8 Best LearnDash Alternatives in 2024

n learning business, there are various models to create and launch a course. One such model involves using a WordPress website as its core. If used solely for online learning, it can bring substantial benefits. 

This is especially true if you use LearnDash to transform your WordPress site into LMS. However, no product is ideal, while learning needs can push you towards looking for different software. 

Some are ideal for advanced courses, while others offer comprehensive membership options or robust marketing support. Here is a glimpse of what we’ll cover in this article:

Read on to learn more about LearnDash alternatives and check our list of learning platforms and WordPress plugins that will suit your needs.

Why Look for LearnDash Alternatives?

First, let’s cover why LearnDash is such a popular plugin among learning providers, eduprenuers, and course creators. 

LearnDash WordPress plugin is a solution that allows its users to transform a WordPress website into a learning management system. 

How? Its plugin offers a set of LMS tools: a powerful and intuitive course builder, powerful assessment and quiz features, decent drip content options, and even gamification elements.

That way, it is more than enough to turn your expert or product website into an academy or publish gated content. 

Yet, it has its disadvantages. What are they?

Hidden costs

The major drawback of this software is concerned with the paid plugins you will need for the proper course creation. For instance, some crucial features related to analytics, grading, and collaboration require advanced plugins starting at $49. 

Besides, certain third-party plugins are paid as well, including the ones that allow marketing and sales support. All in all, having a decent pack of tools may require you to pay more as the initial plan suggests.

Limited membership and business options

Some academies and course creators using WordPress to sell their learning products rely significantly on a membership model. For them, LearnDash can be quite limited and even expensive, pushing toward the LearnDash alternative.

Why? LearnDash LMS does not offer a proper membership option. For decent operation and features, they will need a separate one, either LearnDash or a third party, which is an additional cost.

Read more: How to Create an Online Academy?

Lack of true LMS features 

Lastly, even though the LearnDash WordPress plugin may be a great solution for academies and course creators, it is not a replacement for a proper LMS. 

Sure, you can have advanced plugins (like ProPanel, GroupsPlus, or Notes), but they still won’t be enough for the provision of deep learning and setting up a centralized system. 

In the end, it all comes to advanced management, engagement, and reporting features that complement one another and streamline learning processes.

Best LearnDash Alternatives for Course Creation and Learning Business

What is one of the ways to replace LearnDash? Modern LMSs. They are pretty intuitive and flexible to handle the learning process, integrate solutions, and connect to any website. 

From inviting to the courses via links to developing landing pages inside, the options before course creators are pretty diverse. For WordPress site owners, especially if they seek advanced course creation options, it can even offer greater opportunities 

Let’s check the best LearnDash alternatives that focus on the learning process and offer powerful features.

#1. EducateMe: Best LearnDash Alternative for Advanced Course Creation 

EducateMe is the best LearnDash alternative, excelling at course creation and management and offering a pretty flexible system with decent reporting.

The platform’s main focus is on cohort and collaborative learning, And this is one of the main reasons why it is so good. For course creation, it offers an intuitive course builder, with a drag-and-drop principle and a variety of formats to use. 

Besides, there are excellent assignment and quiz options backed by peer reviews and comment sections. For management and scaling, you have a tag system, automation, cohort, and access administration, as well as a Kanban approach to monitor student’s progress. 

Unfortunately, EducateMe offers no marketing or sales tools but offers custom links and integrations that can be used to develop bundles or add functionality. 

How to connect EducateMe to your website? Invite students to the course by a link or create a customized registration page.

Crucial features of this LearnDash alternative:

• Advanced engagement toolkit. EducateMe offers solid engagement features, including instructor reviews, comment sections, built-in messenger, slack-like channels, live meetings hosting, certificates, and notifications.
• Diverse integrations. EducateMe brings powerful integrations, for instance, Google Apps (for collaboration), Notion (for management and content delivery), Loom (for video responses), and many more. 
• Solid analytics and reporting. With a progress tracker, learners' stats, and automated reporting, you can define issues, track attendance, analyze student performance, and manage feedback. 
• Customization and branding. The platform is pretty customizable, allowing you to change logos, elements, fonts, and colors and personalize the sign-in process. That way, you can better connect the platform to your website or overall identity.

Pricing: free trial; Starter Plan costs $2.5/mo per student (with a minimum commitment of $100 for 40 students); Enterprise Plan is available upon contact with sales.

💡Best for: course creators with fast-changing learning needs; online academies and schools; and professional training businesses. 

#2. MightyNetworks: Best Solution for Community and Memberships

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As learning needs are diverse, so are the learning platforms. And if you're looking for a LearnDash alternative to build a community, MightyNetworks may be a pretty decent option. 

MightyNetworks is a community learning platform with an appealing and intuitive design and great interactive features. Compared to LearnDash, it offers powerful tools for membership creation.

This LMS puts customizable spaces into the center of community learning. They allow users to create dynamic feeds, integrate events, add content, polls, and engaging elements in the form of posts, and communicate with learners via chats or announcements. It significantly adds to engagement and immersive experience. 

Yet, such a shift toward community and spaces results in a lack of management and assignment features as well as solid organization, making it great for community but not centralized learning.

Interesting features of this LearnDash Alternative:

• In-built live streaming. Importantly, you don't need third-party solutions to start a live session, as MightyNetworks provides an in-built streaming feature.
• Space customization. You can set colors, logos, fonts, and emojis for your community space, so it matches your identity.
• Mobile app. Under the most advanced plan, you can create a branded app for your courses and community.

Pricing: free trial; Community Plan is $49/mo (solely community); Courses Plan costs $119/mo; Business Plan costs $219/mo; Mighty Pro (with mobile app and advanced options) requires contacting with sales.

💡Best for: businesses and learning providers using community for their membership model

Further reading: Top Online Community Platforms

#3. LearnWorlds: Best All-Around Platform

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As LearnDash marketing and plugins can be costly and not always efficient, you are likely to consider some comprehensive software that both creates and sells courses. 

LearnWorlds is one of them, being a powerful LMS with decent marketing and selling features. Comparing LearnWorlds vs LearnDash, the first offers far better content diversity, allowing adding interactive videos and audio formats. That makes LearnWorlds an excellent option for self-paced learning programs.

In terms of marketing and sales, you can create landing pages via templates, set funnels, produce bundles, and apply affiliate marketing. Moreover, you can use membership and subscription payment models with it.  

Yet, as it is an all-around platform, it is not great at everything, lacking powerful engagement, management, and reporting tools. Besides, email marketing is basic enough, while the interface is heavy.

Interesting features of this LearnDash alternative:

• Mobile app builder. LearnWorlds offers a flexible tool to create an app for courses.
• Page and pop-up builder. Simultaneously, you can develop landing pages and set popups there, as a part of the marketing tools suite.
• SCORM format. Lastly, LearnWorlds supports the SCORM format which can be crucial for some learning providers, academies, and businesses.

Pricing: free plan; Starter Plan pricing is $29/mo; Learning Center Plan pricing is #299/mo; High Volume Plan can be settled upon a separate call with sales.

💡Best for: academies and course creators that need marketing and sales support, or that lean toward a self-paced learning model.

#4. Teachable: Best for Course Creators with a Need for Payment Support

Teachable is a popular learning platform for beginners and course creators, offering versatile LMS backed by course-selling features. Similar to the previous platform, Teachable offers solid marketing tools, yet, the content variety is not as great. 

Compared to LearnWorlds, Teachable is pretty straightforward, while its course builder is very intuitive and responsive. Besides, it also refers to an app and a good number of integrations (API available under Pro Plan).

Importantly, Teachable grants great payment support to help course creators proceed with taxes and payouts. However, Teachable’s engagement tools are not advanced, reporting and branding features are limited, and fees can be high.

Important features of this LearnDash alternative:

• Teachable pay feature: It is a separate tool that helps you automate taxes, payouts, and checkouts, saving time.
• Marketing and sales tools: You can create bundles, referrals, and lead magnets to help sell courses and connect them to landing pages.

Pricing: a free plan; Basic Plan costs $59/mo (5 products; community; 5% transaction fee); Pro Plan costs $159/mo (no transaction fees, 50 published products; 5 admins seats); Pro+ Plan is $249/mo (200 published products of each type); Business Plan is $499/mo (unlimited courses; advanced options) 

💡Best for: for course creators and experts starting selling content-rich programs, and those who look for help with payment proceedings.

Further reading: Best Teachable Alternatives

Best LearnDash WordPress Plugin Alternatives

Now, you know some of the best learning platforms that can connect your website to the learning space and offer a centralized approach. However, what if you want to stick with the strategy of turning a website into an LMS? 

In this regard, we’ve created a list of decent LearnDash alternatives that are plugins.

#5. Sensei LMS Plugin: Smooth and Easy-to-Use Plugin Alternative

Let’s start with one of the most straightforward LearnDash WordPress alternatives - Sensei LMS. 

Sensei LMS is an intuitive plugin for WordPress offering great course creation features and a flexible LMS system. 

Compared to LearnDash, it offers more room for customization of the learning process and greater control over grading. Importantly, Sensei has many great and easy-to-use features similar to LearnDash, while its quiz options are less diverse.

Another advantage of the Sensei LMS is its reporting capabilities and ability to create branded certificates that can be shared via social media. Moreover, it offers a free trial with core features which is a great advantage. Nonetheless, its management and analytics are not so advanced compared to real LMS.

Important features of this LearDash WordPress alternative:

• WooCommerce integration. If LearnDash requires additional third-party options, Sensei LMS has an in-built WooComerce plugin that goes with the first paid plan. Also, this plugin seems to have better integrations and great API capabilities.
• Manual grading options. What adds to the flexibility is the freedom to pick the method to grade quizzes or assignments. 

Pricing: free plan (core features); Sensei Pro costs $15/mo, billed $179 yearly (advanced quizzes; features to sell courses); Sensei Bundle costs $34/mo, billed $399 yearly (security and marketing tools, built-in video management)

💡Best for: academies and eduprenuers that seek customizable and flexible plugins for their WordPress learning provision.

#6. MemberPress: Best Plugin for Memberships

Next, to compensate for the lack of membership options within LearnDash LMS, you can use a special plugin that puts the membership model in the center. 

MemberPress is the WordPress plugin that excels at building membership sites, offering important features for building multi-level membership models. Thanks to it, there are great options for paywall and content dripping, setting checkout, cross-selling, and the creation of bundles or tier courses.

Comparing LearnDash vs MemberPress, LearnDash LMS is more advanced, offering better course creation and assignment features. As MemberPress's primary product was a membership site tool, its program creation is basic enough. Besides, it lacks management, assignment, and reporting features, and can be pretty expensive.

Interesting features of this LearnDash alternative:

• Pool of integrations. MemberPress offers a great variety of featured integrations that can support your monetization offers, including Stripe, WooCommerce, Active Campaign, etc.
• CoachKit. A special integration for coaching businesses that allows developing and managing coaching programs (available under Elite Plan).

Pricing: Basic Plan costs $359/year (1 site; unlimited members and courses); Plus Plan costs $599/year (up to 2 sites, unlimited quizzes, forums, and communities); Pro Plan $799/year (up to 3 sites; advanced integrations); Elite Plan costs $499/year (up to 5 sites; CoachKit integration);  there is a 50% discount on all plans for the first year.

💡Best for academies, coaching businesses, and experts seeking software for their membership website 

#7. Lifter LMS: Decent Plugin with Diverse Features

LifterLMS emerges as a decent alternative to LearnDash, providing a range of features suited for diverse e-learning needs. It offers excellent opportunities for content development due to the straightforward course editor and built-in templates. 

That way, it is easier and faster for users to produce programs. Another advantage of the LifterLMS lies in the dashboard that unifies multiple spaces and features, adding to management. 

Also, there are decent assignment and quiz options, including common question types. However, compared to LearnDash, they are not as advanced, while LearnDash editor is more intuitive.

Key features of this LearnDash alternative:

• Engagement suite. LifterLMS provides decent engagement tools, including badges, a Facebook-like community, text messaging, discussion spaces, and certificates.
• Diverse addons: LifterLMS provides a good number of native add-ons for bundles, e-commerce, email marketing, assignments, and video management.

Pricing: Core Plugin is free; Earth Bundle costs $299/year(1 site; E-commerce add-ons); Universe Bundle is $499(5 users; forms addons; marketing add-ons); Infinity Bundle costs $1499(unlimited users; advanced add-ons); Lifetime Infinity Bundle is $10000. There is a 50% discount on all plans for the first year.

💡Best for: small businesses academies, experts, and course creators using the membership site model or WordPress for course provision  

#8. TutorLMS: Cost-Effective LearnDash Alternative

If you're looking for less expensive and simpler software, TutorLMS by Themeum presents an attractive alternative to LearnDash. 

TutorLMS is a decent LMS plugin with essential features, providing good tools for course creation and editing, quizzes, reporting, and even management.  That way, it is a cost-effective solution for online course creation and management. 

Compared to LearnDash, TutorLMS is not as developed, especially in terms of SCORM format, gamification, and marketing plugins. Yet, this software is easy to use and offers a nice course preview. The ultimate advantage of this WordPress plugin is an advanced quiz system with diverse question options, for instance, image-based. 

Exciting features of this LearnDash alternative:

• Certificate builder. TutorLMS provides a great tool that has different widgets, a template library, and Unsplash integration to provide appealing certificates. 
• Student and teacher dashboards. There are separate dashboards for teachers and students that can be personalized. Yet, they are great for the organization of the learning experience and activities.

Pricing: Basic plugin is free; Individual plan is $199/year (1 website; Business plan is $399/year(10 websites); Agency is $799/year (unlimited websites). Each plan has a Lifetime version, making it even more cost-effective.

💡Best for: experts and course creators who seek simple and cost-effective solutions for their e-learning website

Conclusion: Which LearnDash Alternative to Choose?

As you already know, selecting the right alternative to LearnDash hinges on specific needs and priorities. If you're looking for advanced learning tools, then picking an actual LMS can be a good option. 

EducateMe stands out for advanced course creation, offering robust collaboration features as well as great tools management and analytics. Try it now or book a demo to know more.

MightyNetworks excels in community-building and membership support, while LearnWorlds and Teachable offer content diversity and marketing and payment support.

At the same time, if you still want to use a website as the core of the learning experience, then there are decent WordPress alternatives. Sensei LMS and Lifter LMS provide diversity and flexibility, MemberPress shines as a membership-focused plugin, while TutorLMS provides a cost-effective solution with advanced quiz capabilities.

Carefully evaluate your options and choose the alternative that best suits your students' learning needs.