lot less active than the biggest groups. On OneHallyu, this doesn’t seem to be the case as these groups have even more discussion than the most popular groups.
10. Hallyu Central
When putting together this list I quickly realised just how many Kpop forums there are out there! There really is a lot. The next on this list is Hallyu Central, a forum that is quite similar to KProfiles. Not only does it look similar, but it also uses a similar coin (in this case, koins) system to award users for their activities on the platform.
While Hallyu Central does have threads for Japanese and Chinese music, there is little activity in them. Rather, nearly all users on the forum are active in the Korean music threads. The general Kpop thread is by far the most popular, with the dedicated artist threads being the next most popular.
Discussions are divided into 5 sections for Korea – Kpop, charts & sales, dramas, artist threads, and gossip. Among these, the Kpop and artist threads are by far the most active with far more comments than the other three sections. However, it’s nice to know that there are discussion sections dedicated to other interests if you also like Korean dramas!
Best K-Pop Communities FAQ
What Is the Largest Kpop Community?
The largest Kpop community can be found on Reddit. The site houses a range of different communities and many of them have tens of thousands or more members.
What Is the Largest Kpop Forum?
The largest and most active Kpop forums currently are those found on Allkpop and Kpop Amino.
What Are the Best Kpop Community Apps?
If you are looking for a Kpop community on mobile, check out Reddit, Kpop Amino, TheQoos and WeVerse.