BuddyBoss for Online Communities Expert Review

BuddyBoss Social Learner for LearnDash, the name BuddyBoss used when I last reviewed the platform two years back (see the previous iteration of this article), was BuddyBoss' name for the learning communities version of their product. They promoted it as their solution focused on the needs of online course builders wanting to build learning communities for their online courses.

Clearly, they saw BuddyBoss and LearnDash, a top Wordpress Learning Management System (LMS), as so well-integrated, they promoted and named a version of their product "LearnDash.

The main point of the integration was to optimize learning by creating a community. Members going through the online course can interact, support, and encourage each other through the process.

BuddyBoss is a solution I highly recommend IF, and this is a big IF, you are looking to create a community to support your learning program. If you are expecting to launch a community in the future, BuddyBoss should be a platform to consider. If creating a community is not a part of your plan, I would steer away from it. Otherwise, you are taking on a lot of extra overhead without the benefits BuddyBoss is designed to get you.

Since my team and I do a lot of LearnDash work, typically for Keap/Infusionsoft users given that we are both Memberium and Keap/Infusionsoft certified partners, we get plenty of Buddyboss / LearnDash project requests.

So you know a little bit more about Buddyboss, it is really two products.  It's BuddyBoss Theme and BuddyBoss Platform. Visit the BuddyBoss pricing page and you'll see right there at the top, "Get your BuddyBoss Theme and Platform Pro..." You are purchasing the BuddyBoss Theme, their proprietary Wordpress theme optimized for making the best use of the BuddyBoss Platform. The BuddyBoss Platform, which you can see in the description for their product, is an open source solution that they include with the purchase.

I wrote the article What the Heck is BuddyBoss and When Should I Use it? which gives some history on how BuddyBoss Theme and BuddyBoss Platform. It gives plenty of details on what the two products provide and their feature sets in more detail.

Since the release of BuddyBoss Social Learner for LearnDash, BuddyBoss has positioned itself as a platform that supports multiple LMS systems. They definitely support LearnDash. We use this a lot in our practice which is made up of a lot of LearnDash users. They have a BuddyBoss for LearnDash sales page with all the information aimed at the needs of potential LearnDash users. Visit their BuddyBoss for LifterLMS sales page and you can see a page focused on attracting LifterLMS users to their solution. Both of these LMS-focused sales pages contain links to the same BuddyBoss pricing page. They sell you the same product to support either LMS.

The entire focus of their solution is:

• supporting a tribe of learners working together to a common end;
• members wanting to interact with each other; and
• enabling people who are more advanced to help those that are newer to your program.

If you are interested in creating your own community independent of Facebook groups so you maintain full control of your environment and content, BuddyBoss gets you that.  It's designed to give you extensive social media features. Our experience is it works really well.

Hope this helps!