A learning management system (LMS) plugin turns WordPress into a course platform. It adds courses and lessons, tracks student progress, runs quizzes and controls who can see what. There are half a dozen serious options, and they differ more in business model and workflow than in raw features. Here’s how they compare, what seven of the free versions did in our hands-on tests, and which kind of site each one suits.
Quick picks
- Best all-in-one paid plugin: LearnDash
- Best free start, with memberships built in: LifterLMS
- Best for multiple instructors: Tutor LMS
- Best for WooCommerce stores: Sensei LMS
- Best if your theme is built for it: LearnPress or MasterStudy LMS
Side-by-side comparison
| Plugin | Made by | Free version | Pricing model | Selling courses | Stands out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LearnDash | Liquid Web | No | Annual license: three plans, from $259 a year | Built-in Stripe and PayPal, or WooCommerce | Mature quizzes, drip schedules, groups |
| LifterLMS | LifterLMS | Yes | Free core, paid add-ons and bundles | Manual payments free; Stripe, PayPal add-ons | Courses and memberships in one plugin |
| Tutor LMS | Themeum | Yes | Free core, paid Pro license | Built-in checkout or WooCommerce | Front-end course builder |
| Sensei LMS | Automattic | Yes | Free core, paid Sensei Pro | WooCommerce, via Sensei Pro | Built around the block editor |
| LearnPress | ThimPress | Yes | Free core, paid add-ons | Offline and PayPal built in; Stripe, WooCommerce add-ons | Bundled with many education themes |
| MasterStudy LMS | StylemixThemes | Yes | Free core, paid Pro license | Stripe, PayPal and offline built in; WooCommerce in Pro | Pairs with the MasterStudy theme |
| Masteriyo LMS | Masteriyo | Yes | Free core, paid yearly plans | Offline, PayPal and Stripe built in; WooCommerce add-on | Free certificates and checkout |
| FluentCommunity | WPManageNinja | Yes | Free core, paid Pro add-on | Through FluentCart, a separate free plugin | Courses inside a community |
Prices and plan contents change often, so treat each vendor’s own pricing page as the final word.
What the free versions did in our lab
We installed the free version of seven of these plugins on a local test site, built a short course, enrolled test students and took the quiz where there was one. LearnDash has no free version, and we haven’t tested it. The table shows what each free version includes and what we saw it do. Everything in it was seen in the lab, except the two cells marked “vendor says”.
| Plugin tested | Certificates | Online payments | A default to know about | Requests and cookies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tutor LMS 4.1.0 | No: Certificate is a Pro feature | PayPal and manual payments; other gateways need Pro | Quizzes need 80% to pass | Google Fonts on lesson, quiz and dashboard pages; first-visit tour images from Amazon’s servers |
| LifterLMS 10.2.1 | Yes, in the core plugin: an engagement we set up awarded one when the student finished the course | Manual payments only; Stripe and PayPal are paid add-ons | The certificate printed the username, not the student’s name | Not checked in this test |
| Sensei LMS 4.26.4 | Yes, with the free Sensei LMS Certificates add-on (a PDF) | None: selling needs Sensei Pro and WooCommerce (vendor says, October 20, 2026) | Quizzes wait for a teacher to grade them by hand | Google Fonts on lesson and quiz pages; a short code snippet removed them |
| LearnPress 4.4.13 | No: Certificates is a $39 add-on (vendor says, November 3, 2026) | Offline payments; PayPal Standard listed, off by default | Courses show an expiry date 10 weeks after enrollment, and a finished student was locked out of the lessons | No Google Fonts; a cookie for every logged-out visitor on every page, which a setting turned off |
| MasterStudy 3.7.58 | No: the Certificate Builder is locked as Pro | Stripe, PayPal, wire transfer and offline listed in the settings, all off by default | The passing grade is empty, and a 0% answer was stored as passed | No Google Fonts; a 900-day cookie on every course page |
| Masteriyo 3.5.1 | Yes, with the free Certificate Builder add-on; a student who failed the quiz was offered it too | Offline, PayPal, Stripe, Mollie and Lemon Squeezy listed in the settings, all off by default | A new free course is open to guests, and a quiz added from the builder had no pass mark until we saved its settings | No cookies on ordinary pages; a math script from a public CDN on lesson pages for signed-in students |
| FluentCommunity 2.13.0 | None offered in our test; quizzes are locked as Pro too | None built in: selling goes through the separate free FluentCart plugin, whose checkout we couldn’t test | The member list and profiles are open to logged-out visitors, and a paywall didn’t lock a Public course | No cookies for visitors; profile pictures from Gravatar, which a setting turned off |
Watch out for: none of these defaults appears in a feature list. Before your first students enroll, check the quiz passing grade, how long course access lasts and the name on the certificate. If your privacy policy promises no outside requests, Tutor LMS and Sensei LMS need a small code change for their fonts, and the LearnPress and MasterStudy cookies may need a mention in your privacy notice. Each review below shows the details and the fixes we tried.
Choosing between the big three? Our LearnDash vs LifterLMS vs Tutor LMS comparison adds three-year costs and what each free version really includes.
LearnDash
LearnDash is the long-standing premium choice. There is no free version, but nearly everything a course business needs is in the one plugin: a drag-and-drop course builder, quizzes with many question types, lessons that unlock on a schedule, certificates, and groups that suit schools and company training. It takes payments through Stripe and PayPal out of the box and also works with WooCommerce and membership plugins.
Watch out for: the yearly renewal you need to keep updates and support. On October 4, 2026 the plans were Essentials ($259 a year), Pro ($399) and Elite ($599).
Best for: anyone selling courses as a business who wants one mature, well-supported plugin.
LifterLMS
LifterLMS gives you a capable LMS for free: courses, lessons, quizzes, drip content, certificates and memberships are all in the core plugin. Its business model is add-ons: payment gateways, email marketing integrations and advanced features are sold separately or in bundles.
Watch out for: taking card payments online needs a paid add-on, so price the add-ons before you commit.
Best for: creators who want courses and a membership site together, starting without upfront cost.
Tested: we built, sold and completed a course with the free version, certificate included. Read our hands-on LifterLMS review.
Tutor LMS
Tutor LMS, from Themeum, is known for its front-end course builder: instructors create and edit courses without going into the WordPress admin. That makes it a natural fit for sites with several teachers, including marketplaces where instructors earn a share of each sale. The free version is generous; Pro adds features such as certificates, content drip and live-class integrations like Zoom and Google Meet.
Watch out for: check which of the features you need are Pro-only before you build on the free version.
Best for: multi-instructor sites, and anyone who wants a polished student and instructor area without extra work.
Tested: we built, sold and completed a course with the free version. Read our hands-on Tutor LMS review.
Sensei LMS
Sensei LMS comes from Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and WooCommerce. Courses and lessons are built with blocks in the normal editor, so it feels native if you already use the block editor. The free plugin covers courses, lessons and quizzes; Sensei Pro adds selling through WooCommerce, content drip and more.
Watch out for: selling courses needs both WooCommerce and Sensei Pro.
Best for: sites already running WooCommerce, and anyone who wants an LMS that closely follows WordPress’s own design.
Tested: we built and completed a course with the free version, including its quiz grading and certificates. Read our hands-on Sensei LMS review.
LearnPress and MasterStudy LMS
Both are free plugins from theme companies, ThimPress and StylemixThemes, and both power best-selling education themes: Eduma is built on LearnPress, and the MasterStudy theme on MasterStudy LMS. If you buy one of those themes, using its matching LMS is the path of least resistance.
Watch out for: lock-in. The theme, the LMS and their add-ons are designed around each other, which can make it harder to change one piece later.
Best for: people who want a complete, ready-made academy design on day one.
Tested: we built, sold and finished a course with free LearnPress, including its offline payments and the course defaults to change. Read our hands-on LearnPress review.
Tested: we built, sold and finished a course with free MasterStudy LMS too, including its offline payments and a quiz default to fix. Read our hands-on MasterStudy LMS review.
Masteriyo LMS
Masteriyo is a newer free plugin with paid yearly plans. Its free version is unusually complete: a tidy course builder, a full-screen learning page, its own checkout with offline payment, PayPal and Stripe, and a free certificate add-on with one template.
Watch out for: the defaults. In our test a new free course was open to visitors without an account, a quickly added quiz had no pass mark until we saved its settings, and a student who failed the quiz still finished the course and was offered the certificate.
Best for: free and low-cost courses where the quiz is a self-check, and anyone who wants certificates and a checkout without paying for a license.
Tested: we built, sold and finished a course with free Masteriyo LMS, including its certificates and the defaults to check. Read our hands-on Masteriyo LMS review.
FluentCommunity
FluentCommunity is a community plugin first: discussion spaces, member profiles and a feed in a portal on the front of your site, with a course module built in. In our test the free version built and ran a course, with comments under each lesson and sections that unlock a set number of days after enrollment.
Watch out for: what’s missing and what’s open. Quizzes were locked as Pro and no certificate was offered. The member list and profiles were visible to logged-out visitors until we changed the privacy settings, and a price attached to a Public course didn’t stop free enrollment.
Best for: coaches and creators who want a community around their lessons more than graded courses.
Tested: we built and completed a course with free FluentCommunity, including its drip schedule, paywall setup and privacy defaults. Read our hands-on FluentCommunity review.
How to choose
- Will you sell, and how? One-off course sales, subscriptions and memberships each favor different plugins.
- One instructor or many? Several teachers point toward Tutor LMS, or another plugin with strong instructor roles.
- Who are the students? Public learners need a smooth checkout; a school or company needs groups, admin-managed enrollment and reporting. Our guide to the best LMS for small schools tests what schools need, and our guide to the best LMS for a coaching business tests payment plans and 1:1 booking.
- What’s the real budget? Add up the license plus every add-on you’ll actually use, every year.
- Does your theme support it? Look for named support for your LMS in the theme’s documentation. Our education themes guide lists themes that do.
Don’t forget hosting
Course sites are mostly logged-in traffic, so page caching helps far less than it does on a blog. Choose hosting with enough PHP workers and object caching for the number of students you expect online at the same time, and test lesson pages while logged in, not just the home page.
Once you’ve picked a plugin, our step-by-step guide to selling courses on WordPress covers the rest of the build, from hosting to launch.
FAQ
What’s the best free LMS plugin for WordPress?
For most sites, LifterLMS or Tutor LMS. Both have capable free versions. Choose LifterLMS if memberships matter, and Tutor LMS if you want instructors to build courses from the front end. Of the seven free versions we tested, LifterLMS was the only one with certificates in the core plugin; Sensei LMS and Masteriyo LMS add them with a free add-on.
Do I need WooCommerce to sell courses?
No. LearnDash and Tutor LMS can take payments without it, and LifterLMS uses its own gateway add-ons. Sensei LMS is the one that sells through WooCommerce.
What happened to CoursePress Pro?
WPMU DEV retired it. See CoursePress Pro alternatives for where to move and how to migrate.