As we forge ahead into 2024, the landscape of online learning continues to evolve, embracing more interactive and integrated learning communities.

With platforms like Skool offering a stepping stone into the world of digital education, the rise of alternatives tailored to provide a more comprehensive experience is an exciting prospect. Whether you’re an educator, student, or simply a lifelong learner, these platforms provide a fertile ground for growth, connection, and innovation.

In this post, we invite you to explore the top Skool alternatives that are shaping the future of online learning. Bursting with advanced features, community engagement tools, and robust monetization options, these platforms promise a transformative learning journey. Ready to dive in? Let’s explore the power and potential of these Skool alternatives together.

What we'll explore together:

• Introducing Skool and discussing why it's worth considering other platforms when choosing a community app for your online community.
• Delving into the alternatives to Skool, highlighting their unique features, and explaining why they have emerged as top contenders in the realm of Skool alternatives.
• Unveiling Disco, a comprehensive solution that addresses the limitations of Skool. With this award-winning community app, you'll find more than what you're expecting.

What is Skool.com?

Skool.com is a combination of Reddit, Facebook Groups, and a Community Marketplace. Known for its user-friendly interface, Skool provides an accessible platform for community managers and members to connect, share knowledge, and foster a vibrant learning community on several topics.

Additionally, it can also be a school management software fostering a thriving community for academic institutions for their extra-curricular activities and after-school programs.

The platform's standout feature is its unique gamification system, which enhances student engagement and retention by turning learning into an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Moreover, Skool offers a vast array of courses across diverse subjects, catering to the learning needs and interests of a wide audience.

Why Look Beyond Skool?

While it offers a range of features for online learning, there are certain aspects where it falls short, prompting users to seek out platforms that offer a more comprehensive learning management system. Mainly speaking, Skool is a community and communication platform not as complex as other LMSs that provide multiple features. The tool lacks features that are helpful to manage your community efficiently.

❌ NO Automation

Skool has a simple navigation and it doesn't have the modern approach of a community platform. Since it doesn't have automation features, you still need to manage your community manually without the help of AI, and by not having so, you're missing out on saving your time and operational costs.

Alternatives: Disco's AI co-pilot, intelligent automation, AI-generated images, and texts.

❌ NO Integrations

At Skool, there's no way to engage your community members with third-party apps because it doesn't support integrations. In today's era where software is everywhere, it's a must-have to choose a community platform that supports integrations. Skool doesn't have it, so if you are using other apps like Slack and Notion, this isn't for you!

Alternatives: Disco's Slack integration, and third-party integrations feature.

❌ NO Customization

Although Skool allows you to create your courses, it doesn't support other learning experiences aside from self-paced courses. It means there's no way you can personalize the learning paths of your members and no progress tracking to inform you with community data.

Alternatives: Disco's custom onboarding, learning suite, groups, and custom profile fields.

Skool's Biggest Limitation

❌ One significant limitation of Skool is its limited feature set, which can significantly hinder a community's ability to charge higher prices for their offerings. The lack of advanced tools and capabilities, which are often found in more comprehensive learning management systems, may restrict the value that communities can provide to their members.

Consequently, this could limit the potential for higher pricing strategies, potentially impacting the overall profitability and sustainability of the community.

Criteria for Selecting the Right Community Platform

Careful consideration is required when selecting the right platform for your online community. The ease of use of a platform plays a pivotal role in this decision as it directly influences the intuitiveness of user navigation, feature accessibility, and task performance.

A platform that is intuitive and user-friendly fosters engagement, encourages frequent interaction, and results in improved learning outcomes, giving users complete control over their learning experience.

Apart from ease of use, the choice of an online community platform also depends on the essential features it offers. These include:

• Robust discussion forums and direct messaging
• Seamless integration with other platforms
• Interactive and collaborative tools
• Secure admin controls
• Customization for personalized learning experience
• Intelligent automation with AI
• Affordability

Lastly, the learning experience is a significant consideration as it directly impacts users’ capacity to acquire fresh insights, participate actively, and obtain feedback. Platforms like Disco offer features like push notifications to keep users engaged and informed about new content and updates, providing a robust learning experience that is fundamental for fostering an effective online learning environment.

#1 Disco: The Most Complete Community Platform for Every Community Builder

Disco is the most complete community platform you can find on the web. This platform is a game-changer for anyone looking to build a thriving online learning community. It offers a suite of advanced features that are essential in modern learning platforms: automation, integration, customization, scalability, and affordability.

These features are designed to provide a comprehensive and transformative learning experience that caters to the needs of diverse online communities.

Intelligent Automation: Disco's intelligent automation feature enhances productivity by automating repetitive tasks. This feature allows community managers to save time and focus more on fostering engagement and delivering quality content. In short, it's like having Zapier inside your community app without paying for additional costs.

When you choose Disco as your platform, you're not just getting a community platform; you're getting a co-creator. You can generate text and images effortlessly when crafting your courses. Plus, there's a Disco AI co-pilot at your service, ready to answer member's queries based on your historical data.

Integration: Disco supports integration with third-party apps, including Slack, to enhance community engagement and improve user experience. This feature allows community members to connect and interact using their preferred apps, fostering a more inclusive and accessible learning environment.

Customization: Disco offers extensive customization options, including custom onboarding, customizable profiles, and groups. These features allow community managers to tailor the learning experience to the needs and preferences of their members, fostering a more personalized and engaging learning environment.

Scalability: With features like product offerings, discount codes, and analytics, Disco is designed to support the growth and scalability of online communities. These features allow community managers to monitor their growth, strategize effectively, and scale their communities to meet the needs of an expanding audience.

#2 Mighty Networks: Building Thriving Communities and Courses

Mighty Networks is a versatile platform that empowers creators to establish their unique communities, design and deliver engaging courses, and set up membership sites all under one roof. It provides a dedicated space where creators can combine their content, community, and commerce to create a thriving online hub.

In fact, Mighty Networks is not just a platform, it's a toolbox for creators. It's designed with the needs of the modern creator in mind, providing a suite of tools and features that are tailored to help creators build and manage their online communities.

From easy-to-use course creation tools to advanced community management features, Mighty Networks provides everything a creator needs to launch, manage, and grow their online community. And with its integrated commerce features, creators can easily monetize their content, selling courses, memberships, and products directly from their community.

This makes Mighty Networks a one-stop shop for creators looking to build and monetize their online communities.

Best Features:

• Offers a unified space for community, content, and commerce
• Provides tools for course creation and membership site management
• Enables direct communication and engagement with members
• Supports integration with other platforms and tools
• Offers customizable features for a unique community experience
• Provides analytics for better community management

Pricing Plans:

• Free trial plan available.
• The Community Plan, priced at $39 per month, offers a platform for building a community with features like native livestreaming, chat, memberships, events, and more, all on your own branded website.
• The Business Plan, priced at $119 per month, is designed for growing a business with your own community, online courses, memberships, and more. It includes all the features of the Community Plan, plus online courses, live cohort course creation, featured pages & events, analytics & member data, and Zapier APIs & workflows.

#3 Circle: Ideal for Personalized Member Experiences

Circle is a modern community platform that combines the best of forums, online courses, and membership sites, social media platform, all in one place. It's designed to help creators, educators, and businesses build engaged, vibrant online communities.

With its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options, and powerful integrations, Circle provides a flexible and robust platform for fostering meaningful connections and facilitating engaging discussions.

Best Features:

• Powerful discussion threads and direct messaging
• Extensive customization options for a unique community experience
• Seamless integration with other platforms and tools
• Secure admin controls for efficient community management
• Robust analytics for insightful community data

Pricing Plans:

• Free 14-day free trial available.
• Professional Plan ($99/month): Offers key community-building features, course hosting, live streams, unlimited members, and custom branding.
• Business Plan ($219/month): Includes Professional features plus workflows, API access, and email white-labeling.
• Enterprise Plan ($399/month): Provides full feature access, dedicated services, priority support, and lower transaction fees.

Dive deeper into Circle Alternatives before selecting this platform!

#4 Kajabi: Best for Creating and Selling Courses

Kajabi simplifies the process of creating and selling courses. Recognized for its user-friendly interface and cost-effectiveness, Kajabi is an all-in-one business platform designed to streamline course creation and provide a range of marketing tools. With its top features, Kajabi is capable of powering every aspect of knowledge-based businesses.

Some of its key features include:

• Seamless Course Management
• Digital Product Creation
• Customizable Website Builder
• Integrated Email Marketing
• Robust Sales Analytics
• Seamless Tool Integrations

Pricing Plans:

• Basic Plan ($149/month): Ideal for getting a business started, offering 0% transaction fee, three products and funnels, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, 10,000 contacts, 1,000 active customers, one website, and one admin user.
• Growth Plan ($199/month): Suitable for expanding business offerings and growing audience, it includes all Basic features plus an affiliate program, 24/7 chat support, advanced automation, and the ability to remove Kajabi branding.
• Pro Plan ($399/month): Designed for scaling businesses with advanced features, providing all Growth features and a custom code editor. It allows for 100 products and funnels, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, 100,000 contacts, 20,000 active customers, three websites, and 25 admin users.

Here's a meticulous review about Disco vs Kajabi!

#5 Teachable: Simplifying Online Course Selling

Teachable is a comprehensive platform geared towards simplifying the process of creating and selling online courses. Known for its user-friendly interface and cost-effectiveness, Teachable is designed to streamline every aspect of knowledge-based businesses.

It offers seamless course management, digital product creation, a customizable website builder, integrated email marketing, and robust sales analytics. Additionally, Teachable supports seamless tool integrations, making it a one-stop solution for educators, entrepreneurs, and businesses aiming to monetize their knowledge efficiently and effectively.

One of Teachable’s standout features is its support for direct online course selling. The platform offers a course builder with integrated marketing and selling features, allowing instructors to seamlessly create, market, and sell their courses. This simplifies the selling process, making it easier for instructors to reach their target audience and generate revenue.

In addition to its direct selling features, Teachable also offers a range of student management tools. These tools include:

• Course reports
• Student progress reports
• Student administration
• Student information management

These tools assist instructors in monitoring and overseeing their students’ learning progress, making it easier to track student performance, provide feedback, and issue course completion certificates.

Pricing Plans:

• Free Plan: Teachable offers a free plan that allows you to try out the platform and start earning before you pay. Although it's free, there's a $1 + 10% transaction fee. This plan includes features such as a no-code course builder, student referrals, and integrated payment processing.
• Basic Plan: Priced at $39/month (billed annually), this plan provides foundational tools and support to build your business. It includes all features from the Free plan, with a reduced transaction fee of 5%, and additional features like integrated email marketing, coupons, and custom domains.
• Pro Plan: For $119/month (billed annually), you get advanced tools and more support to help scale your business. The Pro plan eliminates transaction fees and offers features like affiliate marketing, live chat support, and public API access.
• Pro+ Plan: Designed for fast-growing businesses, this plan costs $199/month (billed annually) and offers more products and custom user roles. It includes all features from the Pro plan and allows for 200 courses, coaching products, digital downloads, and product bundles.

One significant downside to Teachable's pricing is the transaction fee, which can eat into your profits as your community grows. In contrast, Disco's pricing doesn't charge a transaction fee, making it a more cost-effective choice for growing online communities.

Want to learn more about Teachable? We've compared it with Disco vs Teachable.

#6 Podia: Prototyping and Testing Course Ideas

Podia is a dynamic platform that empowers creators to sell online courses, memberships, and digital products all in one place. With its user-friendly interface and comprehensive feature set, Podia simplifies the process of creating, marketing and selling digital products.

It offers a robust suite of tools, including a customizable storefront, email marketing capabilities, and a secure checkout experience. The platform also boasts a strong emphasis on customer support, with real-time assistance available to help creators navigate the platform and optimize their offerings.

Top features include:

• User-friendly interface for creating and selling digital products
• Customizable storefront to reflect your brand
• Email marketing capabilities for reaching and engaging your audience
• Secure checkout experience to ensure smooth transactions
• Real-time customer support to assist creators
• Community-building features for fostering an engaged audience
• Exclusive content, community chat, and comments for member engagement

Pricing Plans:

• Free Plan: Allows building of website, products, and community at no cost, with a 10% fee. Includes basic features like a full website, community, one download, one coaching product, draft courses, and draft webinars.
• Starter Plan: Priced at $9/month, it offers a custom domain and personalized website with an 8% fee. It carries the same features as the Free plan.
• Mover Plan: For $39/month, it allows the selling of online courses and other digital products. It has a 5% transaction fee and includes unlimited downloads, coaching, courses, and webinars.
• Shaker Plan: At $89/month for the first year, then $75, it provides advanced marketing features for business scaling. It has no transaction fees and includes unlimited downloads, coaching, courses, and webinars.

Disco Transforms Online Communities With its Modern OS for Community Builders

In conclusion, this article has explored the best alternatives to Skool for engaging in online learning in 2024. Each platform has its unique features and strengths and offers a more comprehensive learning management system, addressing the limitations of Skool and providing a fertile ground for growth, connection, and innovation in the realm of digital education.

Above all, Disco stands out as the only platform that ticks all the boxes of the criteria for a modern operating system in community-powered learning. As an award-winning software, Disco transforms online communities with its advanced features, fostering a more engaging and personalized learning environment.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to experience Disco's transformative power firsthand. Start with a 14-day free trial or book a demo with our team today and witness how Disco can revolutionize your online learning journey.