Couchsurfing Related Concepts

Other organizations also exist, providing similar services to Couchsurfing hosting community. Some were founded before the establishment of Couchsurfing and some after it. Most of them are non-profit organizations and are still functioning, yet no one ever came close to reaching Couchsurfing’s membership.

Be Welcome
Be Welcome (or BW) is a non-profit organization that runs in more than 150 countries around the world. It currently counts more than 80,000 members that offer or receive hospitality. Founded in 2006, it served as an alternative for the dissatisfied volunteers of another organization of the sort, called Hospitality Club.

Hospitality Club
The Hospitality Club was founded by Veit Kuhne in 2000 in Germany, with the help of his friends and family as a general-purpose Internet-based hospitality exchange organization. It consists of 707,000 members in 231 countries. Later on it formed an alliance with Airbnb. As of July 2012 it encourages its membership to use that for-profit organization instead.

Pasporta Service
Pasporta Service was created to help people find, offer and get help with their hospitality needs in other countries. The main difference is that it focuses on Esperantists in almost every country around the world. As of 2010 there are 1450 hosts operating in 91 countries.

Servas International
Servas International was founded in 1949, originally as a peace movement. It is present in 128 countries and promotes peace through individual person-to-person contact. Travelers and hosts are interviewed upon joining the organization. There are also committees in every country it operates. It consists of 13,950 members worldwide.