Start with the phone in your members’ hands
Most alternatives pages begin with features. For Mighty Networks the better opening is simpler. Do your members need an app?
Mighty Networks is known for native mobile apps alongside its community and courses. If your audience lives on their phones, checks in daily and expects a notification and an icon, that matters more than any quiz type or certificate. Check mightynetworks.com for what apps come with each plan, since that changes.
If the honest answer is “a mobile browser would do”, the field opens up. If the answer is “they need an app”, read the rest of this page as a way to see what you would be giving up.
The field, split by what you want to keep
People leave a hosted network for different reasons, and each one points somewhere different.
Some want the same shape with a different feel, and that is another hosted community: Circle or Skool. Some want the courses taken more seriously, which suggests a course platform such as Thinkific, Teachable or Kajabi, each with its own community options to check. And some want to own the thing, which is the WordPress route.
The WordPress route answers two questions with two products. The course side is an LMS plugin. The community side is a separate plugin. You pick each and they share a login, a theme and a database.
What the course side gives you
If depth is why you are looking, here is what to weigh.
The free Learnomy plugin has courses with sections and lessons, seven lesson content types, and quizzes with six question types and two layouts. Certificates come with a public verification page. You can sell with built-in Stripe and PayPal checkout, memberships both one-time and recurring, and coupons, with no platform cut. Bulk enrolment by pasted emails or CSV, invite-only courses and an incoming enrolment webhook cover the cases where sales happen elsewhere.
Pro adds the programme tools: scheduled drip with a rule on each lesson, cohorts, learning paths, assignments, a gradebook, analytics with exports, SCORM, xAPI, H5P through the official H5P plugin, Learning Spaces with seat packs, AI authoring, a front-end course builder and Open Badges 3.0. The free versus Pro page lists what sits where, and the content drip docs show the release rules.
For a library members dip into rather than a programme they follow, see the membership content library.
Building the Mighty-shaped setup on WordPress
Here is how the community side comes together without a single hosted network. The plugins come from the same team, run on one WordPress site and share one login. They are separate, and you add only the ones you want.
BuddyNext is the community plugin. The free version gives you an activity feed, spaces (groups), member profiles and a member directory. BuddyNext Pro adds paid membership plans, realtime updates, web push and AI moderation, each switched off until you set it up. WPMediaVerse supplies messaging. WB Gamification supplies points, badges and leaderboards.
When BuddyNext Pro and Learnomy are both active, they connect in four ways:
- An enrolled student can be added to the course’s community space automatically, and removed when the enrolment ends if BuddyNext created that space.
- A Learnomy Pro cohort can be linked to a space.
- A course completion or an earned certificate posts a card to the student’s profile and the community feed.
- A community membership plan can enrol the buyer in chosen courses, and it removes that access when the plan ends.
That last one is the nearest thing to what a hosted network does when one subscription opens everything. It takes setup, but it works on your own domain.
Jetonomy adds discussion and Q&A forums with accepted answers; see Jetonomy. Eventonomy adds events with RSVP and capacity. The themes BuddyX Pro and Reign style course and student pages as part of a community site; see BuddyX Pro and Reign.
The trade is plain. This is several plugins that you install, host and update, where Mighty Networks is a single hosted product. And there is no native app at the end of it. BuddyNext Pro does have web push for browsers, and the REST API gives a developer something to build an app on, but neither is an app you can hand to members today. For the community side of the comparison, see BuddyNext vs Mighty Networks.
What members can install instead
A native app is not the only way to get an icon on a phone. Learnomy has an installable web app mode in the free plugin. When you switch on its module, it adds a web app manifest and a service worker, so a supported browser offers to put the site on the home screen, where it opens in its own window. The interface keeps rendering without a connection, an offline banner tells the student where they stand, and lessons marked complete while offline are queued and sent when the connection returns. Our own notes still label this mode beta.
There are limits. It is off by default. It is not in any app store, so it has no store listing, no store search and no native notification badge. Push messages come from BuddyNext Pro as web push, which works in supported browsers. And a browser allows only one service worker per site, so when BuddyNext is active it takes over the app role and Learnomy steps aside. The PWA docs describe the handover.
If you need a true store app, a developer can build one on the REST API with WordPress Application Passwords. That is a project, with its own store review and its own cost.
Library or programme, decide first
Members use a network in two different ways, and the course tools you need depend on which. A library is a shelf: members dip in when a topic comes up and nothing is timed. A programme is a path: a start, an order and a finish. A library needs good search, tidy categories and a membership that opens it. A programme needs pacing, so in the free plugin you can give each lesson an Available date, and in Pro you can release lessons days after enrolment, on a fixed date or after a prerequisite. The content drip docs explain the rules, and the membership content library is the shelf version worked through.
When the missing app is a dealbreaker
Be honest with yourself here. If you run a daily-habit community, such as fitness, language practice or a coaching circle, where members open the app every morning, a browser tab is a step down. No amount of course depth makes up for that.
If your members come for a course, finish it, and check in on a schedule, a mobile browser is usually fine. Open your own course on a phone at 390 pixels wide and judge for yourself before you decide.
Building the paid-network feel, step by step
What makes a network feel like one product is that a single payment opens everything. Here is how to get close.
- Build the courses and test them on a phone, since that is where your members will be.
- Create a membership plan in the free plugin, one-time or recurring, and attach the courses it opens. Members-only courses then stay closed to everyone else.
- Install BuddyNext and create a space for each course or topic.
- With BuddyNext Pro, link the course to its space so enrolment adds the student to it, and add a community plan that enrols buyers in chosen courses.
- Point your email and domain settings at the new site, send a test, and check the log before you invite anyone.
- Turn on the installable web app mode and try it on two phones.
The membership sites page goes deeper on step two.
A normal week
Running a network in this setup means looking after two surfaces. On the course side you answer questions under lessons, grade what is waiting and read the transactions list. On the community side you moderate the feed, which in BuddyNext Pro can use AI moderation once you set it up. Members can report content and block each other, and the reports land in a queue.
Behind both is the upkeep a hosted network hides: updates tested on a staging copy, backups checked, and a test order placed every so often. Budget an hour or two a week once things are stable, and more in the month after launch.
What it costs to run
Mighty Networks charges by plan, so check mightynetworks.com for what a plan includes. Here the costs are split.
- Hosting, which must cope with a busy feed and not just lesson pages.
- Pro licences for Learnomy and BuddyNext only where you need their Pro tools.
- A transactional email service, because community notifications make a lot of mail.
- A developer, if the app is a hard requirement.
- Your own time.
Where members find what they paid for
A member who signs in lands on an account hub with their courses, certificates, order history, and a membership page that shows their plan and lets them manage it. That matters more than it sounds, because the commonest support message in a paid community is some version of how to find what they bought. Test it with a person who has never seen the site.
Moving courses out of Mighty Networks
No importer exists for hosted platforms; Learnomy’s reads LearnDash, Tutor LMS and LifterLMS. Export your member list before you cancel anything. Rebuild the courses on a staging site, then bulk enrol students into each course by pasting emails or uploading a CSV, which creates accounts for those without one. For members who finished, set the course to manual completion and mark them complete.
Community posts do not travel with you, and members will sign in on a new domain. That is a change worth announcing early. For the course-only view, read Learnomy vs Mighty Networks. Checkout options are on the payments page.
Data and who owns the member list
Every member is a standard WordPress user, so the list, the order history and the course progress all sit in your database. Learnomy registers with the WordPress privacy tools, so export and erase requests for one person’s learning records go through the normal screens. Certificates carry a public verification page, and a deleted certificate stops verifying. The data management docs cover retention and what removing the plugin does.
What Learnomy does not do for a network owner
It has no native app, no feed, groups or messaging of its own, no live streaming, and no email sequences. Community features come from the separate plugins, and events come from the events plugin as a listing with RSVP and a capacity. These are the pieces a hosted network bundles, and here you assemble them.
Your first month
In the first week, build one course and test checkout with the Test Gateway. In the second, add the community plugin and the spaces. In the third, run a private group of real members, on phones, and write down every moment someone asks where something is. In the fourth, fix those moments, then announce. The launch guide covers the course half in detail.
Who should stay with Mighty Networks
Stay if the app is the product, if your members check in daily and a home screen icon in a store is part of the habit. Stay if you want one hosted subscription and nobody on your side to maintain a server. And stay if your community is large and busy enough that hosting a feed yourself would be a project in its own right. Check mightynetworks.com for what is included in each plan before you decide anything.
Look at the WordPress route when the courses are the bigger part of the business, when a browser or an installed web app is good enough for your members, and when you want the records, the price and the domain to belong to you.
Where this leaves the decision
Mighty Networks earns its place when apps are central and you want a single hosted product. Keep it if that is you.
If you would rather own the site, and a browser is enough for your members, build one real course in the free plugin and see whether the setup around it feels like yours.