Best WordPress LMS Themes Compared

When searching for the best LMS WordPress themes, you might not even suspect that you in the first place choose among plugins.

It’s a common practice to distribute an LMS WP theme with a plugin, the former won’t be so attractive to prospects (you) otherwise.

There is a handful of learning management system LMS plugins for WordPress dedicated to creating an online learning website, some are better optimized for the realities of the online tutoring business, others are not that gam-packed with features.

A plugin is what makes you add a course material, organize lessons, add tutors, configure user registration, tailor gamification features, assign homework, and set up monetization options, while a theme is what makes it all look eye-pleasing and professional.

This also leads us to understanding that if there are some extra charges, those most likely will relate to the functionality (plugin), so make sure to pay heed to the plugin’s features and pricing model.

As for WP learning management system theme design, you want to notice whether its layout is optimized for one course or multiple courses, how it deals with the course details output, how intuitive the overall site browsing experience is, whether it is fast and, of course, whether it suits your brand identity and how far you can customize it (e.g. change colors, fonts, remove or add custom blocks).

Let’s now take a quick look at the criteria we based our comparison table of the best LMS WordPress themes on.

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Customization

As for the customization needs, the native WordPress Gutenberg block editor and Elementor are usually the top choices that provide literally endless editing abilities and will definitely be there for WordPress for years to come.

LMS WordPress

There is no point in comparing LMS features like what kind of files you can add since you may need different combinations of scenarios and features – in this case, you should better search for the LMS plugins comparison. So we are just listing a plugin’s name with a theme.

Monetization

See what payment options are available and whether you need to pay for them.

WooCommerce integration

This criterion is also about monetization. In addition to helping you connect any local payment gateways, WooCommerce can also bring recurring payments (course subscription) to the table without extra tech skills. Best WP LMS themes are usually WooCommerce-compatible while LMS plugins can either offer this advantage for free or for a fee.

Translations

Quality best WordPress lms themes and plugins can be easily translated with WordPress translation and multilingual plugins. But isn’t it so much easier when the product is already localized into your language? So you can just click a button in your WordPress language settings and switch the site to your language right away.

Sometimes theme providers only state their tested compatibility with translation plugins.

Best WordPress LMS Themes Comparison Table

Let’s help you choose the best lms theme for WordPress.

*Prices are subject to change

Best LMS Themes for WordPress Reviewed

Let’s now focus on some pros and cons of the best WordPress LMS themes.

1. Masterstudy – WordPress Education Theme

Masterstudy is one of the top-rated solutions for creating an online course website, it’s been around for 6+ years and is loved by thousands of people and businesses.

Since this WordPress LMS theme ships with the demos created for different real-life purposes (for one and multiple instructors, schools, course hubs, languages schools, etc.), I believe it can perfectly suit the needs of agencies and studios that build sites for clients.

Among the pros of this theme is that it relies on its own course builder solution, The MasterStudy plugin, which is a good practice since you get two tools crafted by one team.

The plugin looks like quite a powerful solution with tons of integrations for Zoom, SCORM, BuddyPress for communicating, and top-used page builders.

It’s possible to add different content to lessons, including videos, graphs, images, slideshows, pdfs, etc. You can add lessons to the courses and break them down into groups. Certificates, the student progress, rewards, trial lessons and the rest of the essentials for online education are packed with the course builder.

I also like that the theme doesn’t force you to buy any extra addons and delivers all the essentials in one pack.

Pros:

• • • Mobile LMS App for iOS & Android
    • Native course builder plugin
    • Live demo to test the course builder features
    • Tons of course styles
    • All essential LMS WP theme course options
    • Analytics and stats system
    • Regularly updated.

Cons:

• • • Not optimized for the native WordPress block editor.

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2. Guru – Learning Management WordPress Theme

Although Guru is advertised as a multipurpose education solution, it’s also considered to be a time-tested learning management system theme for WordPress.

Since this theme is powered by the Sensei plugin for WP learning management system, a free WooCommerce-based plugin, you are free to create fully-featured courses using multiple essential features: course assessment tools, instructor profiles, course details, duration, etc. as well as add cross-sale features as related courses, course news and events.

WooCommerce reliance is probably the best thing about Sensei, since it gives you a seamless connection with one of the most powerful ecommerce plugins.

It integrates with many popular WordPress plugins to allow forums for communications, mega menu and numerous built-in options.

Pros:

• • • Professional Sensei LMS plugin and the ecosystem of WooCommerce addons for Sensei
    • The vast majority of Sensei LMS addons are free
    • A lot of custom widgets and settings sourced by the theme
    • Works well with translation plugins.

Cons: 

• • • Too much reliance on the WPBakery plugin
    • Slightly outdated design.

3. WPLMS – Education Theme for WordPress

WPLMS is an outstanding LMS and education WordPress theme suitable for both one-instructor websites and multi-course ones.

Just like Masterstudy, the creators of this theme also choose to rely on their native LMS engine and app which looks like quite a powerful solution that measures up to the popular LMS plugins.

The theme and a built-in LMS plugin offer a very though-out course creation and distribution engine, with tons of industry-standard features: content editor, content dripping, tons of quizzes, timelines, certificates, gamification, monthly, yearly, weekly price for courses, Zoom integrations and more.

If you are on Zapier for email marketing, this is also going to be a rewarding solution because it integrates with this marketing tool smoothly. All in all, this LMS theme for WordPress looks like an unbeatable solution when it comes to flexibility – it’s most chock-full of integrations and features you can only think of.

Pros:

• • • Mobile app
    • Smooth integration with WooCommerce membership features
    • Multiple designs to choose from for the most popular builders
    • Built on trusted PWA technologies for BuddyPress
    • Translate it with Loco Translate and WPML
    • Well-documented, extendable, regularly updated.

Cons:

• • • Not optimized for third-party LMS plugins.

4. Eduma – Education WordPress Theme

If you need a time-tested and good-looking WordPress LMS theme, Eduma fits this request pretty well. It’s very diverse in terms of design and theme/content customization capabilities.

Although LearnPress (the theme is powered by) is a very popular plugin, its pricing model is not that budget-oriented: you are required to pay extra each time you need an addon like Stripe integration or content dripping features. The theme creators are actually also the LearnPress plugin creators, so you get a well-optimized solution from one team.

But the good news is that with Eduma you get a bundle of all addons at once at no extra cost, which right away opens up numerous opportunities in building education websites.

Dozens of supporting elements are also there – functioning mega menus, sliders and a whole list of other plugins you probably won’t find in other best WordPress lms themes.

Pros:

• • • Multiple tools to customize the theme: WP customizer, custom widgets, such as testimonials, carousels; many drag-and-drop ways to edit the theme visually, etc.
    • Integrations with bbPress, WooCommerce, Mailchimp, Paid Membership Pro, etc.
    • Many pre-designed skins with the demo data, including children’s educational institutions
    • Bundle of essential addons for LearnPress LMS included.

Cons:

• • • Didn’t find.

5. LMS WordPress Theme

With the LMS WordPress Theme, you are empowered to create an LMS marketplace, and training and teaching hubs of all sorts, with any number of students.

Demo designs are also worth taking a look since they are very much optimized for the modern educational institutions that seek to create a professional brand identity on the internet.

This WordPress LMS theme offers two different ways to create a course (you’ll need to choose) – the default one based on the s3member plugin, with integrated payment gateways and membership options, and the Sensei plugin for creating and managing courses, which enables a special connection to WooCommerce (namely, you get tons of tools).

Each of these ways has its pros and cons, for example, with Sensei, you’ll need to buy extra addons for payment gateways and other options.

Pros:

• • • Integrates with Google Classroom and Zoom
    • Pre-made portfolios and course pages
    • Many page layout options
    • Several options to create a course
    • WPML, Events Calendar, Mega Menu, BuddyPress support
    • Ships with the bundle of top names, such as Slider Revolution
    • Membership features with Buy Now and Subscriptions and PayPal integration.

Cons:

• • • No Gutenberg optimized layouts.

6. CorpTrain – Course Builder WordPress Theme

The LearnPress-based theme, CorpTrain is a multipurpose WordPress theme suitable for creating courses as well as landing pages for schools, universities and kindergartens. It also stresses its suitability for corporate training websites (there is a specific demo for this purpose).

If you plan to launch an online education website, this theme allows you to go with one or also multiple courses – the demos are well optimized for both scenarios.

For an extra fee, you can integrate the Paid Membership plugin and sell memberships. The theme comes with LearnPress Premium add-ons Bundle included, saving you a good sum of money.

The course view thanks to the LearnPress plugin is very structured and feature-rich, and resembles popular education sites like Udemy. A polished user-focused learning experience is guaranteed.

Thanks to the extra integrated tools, you can also sell tickets to events.

Pros:

• • • A range of course-related features by LearnPress
    • Great design choice with the one-click demo data import
    • A pack of premium essential addons for LearnPress bundled
    • Event management and BuddyPress forum support.

Cons:

• • • No designs crafted with Elementor or the block editor.

7. Efor – Coaching & Online Courses WordPress Theme

Efor is a great online learning and LMS theme. What strikes you first is sleek, modern and truly creative design patterns crafted with Elementor.

It’s in the first place made for coaching and training sites so that LMS is not of its top priority.

The theme doesn’t offer any LMS plugin by default, but it’s optimized (ready to be integrated with) LearnPress or TutorLMS plugins. I believe it’s best suited for personal coaching or consulting websites with optional membership or training features.

It’s also tempting to use this theme because, in addition to awesome designs, it comes with a free bundle of addons for Elementor.

Pros:

• • • Powerful and exclusive live customizer
    • JetElements for Elementor included for free (enables you to add numerous content widgets with Elementor)
    • Marketing pop-ups functionality included.

Cons:

• • • The theme is not packed with any LMS plugin by default.

8. Kingster – LMS WordPress Themes

Kingster is the theme you need for a fully-featured LMS website on WordPress. It comes with many course-optimized pages and fantastic support for all things online education.

The theme customization options are based on their own GoodLayers page builder that provides tons of smooth and creative content modules you can customize the way you need.

Unlike some other LearnPress-based themes, Kingster is powered by the completely free plugin version and you need to get all the essential course builder features via premium addons.

Pros:

• • • 6 design demos, including for online LMS by LearnPress
    • Multiple header styles
    • Easy demo importer.

Cons:

• • • To take full advantage of the LearnPress plugin, you need to purchase extra addons
    • Not optimized for popular page builders.

9. Edumodo – LMS Education WP Theme

This LMS and education WordPress theme is looking to outperform competitors by offering smooth out-of-the-box integration with the entire list of the most used WordPress LMS plugins: LearnPress, Tutor, LifterLMS, Sensei & LearnDash – so that you can import demo data with any of these plugins in a few clicks.

In addition to dedicated WordPress LMS plugins, the theme can also boast a good range of extra integrations for creating events, connecting email automation tools.

Pros:

• • • Numerous customization tools and homepage layouts
    • Seamless BuddyPress support
    • SliderRevolution, Events Calendar and Mailchimp supported.

Cons:

• • • No Gutenberg-ready designs.

10. Skilled – School Education Courses WordPress Theme

Skilled is a great LMS WP theme with many demo designs and course-optimized pages. It’ll help you create a site to sell courses just like Udemy, Coursera, Lynda, or Codeacademy.

Since it’s based on the Sensei plugin for the course building needs, you can bend your site in any direction, but some essential features need to be purchased separately via addons for Sensei.

Pros:

• • • Many premium plugins bundled for free, including Timetable, LayerSlider and Ultimate addons
    • Demo content
    • Header and footer builder, MegaMenu.

Cons:

• • • Not optimized for the block editor.

11. Edme – Education Tutor Booking WordPress theme

The Edme theme offers a slightly different approach to how you can build a course website. It’s not based on any LMS plugin, but comes with ready-made design patterns for presenting the course structure, plus the appointment booking plugin to enable students to book a lesson.

With this in mind, you can employ Edme for personal online or offline teaching practice, when students book a lesson or consultation for a particular time and date.

Thanks to Elementor the theme is crafted with, there is also a sample directory of courses which means you can easily create several different courses with different instructors. The premium booking plugin, MotoPress Appointments booking, for lesson and tutor appointments is packed for free with Edme.

Pros:

• • • Stylish course structure and course directory design
    • Lightweight theme, not overloaded with tons of features
    • Easy payment processing (Stripe, PayPal, wire transfer, after-arrival payment)
    • Premium booking plugin integrated for free.

Cons:

• • • No LMS integration.

Open the Edme WordPress booking theme demo.

12. Eikra – Education WordPress Theme

Eikra is an education and LMS WordPress theme with all the integrations you can think of. The theme is based on LearnPress and ships with many designs created for this plugin, including course, instructor and other pages.

The theme itself also offers awesome 12 single and multi-page home page demos, with clean and contemporary layouts suitable for schools, consulting centers, and online education projects. Owning to the pre-built custom addons, you are also free to extend and personalize these pages even more.

However, since most of the addons for LearnPress are paid, make sure to check it out how much more you need to spend on the needed integrations.

Pros:

• • • Truly multipurpose theme in terms of design
    • Support for WooCommerce, Zoom, Redux and WPML
    • One-click demo installer for LMS WordPress themes.

Cons:

• • • The theme is packed with a free LMS plugin which requires buying extra paid addons for the essential course building needs.

13. MaxCoach – Online Courses WP Theme

If you’re looking for a modern and fresh look for your online learning or coaching website, MaxCoach has all you need in terms of design and functionality. It’s also powered by the LearnPress plugin and ships with tons of pre-made designs for educational homepages as well as plugin-optimized course pages.

To give you more payment options with LearnPress for the course monetization, the theme creators also packed Stripe integration, which otherwise needs to be purchased separately.

There are also exclusive templates dedicated to gym and health coaching sites. Thanks to some extra integrations, you can improve the WooCommerce capabilities, create and organize events and more.

Pros:

• • • Tested to be very fast-loading
    • Sleek and clean modern designs, including for narrow niches
    • One-click demo import features
    • WP Events Manager and WooCommerce supported.

Cons:

• • • You might need to buy extra addons to extend LearnPress.

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14. Elumine – LMS WordPress Theme

This theme comes bundled with the LearnDash LMS plugin, which is an awesome all-around course builder solution. All the theme designs are created in accordance with the plugin’s functionalities.

It’s also probably one of the most flexible WP LMS themes in terms of supporting different page builders. The pricing model is tiered – you can choose a plan which suits your needs, they differ based on the LearnDash features offered. Each of the plans, however, is more expensive than those of competitors.

BuddyPress and BBPress forums are integrated for better communication with your students.

Pros:

• • • Smooth integration with LearnDash
    • Good accents of forums
    • Several niche demos
    • Exclusive support and help offers
    • Plugin and theme created by one company.

Cons:

• • • Lacks Gutenberg compatibility
    • Comparatively expensive.

15. LMStudy – Education LMS WooCommerce Theme

This theme is rather a very traditional one among other best WordPress lms themes – the education design it offers has a rather classy vibe and the course builder tools are by LearnPress. It’s perfect for schools and online courses.

This education and LMS theme for WordPress is built with a basic version of LearnPress, which means you’ll need to integrate other tools for a fee.

Pros:

• • • Tons of custom settings to tune the theme
    • In-built Google Analytics
    • Support for Slider Revolution, WPBakery, Essential Grid and WooCommerce.

Cons:

• • • Not optimized for Gutenberg
    • No support for Elementor.

Final word on the best WordPress LMS themes

We know that it’s hard to find a perfectly suitable solution. But at least I hope we’ve helped you narrow down your search for the best LMS theme for WordPress and notice some similarities and differences in the templates offered so far. If you have questions or any experience to share on the LMS WordPress themes, don’t hesitate to leave a comment!