LearnDash vs. LifterLMS
Should You Consider a LearnDash Alternative?
The LifterLMS Philosophy
We sometimes get asked by people to make a LifterLMS vs. LearnDash comparison post.
Part of our core philosophy at LifterLMS is to focus on the needs of our own community, as opposed to focusing on what our competitors are doing. Having said that, we understand the desire to compare LifterLMS vs. LearnDash when searching for the best WordPress LMS plugins for your website.
The LifterLMS team originally built custom WordPress LMS sites for clients. This allows us a unique insight into the minds and needs of our customers.
Today, LifterLMS has grown to power over 4 million enrollments and 6.5 million course and lesson completions.
We’d like to give a quick shout out to the founding team over at LearnDash and the web hosting company Liquid Web that acquired the LearnDash product and customers as well.
The founders built a great product and we understand that different solutions work better for different people.
Features of LifterLMS
LifterLMS has a robust set of features, many of which are included in our free plugin and others that are included in our own add-ons.
Giving away as much value as possible to educators, coaches, trainers, and IT professionals for free is part of the LifterLMS philosophy. We support the startup education entrepreneur and understand the need for them to validate their course idea before spending significant money on software.
Another part of our philosophy is to avoid what we affectionately call the “Software Frankenstein,” i.e. stringing together different tools made by different companies to build your course site. One of the advantages to LifterLMS and its add-ons is that we keep it all in the family so you can minimize the Software Frankenstein problem.
LifterLMS has its own membership, ecommerce and engagement tools built right in.
LifterLMS is an all-in-one solution.
And when it does make sense to integrate with other tools to make the best possible online training platform, we provide these recommendations.
What Makes LifterLMS the Best WordPress LMS?
It’s important for your LMS provider to offer essential features and support so you can be successful with your online learning platform.
LifterLMS is more powerful, more feature complete, and offers superior support compared to LearnDash. You can achieve similar functionality to LifterLMS with LearnDash, but with LearnDash you will need to patch together expensive tools made by 6 different companies to equal what is developed and supported by LifterLMS.
With LearnDash, you will pay more to achieve similar results and end up with more of a patchwork solution of tools made by different companies.
Comparing Features: LifterLMS vs. LearnDash
This chart indicates some key elearning features and benefits that are developed and supported by LifterLMS vs Learndash without dependency on costly third party tools and services…
| Feature | LifterLMS | LearnDash |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Courses, Students, Instructors, Memberships, Quizzes | ||
| Course Builder | ||
| Free Version | ||
| Autologin | ||
| Group Registration | ||
| Custom Fields | ||
| Social Learning & Community | ||
| Private Coaching Features | ||
| Front End Login | ||
| Course Cloning | ||
| Quiz Reporting | ||
| Instructor User Role | ||
| Live Getting Started Help | ||
| Live Mastermind Calls (Strategy & Technical Support) |
FREE: Get Access to the 2022 WordPress LMS Buyers Guide
Learn the 5 questions you need to ask to choose the best tools for your project.
An Active, Open Community
LifterLMS hosts an extremely active and passionate Facebook community, which is a great resource for many of our LifterLMS users.
Some members of our community have had experiences with LearnDash, as well as LearnDash alternatives, and can tell you about their first-hand pros and cons.
We would encourage and welcome you to ask questions in the group to get feedback from people who have used both tools.
Open Source, Developer Focused
We are also deeply engaged with the developer community beyond LifterLMS and with the developers of tools that integrate with LifterLMS. The LifterLMS team spends significant time supporting and helping other companies that choose to integrate their tools with LifterLMS.
Weekly Live Events and Slack Chat
We also have an active and engaging weekly LifterLMS Mastermind, which is included with any Universe or Infinity Bundle subscription.
In addition we have an active Slack community made up of developers (including 3rd party developers), as well as more technical power users.
What Users Say: Switching From LearnDash to LifterLMS
There’s a long string of comments in a facebook discussion by users who decided to switch from Learndash to LifterLMS. Click here to join the facebook group and view what these people had to say in their own words about why they moved to LifterLMS.
Try Us Out
One of the advantages to LifterLMS is our $1 Trial sites which allow you to test out your own demo site for a month and see if LifterLMS is the right fit for you. We provide you with your own 30 day temporary site hosted on our servers, loaded with all of our premium add-ons (which is what you get when you invest in the Infinity Bundle).
Migrate from LearnDash to LifterLMS
If you’re already using LearnDash and want to migrate to LifterLMS, follow these step by step LearnDash to LifterLMS migration instructions.
Resources
LifterLMS has many additional resources to help set you up for course success. We have podcast episodes, a blog, and webinar trainings.
In addition to these recordings, the LifterLMS team also participates in free live virtual Liftoff sessions. These sessions support new customers in getting started and learning on how to get the most out of their LifterLMS investment.
Our own site even uses LifterLMS, specifically the LifterLMS Academy which includes our Official QuickStart course.
LifterLMS is course creation software made by active course creators.
Support
LifterLMS is here to help you with all your technical questions if you get stuck. We guarantee a 12 business hour response time when submitting support tickets, and we answer sales and account questions within 1 business day.
There are real names and faces waiting to help you out on the other side of the internet.
We invite you to experience LifterLMS for yourself. Join our communities and interact with the team. Try some products, or do more research with a 30 day demo site.
FREE: Get Access to the 2022 WordPress LMS Buyers Guide
Learn the 5 questions you need to ask to choose the best tools for your project.