LifterLMS vs LearnDash: Which One Should You Use In 2025?
Comparing LearnDash vs LifterLMS? Discover which LMS offers better pricing, features, and user experience for your online courses in our detailed analysis.
In this insightful show, we dive deep into the features and functionalities of two popular learning management systems: LifterLMS and LearnDash. We’ll explore their unique strengths, pricing structures, and user experiences to help you make an informed choice for your online courses. Whether you’re an educator or a business owner, this comparison will help you select the right platform for your needs.
This Week’s Sponsors
Kinta: Kinta
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:36.920] – Jonathan Denwood
No. I’ve only done like half.
[00:00:41.840] – Kurt von Ahnen
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 128. In this episode, Kirk and I will be discussing Lifter LMS and comparing it to LearnDash. What are the strengths of Lifter LMS? What are the strengths of LearnDash? What are some of their weaknesses? They’re two of the most popular platforms for building a membership or a learning management system for a larger organization on WordPress. They’re both fantastic, but we’ve got some great insights. So, Kurt, would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself to our new listeners and viewers?
[00:01:26.300] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, sure. My name is Kurt von Annen. I own a company called Manana Nomas. I also work directly with the great team at WP Tonic.
[00:01:33.540] – Kurt von Ahnen
That’s fantastic. As I mentioned, we will delve into both of these excellent WordPress plugin solutions in more detail. But before we go into the central part of the show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. And coming back, folks, I also want to point out that we’ve a fantastic course developed by Kirk himself, which shows you how to build a membership website or a course for an organization from start to finish using all the best WordPress technology. It’s a fantastic course. It’s generally around $49, but we’ve got a special offer for you, half price. Additionally, we have a curated list of the best WordPress technologies and services that will save you a significant amount of time. You can get all these goodies by visiting wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. You find Kirk’s course, plus all the other goodies there. What more could you like? You ask for my beloved audience? There we go. Somebody has booked a consultation with you, Kirk, and they want to know. They’ve been evaluating Lifter LMS and LearnDash.
[00:03:05.970] – Kurt von Ahnen
How would you start off the conversation, Kurt?
[00:03:11.260] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s hard not to sound partial on this, Jonathan. As you are well aware, I’m deeply involved with the Lifter LMS team, and therefore, I’m somewhat biased, as I’m incredibly familiar with it and use it frequently. I usually recommend Lifter LMS, but when I compare both LearnDash and Lifter LMS, if someone asks me, ‘What are the main differences?’ There are quite a few. There are quite a few. So, when I look at LearnDash and Lifter LMS, I notice that Lifter LMS has a free version. So, often I’m dealing with a client who wants to handle the development side of things, build the course, and complete all these tasks before they pay for a payment gateway, marketing add-ons, and other related expenses. In that case, Lifter LMS is the de facto standard. They offer a free version, and it’s a competent one. So that’s one out of the shoot. The other thing is membership management. Membership management is at the core of Lifter LMS, and membership management with LearnDash requires, I believe, that they utilize a third-party membership plugin to manage users within the platform. I think it’s vital that we point something out, and that’s that many of these sites are combined with community tools, CRM tools, or other similar features.
[00:04:33.580] – Jonathan Denwood
And that membership component also helps run the other things. So, if you have Fluent Community or BuddyBoss, those community plugins provide users with access to the community and its features. Still, you need a membership feature that restricts access to that content. As you say, I only want certain members to have access to that. That’s what the membership plugin’s content restriction feature does for membership. Lifter comes with that right out of the box, and it’s also part of the free version. So it comes down to the conversation, the budget, the timeline, and the complexity that people want to add to their site.
[00:05:13.300] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it is really in the nitty-gritty, isn’t it? In what? Because it’s slightly different from what you would be facing with a SaaS, with SaaS, you look at what you’re getting, and that’s what you get normally. There are some SaaS platforms, like Shopify, that have a large third-party add-on community, but most SaaS platforms don’t. So, what you get is what you see. Now, with WordPress, it’s a little bit more complicated. You got all this flexibility, power, and ownership. But it’s not only a core plugin like Lifter LMS or LearnDash, it’s also how it’s going to work with other core elements, other core WordPress technology So that just is a little bit different, but not unique, because like I say, there’s similar situations like with Shopify and some other SaaS platforms. That’s another consideration that needs to be taken into account.
[00:06:35.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, and I think, Jonathan, as we launch this episode, I want to be super clear. In my opinion, both LearnDash and Lifter LMS are premium LMS choices for your WordPress website. I mean, they are the crème de la crème. They’re the top of the choices. And so I don’t think there’s a bad choice to be made. It does like the details, right? You’ve got to get granular. Here’s an example. Here’s an example: Lifter LMS automatically installs roles when you install it. It installs the student role, the member role, the instructor role, and other similar roles. If you’re in LearnDash and want to have instructor access, there’s an extra add-on that you can purchase for the instructor role. However, I want to take it one step further. The instructor’s role in the LearnDash system operates differently, as it also grants the ability to create courses on the front end. In contrast, Lifter LMS requires instructors to access the back-end of the website to develop courses through the WordPress administration menu. So the use experience is different.
[00:07:56.770] – Jonathan Denwood
The instructors still create courses, but it’s a different strategy, right? And so, there are a lot of course creators. If they’re looking at a marketplace example, they’re like, ‘I want people to register as instructors, and I want them to be able to build their courses from the front-end.’ Then people in the Lifter-LMS world, as course creators, are like, I’m just going to jump into the back end and make my courses. But that’s a detail that is important to certain people who are shopping.
[00:08:27.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I think that’s a fantastic point. I believe there are a couple of key areas that I regularly need to communicate when people book a consultation with me. I think the first area is when you’re looking at LearnDash, you do need a membership plugin. Yes, subscriptions can be achieved without it. But it has a slight contribution… I’m looking for the right word, one that is slightly nuanced and not the intuitive way of dealing with it natively. It is possible, but most people go down buying a membership plugin, which is another step, not a significant step. Still, it is another step which you don’t have to deal with with Lifter LMS, because if you’re going to use Stripe, and I would strongly advise you, if this is your first course that you go with using Stripe, if you’re based in North America or Europe, you should be able just to use Stripe. Maybe add PayPal, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I would stay with Stripe. You can set it up very quickly. Now, with LearnDash, this is the membership plugin you’ll use, as it’s an essential decision.
[00:10:16.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
They have got their own plugin now. I’m sure it works, but I personally wouldn’t recommend that. There’s Member Press. I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a fantastic plugin. It has certain peculiarities of rule-based instead of tag-based. That is very difficult to move away from it if you’re setting LearnDash with it. I think the best membership plugin for LearnDash is SureMember because it works with its parent system, SureCart, and that gives you the maximum flexibility and future proofing. So I think LearnDash with SureMember and then combining it with a free SureCart account, or if you want the next version, I think it’s about just under $100 a year. That gives you a lot of flexibility, but it’s counted counterintuitive because I’m talking about a member plugin, and then straight away, I’m talking about signing up for a free or paid service with SureCart. So I’m adding three steps now, and I’m saying that’s the simplest route. That seems very counterintuitive, but I think I’ll be interested in what you think. But fundamentally, I think it is the easiest route, isn’t Well, that comes from the benefit of us having done it a dozen times, right?
[00:12:04.780] – Jonathan Denwood
And that’s the problem, right? In theory, we make this content for people that are thinking about doing this thing for the first or second time, maybe, right? Maybe they tried it once on Kajabi and they realized they spent too much money or they did it in Podia and didn’t get the display results they wanted. They wanted the flexibility of doing something design-wise that was different. And so they’re listening to us and they’re saying, What do you guys say? And That’s why I say, when I’m talking to my clients and I’m doing a consult, I generally steer towards Lifter LMS because it’s just the easier thing. Let’s just download the free Lifter LMS core. It gives you the ability to build your course. You can manage your memberships. You can do all this right here. You can build it out. And then when you’re happy with the way your course looks and functions, well, then let’s do this. Let’s install the payment gateway. Let’s get you the ability to take some Stripe payments, and let’s get you making some money with a minimal viable product. Let’s get from point A to revenue as quickly as possible.
[00:13:03.080] – Jonathan Denwood
When we go the other route and we look at LearnDash, and again, still a great product, but that initial onboarding for the new creator, it lends itself to more steps. So I agree with you. I think SureMember is a great way to go. Suremember, the integration process is very simple and straightforward. That’s what I like about the SureMember integrations. So you have LearnDash, you have SureMember, you install it through SureCart, so now you’ve got a consistent communication with SureMember for your revenue, and you can get things going. I think on our list, one of the first things to talk about was actually building a course in these things. And I’m going to be honest with you, Jonathan, I don’t see a big difference between the course builder in Learndash and the course builder in Lifter LMS. Some of the features and processes differ, but in the end, they’re both as intuitive as far as like making the course.
[00:14:01.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, about halfway through the first half, I gave an extensive list of the key features of Lifter LMS and the key features of Learndash. I think it would be a bit boring if we just had to go through all of them. I think what would be a better… Of the key features of Lifter LMS, are there any that you think that you want to bring to the table or through your experience, you think you can give some insights that would help people listening to this podcast get the most from utilizing Lifter LMS?
[00:14:47.900] – Jonathan Denwood
This is going to sound very sideways, and it’s very insider-driven. The best key feature to Lifter LMS, to be honest with you, Jonathan, is access. It’s access to the team, access to the community, access to unbelievably complete knowledge base, and the idea that Lifter LMS has continuously, over the last half decade, added more features. They added the groups feature, they added the notes feature, they added advanced coupons. You’re able to geo-fence your coupon areas now.
[00:15:28.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
What does that mean, I can make a coupon that’s good for the United States.
[00:15:34.790] – Jonathan Denwood
I can make a coupon that’s only available in Spain. I can make a coupon for France. I can do direct purchase links through coupons, so I could create a coupon and give it its own custom link and then put it in social media. I could have a lead social post that says, buy this awesome course, and you click it and it goes directly to the shopping cart and makes the purchase. It doesn’t go through a bunch of extra clicks and things like that. And so these are all things that Lifter has been putting out over the last couple of years. They seem to still be very highly energized, evolving, and continuing to have that product market fit, where they’re taking feedback from people and they’re developing at a rate that is pretty impressive. Whereas LearnDash had some features earlier in the game. They had groups before Lifter LMS had groups. But I haven’t seen a ton of improvement or development since releasing that feature. And so there’s a lot of similarities between the two as far as overall features and deliverability. But I think Lifter LMS, when you say, What’s the biggest feature for them?
[00:16:46.820] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s having a free version to get started and just access in general, access to information, to people, to support, to the support with Lifter, I don’t think really can be beat.
[00:17:00.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, I would agree with you, Deia. I think the actual support and community and the access, which is dependent on which package you buy from Lifter LMS, that you can buy single add-ons or you can buy the Earth package. I think your access to regular group support starts at the universal and the Infinity Is that correct?
[00:17:31.900] – Jonathan Denwood
I describe that as priority support. With Lifter LMS, they run a weekly call called the Ask Me Anything Call or Ask Us Anything Call. You can do that live, ask questions. You can ask questions before the call, after the call, whatever. So they do that. And then they have the Facebook, and then they have the mail-in, like email type support for general questions. All of that is great. But then if you are a universe or infinity bundle member. You get access to the weekly office hours call, which is like a mastermind. People all over the globe sign in and ask their questions or problem-solve things. They do that once a week. And then you also get access to what I call Priority Support. And that’s where you actually can put in a support ticket for a specific issue, especially if it’s a technical issue. You upload a system report from the back end of your website, and specifically what’s wrong, maybe include a couple of screenshots. If you give them admin access, they can log into your site and try and find out what’s wrong or help you. That works out really, really well.
[00:18:37.120] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yes, it’s a great resource. But on the LearnDash, I think LearnDash was first to market, and the founders of it had a previous experience in the professional educational eLearning market. They We’re very successful in building those relationships. And it has one of the largest Facebook groups in the WordPress space. It’s got a lot of legacy SEO and content aimed at the educational professional eLearning community that might be looking at WordPress, especially higher education and more professional usage rather than the individual entrepreneur that’s looking to build their first membership. Would you agree with what I’ve just outlined?
[00:19:48.580] – Jonathan Denwood
That takes us back to one of those first features I had mentioned, Jonathan. When you have the instructor role with the front-end course development ability, that speaks to your your your equation of that is people that are more from a corporate training background, from what you said was a more professional background, they would be attracted to that type of feature or that type of layout. Whereas, I sure hate to call them hobbyists, but people that are more into course creator type things, like how to knit this handbag, how to do a tote bag, how to make balloon animals, how to make whatever. That’s not corporate training. That’s like this is someone sharing their personal knowledge. That fits fits perfect into the Lifter LMS way. And I think if we’re being really out there, if we think of someone from a corporate training background, which I come from, by the way, Scorm and very formal building of sites in a more formal, more layered way, it’s what people have gotten used to over time. And so LearnDash’s approach to this is this, and then the membership thing, and then the payment thing, and then the instructor thing, and then that fits with maybe where some of that clientele is coming from.
[00:21:07.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I would totally agree because they’ve got tremendous similarities. But it’s these cultural Because a good example of this, of the different philosophies and different approaches, is around Stripe, because the core of Lifter LMS is totally free. But you have to pay, I think it’s $149 if you want that Stripe add-on. Now, with Lifter, to buy a one-site license is $199, but You get this- You mean with LearnDash? With LearnDash, sorry. It’s $199. But then you have free access to the Stripe add-on. The only problem is that you will need a membership plugin. It’s all swings around about, isn’t it?
[00:22:05.700] – Jonathan Denwood
It is. I know, again, I fully recognize my partiality here. I just really like the simplicity of the Lifter LMS way of doing things, especially once you get into having a universe bundle or an infinity bundle, they’ve got a menu item called Add-ons and More. You can do installations and activations directly through your WordPress dashboard. You’re not constantly going back and forth and downloading packages and stuff.
[00:22:36.200] – Kurt von Ahnen
Another area where there was a divergence, and it’s not really based on the two plugins that we’re discussing, folks, but the situation has dramatically changed recently, is around if you wanted to build a community, if you wanted a app, if you wanted Community Plus app, app that would work on iOS or Android on a phone, you would be, and it still is, if you were looking for a WordPress solution, the only solution is Buddy Boss. And it really, if you wanted the app, it only would work with LearnDash. There There were some third-party solutions that worked well that enabled you to use Lifter LMS. But if you wanted Buddy Boss, the team, to actually build it for you, they would say to you, You got to use LearnDash. Even if you didn’t want the app, but you wanted all the bells and whistles of community, it really was the The only solution in town. Well, that’s dramatically changed over the last year because you’ve had a new player in to, which is Fluent Community. They don’t provide the app. If you still want that, you’re going to have to go down the buddy route. But it’s much more even balanced with Fluent.
[00:24:19.280] – Kurt von Ahnen
It works well with Lifter LMS or LearnDash. Actually, they provide a certain level of membership and subscription inbuilt. But I I think if you’re really going to build a course, I think you should, myself, look at utilizing fluent community with either Lifter LMS or LearnDash. What do you think?
[00:24:42.680] – Jonathan Denwood
I want to back folks up a little bit. The BuddyBoss and Lifter LMS combination, the integration, if we’re not considering the mobile application, is actually pretty wonderful. So with Buddy Boss, you use the Buddy Boss theme, and it takes over some of the look and the feel of your website, but the way it styles the lessons and the courses and the format that it brings, the theming that it brings to that is really well done. I’ve built a lot of websites with Buddy Boss and Lifter LMS very successfully. And doing some work with Lifter, I’ve run into a bunch that have the mobile app with Lifter LMS, but it’s not the same configuration as the app with LearnDash. And I would defer to Jonathan’s opinion there. If the mobile app is your end goal, don’t think you’re going to integrate with Lifter and they’re going to fix it later. They don’t support. They’re very upfront. Buddy Boss is very upfront. They’re a LearnDash house when it comes to that mobile app. So if community is the thing, but you’re not really sold on the whole look and feel and theme of Buddy Boss, then that fluent community is the bomb.
[00:26:00.000] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve used that on a few sites, and I’ve been really impressed with its development over the last year.
[00:26:04.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yes, it’s moving on now in a rapid way, hasn’t it? Which in some ways for a couple of years, learnDash It wasn’t progressing that much, was it? But the actual app, I’ve heard good reports, and I think it’s a pretty good solution and excellent value. If you’re looking for a white-labeled solution at affordable price, it’s still very attractive. But if that’s not necessary, and for a lot of people, it isn’t, then with Lifter or Lerandash is a great solution. Well, I think we’ve tried to give some great info this first half. I think with Kirk’s help, we’ve been successful. We’re going to go for our middle break, folks, and when we come back, we’re going to delve in the world of comparing Lyfter LMS with LearnDash a bit more. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I just wanted to also take the opportunity to point out we’ve got a great free resource, and that’s the Membership Machine Show Facebook group. If you’ve got any questions from listening to this particular episode or any of the others, you can go to this group. It’s totally free to join and you can ask your questions, and we will answer them.
[00:27:33.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
I regularly post stuff on the group as well, so we love you to join that. So go over to Facebook, look up the Membership Machine show, and join the group. So let’s go into some specifics then. How would you say the course builder works in both?
[00:28:00.000] – Jonathan Denwood
They’re incredibly similar. Some of the nuances differ, but the overall feel and approach is very, very similar. There is one thing that’s come up a couple of times for me in the last year, and I still find it, I’m just going to call it annoying. I don’t understand why this is a hiccup for some folks, but there’s a thing that LearnDash has called topics. So there’s some people, some people build their course in a way that has like, here’s my course name, and then I’m going to have different sections for my course. And within those sections, I’m going to have certain lessons. And so the idea is that you can break your course into components, and each of those components has the required pieces. There are some people that believe they need to have this thing called topics, which is like categories within a course, a way to separate information within the course to a more finite or granular manner.
[00:29:04.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
When I was building them out, I don’t actively do the work. Kirk helps me with this, but I always saw it as a way of subcategories.
[00:29:15.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Well, it’s like, lift, run, loss has the sections. It’s like a subsection, right? I have never understood why an educator can’t work around that thing. I can never understand why people can’t get around that stumbling block. And I have tried to figure out, how would I introduce this process into a lifter, even if I custom-coded it, even if I got crazy and wanted to make magic happen, how would I do it? And every time I get stuck on why, why would I make it happen? And then I drop it. But other than that, they are incredibly similar.
[00:29:57.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
How would you describe the What difference between Lifter LMS and LearnDash when it comes to extensions and themes? Because there is a divergence of philosophy a little bit here.
[00:30:13.740] – Jonathan Denwood
There used to there used to be this idea that LearnDash had all these options that were available. There used to be this idea that if you wanted all of this flexibility and all of this ability to scale, to add features, that would want to go with LearnDash. But like I said earlier in the show, I think Lifter LMS has very quickly, within the last half decade or so, really closed the gap on that whole concept. When it comes to themes, what’s really interesting is, and I know that you’re not a fan, but I’m going to mention it, Lifter had their own theme. Oh, my gosh. Now I can’t… Launchpad. It was called Launchpad. Not a great theme, but it was a functional theme, right? Functional block editing theme. And then they went to a thing called Skypilot, which adopted full site editing pretty much as soon as full site editing was released in WordPress 6. 3 or 6. 2 or something like that. And they were right at the cutting edge. They released that theme right when full site editing was released. There were some stumbling blocks and growth hiccups along the way, like when WordPress would change patterns to reusable blocks to this to that.
[00:31:33.140] – Jonathan Denwood
They would change things where things were in the editing interface.
[00:31:37.480] – Kurt von Ahnen
It wasn’t so much their theme because it’s actually- It was WordPress stuff. It’s a very nice-looking theme. It’s more about being on this cutting edge, and what the WordPress core team and Automatic were doing was more about my problem with it, which isn’t really… It’s hard to explain unless you’re in the WordPress world, because the actual look of the theme, the look when it’s working with Lifter LMS is very nice, isn’t it?
[00:32:14.740] – Jonathan Denwood
I use it on one of my bigger projects, and I think it makes the site look more modern compared to what it was, because I switched from an older theme to Skypilot. And I like it. I really like it. So when you say, what about themes? There There are some themes that just inherently work well with Lifter. Cadence has a menu issue that they’re aware of, that Cadence is aware of with Lifter LMS in the Lifter LMS, pardon me, dashboard. So there’s a certain layout for the dashboard and Cadence that you really shouldn’t use because it makes the menu useless. But ASTRA. Astra works great with Lifter LMS. Genesis, I mean, there’s a bunch of them that work really well.
[00:32:59.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, is that really… Because I’m a big fan of Cadence. So is it a major problem or is it just you got to be aware of this bug?
[00:33:12.580] – Jonathan Denwood
So you could probably fix it with Custom CSS, but we don’t install themes as end users thinking, I can fix this with Custom CSS. So in Cadence, in the student dashboard, if you use the horizontal navigation setup, it works fine. That puts the menu across the top of the dashboard. But if you want to use the layout that has the menu that goes vertical next to the dashboard, it just smushes the menu altogether.
[00:33:43.320] – Kurt von Ahnen
So I just don’t It’s not a major thing, but it’s there. See, the reason why I like with Cadence is the development team. But it will work fantastically with LearnDash because it’s owned by the same company. It’s owned by a company called Stella WP, who is then owned by a hosting company called Liquid Web. But Stella WP, they have a number of WordPress plugins that they own, and one of those is LearnDash, and the other is Cadence WP. But the main reason why I liked Cadence, I think it’s with another page website builder called Generate Press. They’re the two best third-party solutions that really handle Gutenberg and modern way of building a website, the best, in my opinion. So that’s why I like Eva, but we offer Cadence WP as part of our package with WP tonic. And the whole theme, in some ways, I think, like I say, I like the theme from Lifter LMS. It’s very modern, but also, I wouldn’t say negative, but I didn’t fully understand why it was decided to bring it out, because to me, themes are semi-dead now. It’s more about which page builder, because especially with individual entrepreneur, it’s more about, will my page builder give me starter websites?
[00:35:38.160] – Kurt von Ahnen
Will it give me landing pages? Will it give me patterns? Will it give me all these extra bits because there’s a lot of other elements to run a thriving membership website than just a theme. And to me, this has been taken up by a page builder. So in some ways, I think the days of a theme are a bit behind us in some ways.
[00:36:12.080] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, and that’s a yes or no response that I would have for you on that one, Jonathan, because Lifter didn’t just release the theme. Now, they call it a page builder, so I’m going to be nice and call it a page builder, but they have that aircraft builder, and that’s a collection of patterns that, quite honestly, when you leverage the theme and the patterns, you can build a website really quickly. It’s like having a starter site in that it’s got a hero area, call to action area, testimonials area, and you literally just go click, click, click, click, add it, build a page. I think, and again, this is insider knowledge stuff, right? If you look at the volume of incoming support tickets that say, hey, what theme do you recommend for use with your product? But does it work with this? Does it work with that theme? And then you have the ability to release your own theme. Why not? It sends to make things easier for people.
[00:37:12.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:13.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. And I’ve noticed And take, again, I know that you’re not a big fan of full-site editing, but if someone is brand new to WordPress- You’ve said this, yeah.
[00:37:24.690] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah.
[00:37:25.050] – Jonathan Denwood
If they’re brand new to WordPress and they say, well, what do I need? What’s the bare minimum? What do I need to launch my course? And Lifter LMS can say, Well, we’ve got this plugin. It comes with its own theme if you want it. It’s got this, this, this, and this. And they just go, Okay. And when they start building, if they start building in full-site editing, they don’t realize obstacles or things coming from blocks.
[00:37:52.060] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I totally understand where you’re coming from.
[00:37:58.360] – Jonathan Denwood
I think the The adoption rate on Skypilot is actually pretty positive. I was surprised how many people used it. I still am. When we get on the office hours call and I say, Well, what theme are you using? They say Skypilot. I still go, Oh, really?
[00:38:14.280] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, but I’m Unfortunately, it’s just my view. It’s full-site editing, and I consider full-site editing the devil’s brew. But there we go. On to the next user interface and ease of use. This is the interesting one. I’ll take the lead first, and then I’ll get your response. I actually think the interface design of LearnDash is better than Lifter LMS. I’ve thought that for quite a while. But easy use because with Lifter LMS, you don’t need the membership plugin. It’s actually much easier to set up, much, much easier for somebody beginning their journey using WordPress to build their membership or community website. So actually ease of use, I actually would go with Lifter LMS. But when it comes to actual interface design, I’m not saying it’s a big difference, and it’s about taste. I just think the interface design of LearnDash is better than Lifter.
[00:39:27.080] – Jonathan Denwood
I want to ask to clarify that with you. Are you saying Are you seeing that from the course creator’s perspective or from the student’s perspective?
[00:39:35.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think just the design of the plugin and the back-end and The icons, it just looks… Because obviously, this is a little bit techy here, folks. The original founders of LearnDash, they sold their business, it must have four or five years now, isn’t it?
[00:40:02.080] – Jonathan Denwood
I think longer.
[00:40:03.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
But before they sold the business to Stella WP or Liquid Web, they invested a very large sum of money. I think I was told it. It was between a quarter of a million and half a million. They hired one of the best WordPress web development agencies, TenUp, And they got them and they built a new plugin. And I thought they did a bit… There was elements that we’ve already covered that I didn’t think were fantastic. But when it came to the UX design and just the way it looks, I think they did a really good job. I think you disagree, don’t you? You don’t think there’s much in it, do you? And you’re probably right. It’s a taste thing, isn’t it?
[00:41:05.520] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m not saying I’m not- This is going to be where I’m really going to stick my foot in it with another team. But there are certain things in the back-end of a learn-dash site as a course creator that seem more direct and more intuitive, like when I am adding distribution features to the course itself. Whereas Lifter has tried to make the site easier for new people to use. And there has been the addition of these pop-ups, like I want to add an access plan. You used to just be able to click Access Plan, fill in the blanks, and click Save. And now you hit Access Plan, and this big window pops up. It’s got all these big choices. And you’re like, okay, which one of these do I want? I just wanted to fill in the form. For people like me that have been around for a while, I don’t like the extra choices and extra-This is a perfect…
[00:42:03.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s a fantastic example. It’s always about compromise, isn’t it? Which target group you’re aiming at. That’s why there can never be one… There are some solutions that are just terrible. They don’t work or they’re very outdated. But normally, it’s just choose your poison, really, because it just really depends on target audience they’re aiming. I think you made a great point there.
[00:42:34.640] – Jonathan Denwood
Just on the other side of that coin, I can vividly remember the first time, because the first time I had to install LearnDash, it wasn’t me taking my time and figuring it out. I had a client that had a LearnDash issue, and I was like, Let me see if I can take a look for you. I signed in, and I was bewildered. My first time in the back end of it, I was like, Where’s this? Where’s that? This doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t make sense. But once you know it, it’s very Whereas, like I said, now it’s almost become too ornumented. Is that a word? Too ornumented in the lifter space where there’s too many options, too many things pop up, too many… They’ve tried to make people happy and add features, but I think what they’ve done is actually add a little bit.
[00:43:18.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
This is something that SaaS, WordPress, plugins, anybody in software, they struggle with this on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. None of it’s easy. Let’s go quickly on to payment options. Well, this is the clear winner for Lifter LMS because they’ve got their own subscription engine. Like with LearnDash, they’ve got their own membership plugin, or you use something like the one I recommend, SureCart. Sure members, sorry. So really, in my opinion, it’s a clear win for LyftLMS, but the actual options, they’re very similar. If you choose Sure members, you’re going to get Stripe, PayPal, pretty easy to set up. And both of them, if you need something more than that, something more exotic, both of them offer great integration with Woocommers, don’t they? And then you’ve got the up and coming option that’s rearing its head from the same people as Fluent Community, Fluent Cart, aren’t you?
[00:44:36.860] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. I’m looking forward to playing with Fluent Cart. Payment set up through Lifter I’m going to just be blunt. There are people that have done reviews of Lifter LMS and LearnDash, and they’ll say Lifter LMS doesn’t have a payment gateway or doesn’t. And I think the confusion is maybe they’re looking at the free Free Plugin. The free plugin does not give you the option for taking in payments. Lifter LMS worked under this really cool theory that, Hey, if you want to give away training, we’ll give you the plugin, right? And this is my words, not theirs, not theirs. But hey, if you want to market this thing and sell this thing, you can buy an add-on to do that. And so you buy the payment gateway and it gives you the ability to connect Stripe, PayPal, or Woocommerce. And Woocommerce lets you take anything almost.
[00:45:33.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I would say when it comes to payments, Lifter LMS is a clear leader.
[00:45:38.120] – Jonathan Denwood
By far. Let’s point out the important thing. With the Lifter LMS native payment that way, you can do recurring payments through your Stripe account, and you don’t have to buy any extra third-party Doohickey to make it happen.
[00:45:53.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
Next one, community. I would say, initially, it’s a clear winner for Lifter LMS, but it does depend on what version of Lifter LMS you’re buying. If you can afford to buy the Universal or the Infinity, you’re getting some enormous resources. If you’re not, you could say that LearnDash, because they’ve got this enormous Facebook group and it is well… It’s like I say, it’s got over 17,000 people, and it’s got a very active admin. And if you’ve got any questions, they’re normally reasonably helpful. I haven’t logged in for over a year. I’ve just been busy with my own business. But I used to regularly give my own advice there, which I wasn’t prepared to do a deep dive, but if it was a quick and easy bit of advice. I was very active in the LearnDash Facebook group until about a year ago. I’ve just been busy, as Kurt knows, but I presume it’s still very, very active. So it’s a very active Facebook group, but if the LMS does a fantastic job if you can buy, I think, the universal bundle for the support through their different Facebook and Zooms and everything they provide is top-notch.
[00:47:31.940] – Jonathan Denwood
For my section on community, I misread the question, to be honest with you. I thought you were referring to social learning because social learning is an add-on.
[00:47:41.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, you could take it either way because definitely, it’s still a winner for a winner for LyftLMS because they got this add-on, don’t they?
[00:47:48.380] – Jonathan Denwood
They do. They’ve got a social add-on called Social Learning, a community thing. So it gives every membership in every- But the truth of that with Fluent Community, I think- It would be redundant.
[00:48:01.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s a little bit redundant now. Yeah, it would be redundant. It was harder. All the people I consulted, it’s a lovely add-on, don’t get me wrong. I think it does a sweet job, but it was never quite enough. It was never what they were really. I was reluctant to bring up Buddy Boss because then you bring up the app, and then when you bring up the app, you got to say, Well, you really got to use LearnDash. I I love Lifter LMS, but I’m just relieved now we got Fluent Community because we don’t have to go down that route. But I think it’s nothing to do with Lifter LMS, really, but it’s just that most people are going to use, if they’re looking at community and they don’t need a app, and most people don’t need the app, they don’t need the app at all. Using Lifter LMS with fluent community is the way to go, really, isn’t it?
[00:49:05.380] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah.
[00:49:06.120] – Kurt von Ahnen
Would you agree?
[00:49:08.300] – Jonathan Denwood
The social learning that Lifter has gives each user a discussion forum or a discussion chat or whatever you want to call it for every membership or course that they’re in. And that’s nice. But then the other parts, if you had fluent community, it would be too redundant. And so So instead of having discussion groups for each course or each membership, you would just create spaces within fluent community and let people have a free for all in there.
[00:49:40.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
When it comes to pricing, it’s a difficult one because LearnDash, 199, but you got to get a membership plugin, but that might be a couple of hundred. I think Sure members isn’t that expensive. We give it as part of our hosting Hosting Bundle, folks. Almost all the plugins that we’ve discussed in this show, if you host with WP Tonic, you get access to fully licensed. They’re not bootlegged, they’re fully licensed. We do most of the support, but they are fully licensed, folks. But like I say, LearnDash is free, not Lifter LMS is free, but you But to use Stripe, to do it, subscription to you is going to cost you 150. But I would strongly advise you if you’re not hosting with WP tonic, because if you do, you get the Infinity bundle as part. If you decide not to, I think it’s well worth. I would really strongly look at the universal bundle because you get access to all this community support. How much is the universal bundle now, Gert?
[00:50:58.960] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m going to look it up real quick because I don’t want to misquote it.
[00:51:01.300] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, you better do. I think it’s… Well, they give you- No, it’s 1,500 for the Infinity bundle, and it’s 500 for the Universe bundle. Yeah, if you can stretch it to… I think for all… Because you can talk to Kirk every Thursday. Emily, another great member of the Lifter community, you can talk to both of them every Thursday. Do you get a higher level of support in the ticketing system? If you got-It’s universe and infinity, you do. You do. You get this extra priority. Their support is very good anyway, folks, but you get even extra support. I think if you can stretch your budget and you’re looking at Lifter LMS, you should really look at the universal bundle because you get all these extras, folks. But if you can’t, they got the Earth as well, which is good value. So they got plenty of options. Or you can buy an individual add-on, which is quite good of them. They could have said you got to buy a bundle, but they didn’t do that. You can still buy individual add-on. Final thoughts. What’s your final thoughts, Kurt?
[00:52:20.120] – Jonathan Denwood
I have a strange final thought.
[00:52:24.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
Is that because you’ve been working with me for a couple of years?
[00:52:27.840] – Jonathan Denwood
No, but here’s This is where I get confused with the LearnDash offer. If you go to their pricing page, at the bottom of the pricing page is a list of their bundles. They have a student success bundle, an instructors bundle, whatever bundle.
[00:52:44.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
And so-Well, we haven’t even touched the subject of their hosted solution, have we?
[00:52:48.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, no. I thought we were doing that on purpose.
[00:52:51.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, the reason why, because I know I’m in the same game, but that wasn’t actually the reason. I just think it’s very confusing.
[00:53:02.280] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I’m confused. I don’t understand why they have all these bundles, and none of the bundles specifies that it comes with the membership plugin.
[00:53:11.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
That is very odd, isn’t it?
[00:53:13.360] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s quite unusual, as it’s the number one thing you want to have with your LMS as a membership.
[00:53:20.180] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, they used to. They had them bundled, and then I don’t think it was working out. They unbundled them, and they have their plugin, membership plugin, on a separate website. Separated now. I presume it didn’t pan out for them. There was a kickback, and confusion ensued.
[00:53:46.020] – Jonathan Denwood
That takes me right to the final thought. The final idea is that if I visit the Lifter site as a new user and ask some relatively simple questions, I will receive a relatively simple answer. If I go to the LearnDash site with some relatively simple questions, I’m going to come away- You’re going to get confused. I’m going to come away wondering what exactly I need to buy to launch my product.
[00:54:12.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s a regular. When I was active in the LearnDash Facebook community, a regular question that was frequently asked was, ‘What have I bought, and what do I need to get?’
[00:54:25.740] – Jonathan Denwood
How much is this? Again, I do want to finish up. Both are great. Both are great. So Jonathan and I are having a feast. We’re having a fun time picking apart the two. Both are great. You’re not going to make a mistake picking one or the other. However, I think that when it comes to specifics, simplicity, and value for the dollar, I like Lifter’s offer. If I compare the bundle prices at the bottom of the LearnDash page, it’s not that different from what I’m going to pay, and I’m going to get more. That’s my quick thought.
[00:55:05.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, yeah, I don’t think… I’m mumbling here, folks. It’s dependent on what you’re looking to achieve. There are differences. There are slight differences in philosophy, how the plugin’s history has influenced it, and its current state. But both of them, you’re not going to go that far. Suppose you’re an individual looking for the easiest way to get started with WordPress, which offers the benefits of ownership, flexibility, and cost. In that case, it still has some considerable strengths compared to many of its SaaS competitors. However, if you like those strengths but are looking for the easiest path, I do not doubt recommending Lifter LMS. Suppose you’re in the world of corporate training, SCORM, and higher education. I think Lifter still makes a good challenge, and you’ll be happy. But I also think I wouldn’t say LearnDash is better for this type of organization. I think you’ll be influenced by all the legacy posts and media you come across, but you’ll definitely be happy with either. I think LearnDash is stronger in that particular sector. However, if you’re an individual entrepreneur, I have no hesitation in saying you should go with the Lifter LMS route.
[00:56:56.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
What do you reckon?
[00:56:58.120] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m still a partial lifter. Yeah, I’m a little simpler.
[00:57:01.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
But do you think I’ve done a fair summary there?
[00:57:04.400] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, you have. I go back to when I left Ducati, when I left Suzuki, when I worked with BRP on things, would I have been more comfortable It’s a bit like a Ducati in a Suzuki.
[00:57:17.280] – Kurt von Ahnen
A Ducati, all this history, it’s a much more expensive motorcycle, generally. It’s got all this history. It’s a fantastic motorcycle. But for the price, you’re going to… Suzuki also doesn’t have the same history as Ducati in racing, but it’s still a fantastic motorcycle. It’s not a Ducati, but it’s not at a Ducati price.
[00:57:46.600] – Jonathan Denwood
No. When I ride a Ducati, my heart becomes one with the machine, and when I ride a Suzuki, I get from point A to point B.
[00:57:55.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
I see where you’re coming from, though. The car is a remarkable thing. But you just got to make your choice, folks. Hopefully, we’re providing you with some valuable information here. Hopefully, you got some great value. If you did, you could do us a favor, folks? Could you please go to either iTunes or Spotify and leave us a review? We haven’t got that many reviews. I haven’t pushed it for this podcast, but I think we’ve done some fantastic shows recently, thanks to Kirk’s help, over the last three or four months. I’ve enjoyed them with Kirk, and I think we’re giving you a ton of value in these podcasts. If you could do us a favor, please go to Spotify or iTunes and leave us a review. That would be fantastic. We will be back next week. Well, it probably won’t be back next week because I’ll be traveling. But the following week, we will be back with another great podcast, helping you build a successful membership website for yourself and your family in 2025. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye. Been a bit slow.
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