Did you know that the typical online course completion rate is as low as 12.6%?

As a course creator, achieving high student engagement is crucial.

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.

We present to you best online course platforms where you can host your own training courses.

In this blog post, we’ve handpicked platforms that excel in the following areas:

• Amplifying student engagement and interaction
• Implementing effective student accountability mechanisms
• Offering top-notch community and networking features
• Providing robust marketing automation abilities

What more could you ask for?

Our reviews draw from 4-5 years of hands-on experience in instructional design, experimenting with various Learning Management System (LMS) solutions. 🙌

So, let’s dive in!

Platform	Community feature	Pricing starts at
Kajabi – Best all-in-one ⚙️	Yes with gamification	$69/mo
Podia – Best value for money	Yes, but basic	$39/mo
Thinkific – A good Teachable alternative	Yes, but basic	$49/mo
Teachable – Specialist in courses	Yes	$59/mo
LearnWorlds – For academic courses	Yes, but feels old-school	$29/mo
Passion.io – Mobile-centric platform 📱	Yes	$149/mo
Systeme.io – ClickFunnels + LMS	No	$27/mo
LearnDash – WordPress-based flexible solution	No. But BuddyBoss integration	$199/year
Thrive Learn	No	$495 for a lifetime
Teachery	No	$49/mo
Ruzuku	No	$99/mo
Kartra	No	$119/mo
TutorLMS	No	$199/year
LifterLMS	No	$199/year

Best online course platforms (cloud-based)

Kajabi – Best for advanced course creators ⚙

Kajabi is a powerful all-in-one course creation platform with excellent marketing features.

It’s not a course creation platform, but a digital selling platform with marketing automation capabilities. It’s a hybrid between ClickFunnels and Teachable.

Key features:

• Courses: Advanced features, gamified community feature, and in-depth student engagement analytics
• Email marketing: Robust email features with automation
• Website builder: Flexible, and even replaces WordPress/Squarespace
• Marketing automation: Trigger-based workflows (no need of Zapier)
• Mobile app: Both for iOS and Android with push notifications and in-app purchases

When it comes to pricing, Kajabi is expensive. The pricing starts at $69/mo. You can consider going with annual billing to get 20% OFF.

The Basic Plan is restrictive, allowing only 3 products and 3 funnels.

Even the Growth Plan at $199/mo, has 15 product restrictions which is really a big downside if you are the one creating multiple “Atomic courses”!

If you think Kajabi is not affordable for you, consider looking at its alternatives.

Pros 👍

• Offers deep feature set including student-level analytics and retention graphs.
• Rich community feature with gamification.
• Powerful website builder with funnel feature.
• Robust email marketing feature that integrates with automation engine.
• Includes native webinars (Kajabi Events).
• Powerful in-built automations (trigger and actions) and comprehensive integrations to save on additional tools like Zapier.
• Provides iOS and Android apps with push notifications and in-app purchases.

Cons 👎

• Learning curve for beginners due to extensive features.
• High pricing starting at $149/month.
• Limitations on the number of products you can create

If you’re interested in learning more about Kajabi, you can check out this review.

🏆 Bottomline: Kajabi offers a comprehensive suite of features to manage your entire business in one place. However, it’s worth noting that the number of products you can create may be limited depending on your chosen plan, which could be restrictive for some users.

Podia – Best value for money

Podia is an all-in-one platform that allows you to sell your courses, community, digital products, host webinars (through Zoom and YT Live integrations) and more.

Key features:

• Courses: Unlimited hosting, various formats, drip scheduling, completion certificates
• Digital product selling: Supports digital product sales with embedded checkouts
• Community: Basic features, membership types, no mobile app
• Marketing: Coupons, bundling, upsells; lacks advanced features
• Email: Built-in tool with broadcasts, sequences, tags, segments, automation
• Website builder: Basic storefront and landing page builder with limited options

👎 While Podia is an all-in-one platform, it lacks depth in its features.

For instance, it doesn’t provide per-student course analytics, and its community feature is quite basic, lacking support for mobile apps.

Additionally, its website builder is very basic.

Nevertheless, Podia is a suitable platform for those who want to avoid technical complexities and unnecessary features, focusing solely on sales and value delivery.

Podia offers three different plans: Free, Mover, and Shaker. Most people end up going with the Mover plan. Or Shaker plan if they want to save the transaction fee and need additional features like affiliates.

💌 To use Podia for email marketing, you’ll need their email add-on. This costs $63/month for up to 10,000 subscribers, increasing to $413/month for up to 100,000 subscribers. This is on top of your regular plan cost.

Pros 👍

• Simple to use (without a lot of bells and whistles), making it beginner-friendly.
• Really good UI/UX. You’ll love using it.
• Supports selling digital products.
• Comes with email broadcasts, campaigns (sequences), and automations.
• Good value for money (compared to say Teachable).

Cons 👎

• Basic community feature
• It lacks a mobile app
• Doesn’t have advanced course features like course compliance and student-level analytics and heatmaps unlike Teachable or even Kajabi.
• The page builder customization options are very limited. You still need to use WordPress
• Lacks advanced automations features (unlike Kajabi).

You can read the complete review of Podia here.

🏆 Bottomline: It is a jack-of-all-trades but master of none and has really limited community and website-building capabilities. Moreover, it doesn’t come with any mobile apps

Thinkific – A good Teachable alternative

Thinkific is a feature-rich and affordable platform for course creators. It comes with the ability to create courses and communities.

Compared to Teachable, it has some powerful features like:

• Communities
• Groups
• Live lessons (integrates with Zoom)
• Advanced course-building features (like randomized quiz banks, prerequisite lessons, members-only website pages, Brillium exams integration, etc.)

Also, it supports more content types in the course content.

You can add:

• Presentations
• Multimedia files
• Live lessons
• Assignments
• Exams
• Surveys, and more!

It also supports Adobe Captivate & Articulate Storyline files.

Most people either go with the Basic plan or the Start plan. All of the plans come with all of the features, except for the number of communities or spaces that you can create inside each of them.

Compared to other platforms out there, there’s no transaction fee and no limits on the number of courses that you can create.

Pros 👍

• It doesn’t charge any transaction fees even on its free plan, unlike Teachable’s Basic plan.
• It provides advanced course-building features like live lessons, randomized quizzes, exams, private & hidden courses, etc.
• It is a completely white-labelled solution and is suitable for agencies providing instructional design services.
• Ability to create communities.

Cons 👎

• The marketing features are pretty basic. There are no funnels or automation features. You may need to hook it up with Zapier.
• It doesn’t handle EU VAT.

Check out our Thinkific review to learn more about it.

🏆 Bottomline: Thinkific is a really good alternative to Teachable. It has almost all the features that Teachable has, but without its downsides such as product creation limitations and transaction fees. It’s a specialist in course creation!

Teachable – Specialist in courses

Teachable is a course platform that allows you to create and sell:

• Online courses: Specialist in course creation with advanced compliance features, including enforced video watching, lecture order, quiz completion, also has per-student video analytics feature for better accountability.
• Coaching: Offers one-on-one or small-group professional coaching to provide additional value to customers

These features help ensure that students actually complete the course which in turn helps increase your course completion rate.

Unlike tools like Podia or Kajabi, it’s not an all-in-one platform and doesn’t come with communities, email marketing, etc.

Teachable offers a limited free plan but you need to pay 10% of the transaction fee.

Their basic plan starts from $59/month but also charges you a 5% transaction fee.

If you want to eliminate the transaction fee and publish up to 50 products, you must choose their pro plan at $159 per month.

They also have an enterprise plan for businesses looking for premium support.

👎 However, this is not a good value for money, considering that you can get better options at the same price with all-in-one platforms like Podia or even Kajabi.

You can look at some of these Teachable alternatives.

👉 In 2023, Teachable drastically hiked prices, especially for unlimited course users. The fees skyrocketed from $40 to $600 per month, causing outrage. Many users fled to Thinkific and Kajabi, feeling trapped between paying exorbitant fees or losing valuable data and rebuilding elsewhere.

You can read my complete review of Teachable to learn more about it.

Pros 👍

• Allows multiple content formats per lesson
• Offers course compliance and student engagement analytics
• Includes “Lesson notes” for timestamped student notes
• Optimized checkout design with guarantee badges and order bumps
• Automated tax compliance and EU VAT calculation

Cons 👎

• Basic plan ($59/month) allows only 5 products and charges a 5% transaction fee
• No drag-and-drop page builder, only simple modules
• Only has an iOS app for students

🏆 Bottomline: I wouldn’t recommend Teachable for most people, given their recent changes. Their $59/month plan now limits you to only 5 products and still charges a 5% transaction fee. Unless you’re okay with these restrictions, it’s probably not the best choice for most course creators.

LearnWorlds – For academic courses

LearnWorlds is an online course platform best suitable for academic institutions and educational organizations.

It focuses on student engagement and enhances learning with:

• Interactive videos (good for academic usecases)
• Ebooks
• Assessments
• Certificates
• SCORMs
• Surveys, and much more.

👎 It comes with a lot of features including an e-book creator (better use Canva!), but I found the platform to be really cluttered and the UI and UX deserves a lot of improvements.

When it comes to marketing, it supports upsells and cross-sells with promotions, coupons, and payment plans.

It also has a branded mobile app that is completely white-labeled. The app supports in-app purchases and push notifications.

LearnWorlds’ lowest pricing starts at $29/mo.

If you are a professional trainer, you can go with a $99/mo plan and get more features like memberships, subscriptions, blogs, and no transaction fee (for high-volume sales).

Pros 👍

• It is a completely white-labeled solution (good if you’re serving corporate clients).
• Supports upsells, cross-sells, course bundles, etc.
• It supports SCORM compliance, best for universities.
• Has iOS and Android apps with in-app purchases and push notifications.

Cons 👎

• Their UI/UX feels cluttered and deserves some love. They need to focus on this than extra bells and whistles.
• The lowest plan charges a $5 fee per course sale.
• The basic plan lacks powerful features like a customizable course player, question banks, affiliate management, custom certificates, etc.
• To get a completely white-labelled solution, you need to spend $299/mo.

You can read our complete review of LearnWorlds here.

🏆 Bottomline: LearnWorlds is the best solution for academic institutions and educators as it has powerful features to track students’ progress and also to increase their engagement. It even comes with marketing features like upsells, cross-sells, and a pop-up builder. But the main downside is UI/UX is cluttered.

Passion.io – Mobile-centric platform 📱

Passion.io is an online platform that helps people create their own custom-branded mobile apps without having to write any code.

The app you create with Passion.io will be accessible on many devices, including smartphones, tablets, TVs, and laptops.

• Unlimited Courses
• Group Challenges
• Progress Tracking
• Motion-based Exercises
• Branded Notifications

👉 Most of the people I see using this app would be yoga instructors, fitness instructors who want to give transformational results to their students through better accountability.

Their monthly Pro plan costs you $149/month. But in this plan, you don’t have some features like courses, community push notifications, and removal of branding.

If you want these features (which really matter), you can choose their Ultimate plan at $299/month.

You’ll be also provided the option to publish these apps on the App Store and Google Play, where they can be downloaded by anyone.

Pros 👍

• Mobile-centric platform with built-in messaging and push notifications
• Goal tracking feature and activity tracker (suitable for say fitness coaches)
• Custom welcome screens and sales pages without external tools
• Integrates with Calendly, Typeform, Google Analytics, and other popular platforms

Cons 👎

• Limited customization options, though more app building blocks are in development
• Features like custom branding, drip functionality, and community tools only available on the $297/mo plan

We recommend you to checkout Passion.io’s complete review.

🏆 Bottomline: Overall, Passion.io is a fantastic platform for creating custom-branded apps that are instantly accessible on any platform without the need for coding. Although it currently has some limitations, it also has a number of unique features (like activity tracking) that make it worth considering for say fitness coaches.

Systeme.io – ClickFunnels + LMS

Systeme.io is an all-in-one SaaS platform that comes with sales funnels, email marketing, a website builder, LMS, automation, webinars, and an affiliate program. This makes it an affordable alternative to ClickFunnels.

Systeme provides a structure for course design that involves a two-tier system: modules and the subsequent lectures within them. The platform also allows the flexibility of drip-scheduling content.

Although it might lack certain features like communities and course-specific features like Teachable or Thinkific, its basic course features are complemented by additional capabilities like email marketing, sales funnels, webinars, and the ability to establish your own affiliate program.

These combined features pave the way for novel use cases in creating and selling online courses, making Systeme.io a versatile tool despite its limitations in LMS features.

You can read our Systeme.io review to learn more about it.

Thrive Learn

ThriveCart has recently introduced an LMS tool called, Thrive Learn to create the courses right inside the platform.

It is offered for free to existing users of ThriveCart.

There is a premium version of this called Learn+, which costs an additional fee to unlock extra powerful features.

Both Learn and Learn+ allow everything unlimited (like unlimited courses, unlimited modules, unlimited lessons, and unlimited students).

It has something called behavioural rules that help automate the course tasks. (Refer to the screenshot above to know all the rules available).

The premium features you get with Learn+ include:

• Advanced sequences
• Bundles
• Team Access
• Student import
• Featured content
• CNAME functionality

ThriveCart’s (review) unique selling proposition is its lifetime deal costing $495. Pay once, and use for a lifetime.

Teachery

Teachery is a dedicated course platform that is popular for its simplicity. You can get started with it easily in no time.

You can add video, audio, or text as lessons or sub-lessons. Like Thinkific, you can completely customize the course player to match your brand.

Unlike Teachable or other platforms, it doesn’t come with video hosting. You need to again spend money on Vimeo or Wistia. Or preferably Bunny Stream as it comes with pay-as-you-go billing for video hosting.

For marketing, it supports custom domains, affiliates, coupons, upsells, course bundles, etc.

Teachery’s (review) pricing starts at $49/mo. It doesn’t charge any transactional fees.

Ruzuku

Ruzuku is a solid choice for course creation, though it has some limitations. The platform feels somewhat dated and lacks certain cutting-edge features that could make it a top contender.

Its strengths include templates for quick course creation and support for multiple instructors and managers per course—a useful feature for collaborative teaching.

Where Ruzuku shines is in student engagement. It offers calendar-scheduled live courses with automatic email notifications, video broadcasts with group chats, and automatic recording.

The platform also encourages active participation through course-wide Q&A sessions, forums, and discussion prompts tied to specific activities or content.

All plans offer unlimited courses, students, and storage.

Kartra

Kartra is an all-in-one marketing solution for selling digital and physical products. It’s an alternative to ClickFunnels and Kajabi.

While not a dedicated course platform, Kartra’s Videos tool lets you sell individual or series of training videos. It offers unlimited hosting, removing the need for external platforms.

Kartra Videos has strong engagement features. You can add social shares, CTAs, playback controls, and tag leads based on watch time.

It provides rich video analytics to track student engagement. The built-in funnel builder streamlines course marketing.

Starting at $119/month (less with annual billing), Kartra is cost-effective compared to Kajabi or ClickFunnels. It includes campaigns, robust email marketing, and visual automation. Learn more in our Kartra review.

WordPress-based course hosting platforms

LearnDash – WordPress-based flexible solution

LearnDash is a WordPress-based LMS that is highly flexible and allows for a high degree of customization.

As a self-hosted solution, LearnDash does not come with video hosting built-in, so users will need to utilize an external video hosting platform like Vimeo or Wistia.

But it does come with various features like:

• Drag & drop course builder (with drip feed)
• Membership
• Student-level course progress tracking (with Propanel)
• Advanced quizzing
• Assignment management
• Flexible prerequisites (similar to course compliance)

The platform is highly customizable, with full control over course player customization and the ability to integrate other plugins like Elementor, CartFlows, Gamipress, and WooCommerce for better design and marketing flexibility.

Also, it supports Zapier integration.

However, as with any other WordPress-based solution, LearnDash requires a certain level of technical knowledge and skills to set up and manage effectively.

Overall, LearnDash is a great choice for those who want a powerful and flexible online course platform. There are definitely technical hurdles to overcome, but the cost is reasonable (at $199/year) compared to other popular course platforms out there.

Pros 👍

• Reuse topics and lessons across multiple courses
• Drip-feed functionality to prevent students from binge-watching courses
• Video progression support to hold students accountable
• Highly customizable and comes with various add-ons.
• Flexible integrations with other WordPress plugins like Elementor, GamiPress, and whatnot.

Cons 👎

• Requires technical knowledge and skills to set up and manage effectively.
• Similar to any other WordPress plugins, the plugin conflicts and tech problems are a thing!
• Doesn’t have direct compliance with SCORM or xAPI
• No free trial available

Check out LearnDash’s complete review if this is something you’re looking for.

🏆 Bottomline: LearnDash is a great choice for those who want a powerful and flexible online course platform based on WordPress at a reasonable cost. It requires good technical skills to even get started, but it provides unparalleled flexibility by plugging right into the WordPress ecosystem.

TutorLMS

TutorLMS is one of the most popular WordPress LMS plugins. It is simple to use and provides a lot of features for creating, managing, and selling online courses.

Some of its key features are:

• Frontend course builder
• Advanced quiz builder
• Automatic emails
• Multi-instructor feature
• Multiple payment gateways
• Learning path management
• Course prerequisite checks
• Gradebooks
• Content drips

TutorLMS & LearnDash both costs at $199/year.

It is a relatively new plugin. There are fewer features, integrations, and third-party add-ons available. All the features available in TutorLMS are also available in LearnDash, plus more (mainly due to integrations with established players).

But needless to say, TutorLMS feels fresh, and I really liked the UI/UX of the front-end drag-and-drop builder – it’s one of the cleanest I have seen.

LifterLMS

LifterLMS is one of the feature-rich WordPress LMS plugins that offers powerful features. These include – multi instructor, course export, discussion areas, course reviews, quizzes, quiz timers, content dripping, etc.

For marketing, it supports upsells, coupons, bundles, pre-selling, affiliates, and much more.

For student engagement, it supports: Achievement badges, Certificates, Personalized email, Social learning, Private coaching, Text messaging. Etc.

It also supports memberships for you to earn recurring revenue. The membership features include Course bundles, content Restrictions, private group discussions, etc.

If you compare LifterLMS with LearnDash, LifterLMS is more expensive but it offers a free plugin to get started. Also, LearnDash is more popular than LifterLMS.

Course platforms for students

Udemy

Udemy is an online learning platform offering a vast array of courses on diverse topics for learners at all levels. With over 155,000 courses taught by expert instructors, it stands as one of the largest and most diverse learning platforms available.

It also caters to businesses and organizations looking to upskill their employees. Udemy for Business provides a centralized platform for managers to track employee progress and assign courses.

But the main downside is certificates of completion lack credibility in real life and are not accredited.

Skillshare

Skillshare offers affordable online courses in creative fields, taught by experts for beginners and professionals.

While they have diverse courses, many courses lack depth and certification.

And the platform excels in creative topics but may not suit technical subjects. Instructors need a large audience to earn significantly due to the royalties system.

Brilliant.org

Brilliant.org is an interactive learning platform focused on STEM subjects. It offers over 60 bite-sized courses in math, science, and computer science, featuring challenging problems and interactive lessons.

The platform’s unique approach helps students build strong foundational skills and apply them creatively, makes it effective for those interested in AI and advanced problem-solving.

Coursera

Coursera is a comprehensive online education platform offering over 5,300 courses from renowned universities worldwide. It covers a wide range of subjects from business to technology, with many courses available for free.

While certificates require a fee, Coursera’s partnership with top institutions like Stanford and Princeton makes it a popular choice for those seeking high-quality, diverse learning opportunities.

Pluralsight

Pluralsight specializes in technology learning, offering over 7,000 courses from industry experts. Its standout features include personalized learning paths, progress tracking, and skill assessments.

While it is more expensive than some alternatives, Pluralsight’s comprehensive approach to tech education, including hands-on practice through Cloud Labs, makes it a valuable resource for those serious about advancing their tech skills.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda, is a major online course provider with over 17,000 courses and 27 million users. It focuses on professional development, offering personalized course recommendations based on users’ LinkedIn profiles and learning activities.

With its integration with the LinkedIn platform, it’s particularly suited for professionals looking to enhance their career prospects.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a non-profit organization providing free education in various academic subjects. It offers a personalized learning experience through instructional videos, exercises, and a customized dashboard.

It remains an excellent resource for self-motivated learners seeking to grasp academic concepts thoroughly.

Conclusion

If you’re primarily a course creator, Thinkific is the optimal choice due to its focus on course creation features. This is especially true considering recent changes to Teachable‘s pricing and management. But it has only a basic community feature.

If you’re looking for a cost-effective all-in-one solution, Podia offers a premium experience, albeit with less depth to its features.

For those in need of an all-in-one platform with advanced marketing capabilities, like in-platform automations and funnels, Kajabi is worth the premium price.

Alternatively, if you are tech-savvy, comfortable with WordPress, and looking to save money, WordPress-based LMS solutions like LearnDash are worth considering, but be prepared for potential maintenance time expenditures, especially during WordPress updates.