When you’re creating an e-Learning site (or any type of site), choosing the right online course theme becomes a very important part of the process. With the right theme, your site looks and feels professional and also trustworthy.
The user experience of your visitors also depends to a large extent on your theme. This becomes even more important while building an online course platform because your visitors are going to be learners and students who’ll spend a lot of time on your site.
However, choosing the right e-Learning theme is easier said than done. There are literally hundreds of thousands of online course themes available in the WordPress ecosystem, and finding the right one that’s also compatible with your Learning Management System (LMS) is not easy.
But we’re going to make it easy for you. In this article, we will be talking about the best online course themes for WordPress. Make sure that you choose the online course theme that is compatible with your WordPress LMS!
1. eLumine
Developed by WisdmLabs, eLumine is a versatile LearnDash theme that has every feature that you may need to create your WordPress site.
It has default grid layouts, focus mode, multilingual support, easy demo import, and multiple layouts for the homepage, shop page as well as course pages.
eLumine also offers Neo layouts that hugely improve the look and aesthetic of LearnDash pages, creating a better UX and distraction-free design, which can significantly increase student engagement.
For the serious course builders, eLumine is bundled with a bunch of premium extensions (i.e. Instructor Role, Quiz Reporting, Group Registrations, etc.) in the LearnDash Essential Add-ons Pack that can significantly increase the simplicity of student enrollment and course management in your site. In addition, in its latest update, the eLumine theme has introduced super-fast page load times, making it one of the fastest e-Learning themes available for LearnDash.
eLumine licenses start at $100.
2. WordPress LMS Theme
If you are an academician and looking for an easy way to share your knowledge with others, LMS theme is your option. It is a responsive and multipurpose eLearning theme for WordPress specially designed for teachers, instructors, and coaches.
The user-friendly theme lets you conduct online courses, webinars, and quizzes with just a few clicks. No coding knowledge required to use the theme. You can manage the learning system, create students group for better attention, and reward the students to increase their level of motivation. There are features to communicate with each learner individually.
WordPress LMS Theme is SEO-friendly, translation ready and it supports all modern browsers.
The price starts at $23.
3. Astra Pro
The next best theme for LearnDash is Astra Pro. It’s one of the most popular multipurpose themes, and it integrates amazingly well with LearnDash too. In fact, it has got a separate settings panel for LearnDash integration. And since it’s not just a theme but also a page builder, its customization capabilities are huge. There’s hardly any theme in the WordPress ecosystem that’s as versatile and customizable as this one.
However, this customization also comes with a learning curve – you’ll have to spend a considerable amount of time to learn your way around it. Another drawback is that Astra is essentially a multipurpose theme, so all of its features are not designed solely as per the requirements of e-Learning sites.
The price of Astra Pro starts from $59. It also has a free version, but that version doesn’t come with a dedicated LearnDash settings panel so the integration isn’t as good as it can be in Astra Pro.
4. BuddyBoss theme for LearnDash
The fourth popular LearnDash theme in our list is the BuddyBoss theme for LearnDash.
Developed by the team behind BuddyPress, it’s a theme that can be best used when you want to create a community of learners by combining forums, groups, and other social features, and not just a simple learning site. If you want to implement these features, you’ll certainly need BuddyPress. And that’s when you can utilize the most of this theme because its features have been designed to integrate amazingly with BuddyPress.
The pricing of BuddyBoss for LearnDash starts from $228.
If you are confused as to which LearnDash theme you should choose, you can try comparing eLumine, Astra, and BuddyBoss to see which suits your requirements best.
5. LifterLMS LaunchPad
As its name suggests, it’s an online course theme developed by the developers of LifterLMS itself, so it works only with LifterLMS.
As far as its features are concerned, it comes with a complete set of customization options that allow you to change almost every aspect of your site’s design. It also comes with Google fonts integration, which means you can use almost any type of fonts on your site.
If you like it then you can purchase LifterLMS Launchpad for $99.99.
6. OceanWP
It’s very rare to find a free theme having as many features as OceanWP, including compatibility with LifterLMS. With more than 2.7 million downloads, it’s one of the most popular and fastest-growing themes in the entire WordPress theme universe.
Completely SEO-ready code, fast-loading pages, and multilingual support with RTL are a few of its major features. You can see the demo of a learning site created with it here.
OceanWP is a free theme.
7. Neve
Developed by ThemeIsle, Neve is a highly versatile theme that is still being developed actively with new features being added every few weeks. Built with a mobile-first approach, it’s a very fast and lightweight theme having compatibility with most popular page builders so you can design the pages of your e-Learning site as you wish.
It also has many demo sites aimed at e-Learning (like this one) that you can import to set up your site quickly.
Though it’s also available as a free download, if you want to maximize the features and benefits then you can get a paid version of Neve for $47.
8. Education WP (Eduma)
Eduma is built for the LearnPress LMS plugin. It’s evident from the name of this theme that it has been created while keeping education in mind. Therefore, it’s natural that it has got some features that are especially useful for e-Learning sites.
For example, it comes with specially designed pages for individual lessons, a pack of add-ons aimed at improving the learning experience of your site, and more than 20 demos – all of them based on various types of university or learning sites.
Since it has been developed by the developers of LearnPress, it’s natural that it goes very well with it.
You can purchase Eduma for $69.
9. Coaching WP
Another theme developed by the team behind LearnPress, Coaching WP comes with multiple header layouts, one-click demo importer, parallax effect, drag and drop page builder, Fancy Events plugin, Revolution Slider plugin (worth $18), Google Fonts integration and SEO optimized code – pretty much everything that you would want to see in a modern theme.
If you don’t like Eduma and its demos, maybe Coaching WP can fulfill your needs. The price of this theme is $59.
10. Language School
Though its name is Language School, it doesn’t mean that you can’t use it for creating a site that teaches something else.
It’s a fantastic theme with many unique features that can be used to create an e-Learning site of any type. Some of its unique features include the ability to save content parts as templates that can be reused on other pages easily, 4 unique layouts, section options to group your content in various sections, and a custom form builder.
Language School is priced at $49.
11. Skilled
Skilled is designed for Sensei users and comes with many paid plugins that would otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars. It supports all Sensei features like Course Progress widget, course analytics, quiz grading, a question bank, etc.
The plugins that come free with it include Contact Form 7, Event Calendar and WooCommerce, so you don’t need to purchase any of them separately.
You can check the various demo sites created with it on this page; Skilled is priced at $60.
12. Guru
The specialty of this theme is that it not only supports Sensei but also BuddyPress and BBPress, which means that if you want to build a community of learners on your site, there won’t be a problem with this theme. You’ll be able to add forums, groups, messaging, and other social features easily.
Other features include an in-built page builder, WPML ready code, an event calendar, quiz grading system, course analytics support, and much more than that.
The price of the Guru theme is set at $60, and its demos are available here.
13. WPLMS
WPLMS is not just a theme but an entire Social Learning Management System.
There is a lot of stuff that differentiates it from other themes in the league – there’s activity tracking, which allows you to see what your students are doing in your courses; course directories that can be added to your site and searched by your students on the basis of various filters; a front-end course creator for your instructors and also easy course management from the front-end itself.
You can get WPLMS for $75.
14. University
University is one of the most popular eLearning themes, compatible with various LMS plugins, including WP Courseware. In-built page builder, bbPress support, event management, course management, and a built-in calendar are some of the major features of this popular WordPress theme. It comes with the Slider Revolution plugin included, which you can use to build great slider animations for your homepage.
It also includes an easy demo importer that you can use to import any of its 7 demo sites to easily set up your own site.
The price of the University theme is $49.
15. Invent
Invent is among those online course themes which are still being developed actively with new features being added on a regular basis.
It comes with more than 30 different page builder elements, 16+ different widgets, 60+ shortcodes that can be used to easily customize almost every element of your site, and child theme support. It also comes with a shortcode builder of its own, which you can use to generate shortcodes for various purposes.
Invent is priced at $59.
16. Course Builder Kit (CBKit)
According to its developers, Course Builder Kit – previously known as Course Builder LMS theme – has been trusted by more than 20,000 instructors worldwide, with good reason.
CB Kit comes with 6 different demos, all of them aimed at various types of e-Learning sites, drag and drop course builder, support for 5 different payment gateways, and multiple beautiful layout options along with a powerful customizer.
The price of the Course Builder Kit theme is $64.
Wrapping up: How to select the right online course theme?
Choosing the right theme for your e-Learning site is not difficult if you know the right factors to look for.
You should look for the loading speed, compatibility with your LMS, SEO optimization features, easy demo import functionality, and support quality of developers while selecting your theme. And that’s precisely how we selected these themes for our list. You too can choose one for yourself from this list by comparing the shortlisted themes on these parameters.
So what are you waiting for? Just select your theme, set it up, and share your experience with it in the comments. We’d love to hear your feedback!
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