LearnDash Review – Is This the Best WordPress LMS Plugin?
In this LearnDash Review, you'll find out how the most trusted WordPress LMS plugin can transform your site. Create online courses and monetize your site in a matter of minutes.
Table of Contents:
What is LearnDash WordPress Plugin?
What Features Does Learndash Learning Management System Have?
How to Create Online Courses in LearnDash LMS
Learndash Review – LearnDash WordPress Themes
Learn Dash Review – The LearnDash ProPanel
LearnDash Shortcodes and Blocks
LearnDash Alternatives
Learn Dash Support
LearnDash Discount and Pricing
LearnDash Review Summary
What is LearnDash WordPress Plugin?
LearnDash is the most trusted WordPress LMS (Learning Management System) Plugin. It is the top choice of companies, universities, entrepreneurs, and various organizations worldwide for online course creation, marketing, and selling.
What Features Does Learndash Learning Management System Have?
The key LMS features of LearnDash include courses, monetize, administration, and tech.
> Courses
LearnDash online courses are dynamic and engaging. It offers the latest trends in the e-learning industry. The focus mode allows you to create an online learning portal with your very own brand.
You can also do advanced quizzing and content drip-feeding. The prerequisites are flexible, so you can set it based on course, lesson, and quiz. Enrolled users can have private or public course-specific forums. The Gradebook syncs with quizzes and assignments along with manual grading.
> Monetize
Selling online courses through LearnDash is so easy. Just set a price, choose the payment schedule, and start taking orders. It supports one-time purchases, subscriptions, and shopping carts. You can sell traditional membership access to all available courses. You can even create a course marketplace like Udemy if you like.
> Administration
LearnDash gives you more control over learners and courses than almost any other learning management system out there. You can do everything from grouping users to altering progression, clearing data, reprinting achievements, revoking access, and even more. Users can easily track their courses and lessons through the front-end profiles. The Group Management feature places users into groups and allows others to manage them. Detailed LMS reports on user enrollment, progress, and quiz performance can be run quickly. You can also approve, comment, and award points on submitted assignments.
> Tech
The latest tech tools in both the e-learning and WordPress industries are supported by LearnDash. Using programs like Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, iSpring, or H5P is not a problem. It works with any WordPress theme without the need for custom coding. You can insert any media — videos, Articulate & Adobe Captivate files, images, audio, Google Docs, and more. If your theme works on mobile, so will LearnDash. Moreover, users can get responsive support from industry experts with an extensive Fortune 500 experience.
How to Create Online Courses in LearnDash LMS
LearnDash has a powerful course builder. Its drag-and-drop feature allows you to create multi-layer online courses easily. This course builder also lets you reuse content, thus it is easier to spin-up courses. For instance, you can put “Modules” instead of “Lessons”.
In LearnDash, you can choose from eight different question types to customize the quizzing experience. You can incorporate custom messages, and much more.
Lessons can be delivered all at once.
You may also choose to have guided learning by drip-feeding or scheduling lessons over a specified amount of time. In either case, content is automatically released to learners based on the set schedule.
LearnDash prerequisites can provide course ideas to users. You can, therefore, create a guided learning path or allow learners to choose the course they would want to take.
The feature-packed LearnDash Gradebook can take your class to another level. It automatically syncs with the LearnDash quiz and assignment grades and supports manual grade submission. Weighted grades and offline grading are also possible, and users are provided with Learner Report Cards.
For every completed course, learners are awarded points and allowed to unlock new courses base on the earned points. This is a great way to let them choose their own dynamic learning path.
LearnDash allows full customization of certificates and supports a dynamic data generation, including first and last name, course or quiz name, date stamps, and much more.
Learndash Review – LearnDash WordPress Themes
Learn Dash works with most themes that are coded using WordPress standards.
If you already have a WordPress theme installed, LearnDash will just adopt its styling.
We recommend Studio Press Genesis Themes for their clean code and lightning-fast load speeds.
Here is an exclusive StudioPress Genesis Themes Discount Code.
Otherwise, there are suggested styles to follow:
> Free Themes
Astra is the most lightweight, intuitive, and flexible free WordPress theme. It extensively integrates with LearnDash LMS out of the box.
Generate Press is also a lightweight theme that is performance-focused and user friendly. Because it adheres to WordPress coding standards, LearnDash WordPress Plugin will play nice with this theme.
> Premium Themes
BuddyBoss for LearnDash is the most advanced LearnDash theme for online schools, courses, communities, and membership sites. It is flexible, giving you the freedom to fully customize it to your project’s requirements.
Academy Pro theme package is recommended for online course creators, membership site owners, and educational content marketers. It allows showcasing of authority, getting more email opt-ins, and promoting learning benefits.
WISDM eLumine is the best LearnDash theme for your website. This theme is designed by LearnDash experts to create an unparalleled learning experience. Make use of its performance optimization settings to increase page load speed. You can showcase all courses in a clean, organized format for quick accessibility. This theme also has LearnDash layouts that help improve student productivity and create an interactive social learning experience. Customization, speed, and mobile-ready layouts increase learner engagement across any device. Courses can be sold easily by integrating WooCommerce eLumine.
There are other premium LearnDash themes available such as:
- University Course and Event Theme
- Unidash Online Education Theme
- LMS Responsive Theme
- Edumodo Education Theme
- Invent — Education Course Theme
- Lincoln — Education Material Theme
- wOffice — Intranet/Extranet Theme
- Thrive — Intranet & Community Theme
- Education Center — Training Courses Theme
Remember, just as important (if not more) as choosing a high-quality theme is choosing a fast and responsive hosting company.
We currently recommend Siteground for their speed, price, and outstanding customer service.
LearnDash Review – The LearnDash ProPanelThemes
ProPanel enhances LearnDash admin experience by consolidating report and assignment management, giving the ability to send course-specific communications, and showing real-time course activities. It gives you a view of all your LMS reports or data on a dashboard.
> Overview Data
LearnDash ProPanel provides a quick view of stats relating to your learning management system. These top-level metrics may include:
- Total Students
- Number of Courses
- Assignments Pending
- Essays Pending
> Reporting Data
You can use filters to dig into online courses and learner data. This section of the LearnDash ProPanel also allows you to communicate with a selected group of users through email.
> Activity Stream
This tab displays the real-time activity of users to observe learner engagement with courses.
> Progress Chart
This allows you to easily see the progress of users in the course. Moreover, you can gain insight into exactly how far along have users gone for a particular course.
LearnDash Shortcodes and Blocks
Additional ways to insert content into your courses, pages, posts, other custom post types are provided by LearnDash shortcodes and blocks.
> Difference between LearnDash Shortcodes and Blocks
Shortcodes are the original way to add dynamic content into the WordPress editor. It can also be used to insert LearnDash content into page builders. Certain parameters are available for the customization of the displayed information.
Blocks, on the other hand, contain all the same features and options as shortcodes but are only available when using the new content editor released in WordPress 5.0 (aka Gutenberg). It provides an easier interface in which to insert content and customize the options.
> When to use LearnDash Shortcodes and Blocks
Every shortcode has a corresponding block, and every block has a corresponding shortcode. Since there is no feature difference between the two, you can ask the following questions to figure out which to use:
- Are you using the new WordPress editor (Gutenberg)? If yes, you can use either. Although blocks are easier to use, shortcodes are still available.
- Are you using the Classic Editor plugin? If yes, a shortcode is necessary.
- Are you using a page builder? If yes, then you’ll need to use a shortcode.
- Are you inserting content into a widget or sidebar? If yes, a shortcode should be used.
There is a complete list of all available LearnDash shortcodes and blocks, which provides information on how to use each, as well as all the available parameters. Find them here.
LearnDash Alternatives
Many people want a corporate learning management system. Some alternatives and competitors of LearnDash include Teachable, Thinkify, Moodle, and LearnPress.
> LearnDash vs Teachable
Although Learndash and Teachable both offer the ability to build online courses, they have different software philosophies.
LearnDash is a WordPress plugin that focuses purely on online course creation and its learning management system functionality. However, it has a robust marketplace of integrations and add-ons to give way to the expansion of its core functionality for better user experience.
Teachable provides an all-in-one hosted platform for building and selling online courses. This is good for starters, but an alternative is recommended if full control and more flexibility are already required.
> Learndash vs Thinkific
Thinkific is an all-in-one online course hosted platform designed to empower users to quickly create and deliver stunning courses on their own branded site. It falls short in LMS features and flexibility, which LearnDash has. LearnDash provides more and better features, full control over your hosted platform, better pricing, and a better look.
> LearnDash vs Moodle
Learn Dash (with WordPress) and Moodle are both open-source, self-hosted platforms. They both offer great flexibility and control to learners. However, there is one key difference.
Moodle can be called an LCMS — a Learning Content Management System. This implies that it can be two things in one – a Content Management System and a Learning Management System.
On the other hand, LearnDash + WordPress treats these functions separately. WordPress is a CMS, and LearnDash is a WordPress plugin that allows the addition of various functions to WordPress sites. Thus, WordPress focuses on making the best CMS on the market while LearnDash handles online learning capabilities.
> LearnDash vs LearnPress
The core functionality and development philosophies of LearnDash and LearnPress are strangely similar, but each has its own strength and weaknesses when it comes to features. Both focus on online course creation and learning management system functionality. However, ThimPress, the creator of LearnPress, focuses primarily on theme development and sales. LearnPress isn’t the main focus of its company’s owners. LearnDash is solely focused on LMS.
LearnDash Support
You can find answers to pressing questions through the LearnDash Support dashboard. LearnDash has categorized its documentation to help answer these questions as fast and competent as possible.
- LearnDash Core (Build courses, lessons, topics, quizzes, certificates, and more.)
- Add-Ons (14 officially supported add=ons, plus a list of third-party plugins.)
- Users and Groups (User management, creating, and managing LearnDash groups.)
- Reporting (User data, quiz stats, LearnDash ProPanel, SCORM, & xAPI.)
- User Guides (Detailed instructions on how to use popular LearnDash LMS features.)
- Troubleshooting (Steps to identify and fix LearnDash-related issues.)
- FAQs (The most commonly asked questions from users.)
- Account and Billing (Questions about account, license, and billing information.)
LearnDash Discount and Pricing
LearnDash pricing usually starts at $199 per year but with this exclusive Learndash Discount Code from WHR Marketing, you will get $40 off any of their packages. Learn Dash does not offer a free trial. However, Learndash offers a 30-day money refund if you are not satisfied.
Click Here for the exclusive $40OFF LearnDash Coupon Code from WHR Marketing.
LearnDash Review Summary
That's it for our LearnDash Review. LearnDash is the go-to learning management system if you are after flexibility and optimum LMS features. The LearnDash WordPress plugin is great for creating online courses and lessons, as well as training programs. Software updates and enhancements are also readily available.
We highly recommend using LearnDash if you want to create and monetize your online courses.
Click Here for the exclusive $40OFF LearnDash Discount Code from WHR Marketing.
We hope you enjoyed our article on LearnDash Review.
Here’s to your online business goals,
The WHR team
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Joe
LearnDash Review, 19th September 2020