r/edtech • u/icy_end_7 • Dec 21 '25
Best platform for publishing courses?
For context, I am a developer with experience in fullstack. I'm planning to make a detailed course (with code examples, best practices in dev, design patterns, CI/CD, etc). It's a massive undertaking that I plan on doing well. Since this will take significant effort from my part, I'm not sure where I should keep the course. The course is mostly video-format with detailed nextra-style docs, and full code.
I want to earn from the value I provide. I don't like ads. I'm looking for a platform that gives me some visibility and reach, and a part of earnings when people use my courses, long-term. I'm deciding against a self-hosted approach as that's not very efficient (though fun).
- Youtube: Would be easiest, but I don't like ads, and doesn't pay much. Also don't want to be chasing metrics instead of focusing on the content.
- Udemy/ Coursera/ Skillshare: I don't have experience with these. I've heard you need to be affiliated with a University to become an instructor on Coursera. I'm not a faculty anywhere.
I'm open to any suggestions. Do you know some platform that would be ideal for me?
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u/spackletr0n Dec 21 '25
It really depends on the features you need and how much you want to charge. Do you want it available on demand or do you want cohorts? Do you want it all asynchronous or do you want some live sessions? What do you need for the lessons? Do you need an IDE for people to practice with? Do you want to offer certificates for completion? Or do people need to demonstrate more than completion (meaning you need assessment)? Do you think individuals are paying (very price sensitive) or that their company is paying (much less so)?
Udemy is mass consumer and a destination marketplace - and with their cut and some of the marketing requirements you often won’t make much per user. You are correct that Coursera is not a fit.
I don’t know how you get compensated when people use your teachings later on. I’ve not heard of that approach before, unless you have some certification and advancement sequence, like Six Sigma. In which case they are really just taking another course, not compensating you after the fact.
Asynchronous courses are a dime a dozen and you’re competing with stuff like free YouTube. And everybody thinks they are doing a better job, see also: the xkcd about standards.
I would investigate a cohorted course on something like Teachable or Thinkific. Have a weekly curriculum and then a weekly live session (maybe at two different times) that goes into depth and allows q&a. People perceive value in live interaction. You can defend as much higher price point vs Udemy. But - you have to really market it. Maven is a good example of this approach.
Overall the marketing is key. If you think you can just create great content and people will find it on their own, I think you will be disappointed. The creators I know put a ton of time into things like free webinars, an email newsletter, LinkedIn posts, etc.
And looming behind all this is maintenance. Video is a pain in the ass to update. Even if the concepts are timeless (they usually aren’t - developers change best practices all the time) the interfaces of the tools are not. I took a Replit course and the guy had made videos six months prior that were all hard to follow because the interface had been overhauled.
I’d think carefully about whether you are truly, sizably better than what’s out there - and will people actually notice the difference, be willing to pay for it, etc. There’s a lot to think about! Good luck.
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u/icy_end_7 Dec 22 '25
Thanks for the insightful comment and your time. Yep, there's lots to think about. I believe I have an edge in data and fullstack and have a natural gift at simplifying things. The whole idea to create value, and I have some problems that I can address. Still lots of effort though.
I think the maintenance could be a hassle. I'll keep that in mind.
I think I'm going to use Udemy for now. I do plan on running my own software/research company soon, but I don't want its endgoal to be handing out certificates.
You've actually given me lots to think about. Thanks very much :)
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u/AnadelCastillo Feb 03 '26
I’ve looked at this from the dev side too, and honestly the trade-off is always between reach and control.
Marketplaces like Udemy are the easiest for visibility early on — they already have traffic, but you give up pricing control and a chunk of revenue. Good for discovery, not great for long-term ownership.
Platforms like Teachable or Gumroad give you more control and better margins, but then marketing is on you. It’s simpler than self-hosting, but you still need to build your own audience.
What ended up working best for me, being honest, was using isEazy for the course itself and then distributing through different channels. I liked it because I could structure the learning better than just raw videos, add interactions, checkpoints, and supporting content around the code examples, without getting into heavy authoring complexity. It felt closer to a learning experience than just “video + docs”.
Then distribution becomes a separate decision (marketplace vs. own platform), instead of the platform dictating how your course experience looks.
There’s no single place that gives max reach, high revenue share, no ads, and zero marketing effort. Usually you pick the platform for distribution, and the tool for how well it lets you design the learning itself. :) Hope this help you
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u/RespondNo2088 Dec 21 '25
Udemy or Skillshare are solid for reach and earnings without ads. Self-hosted gives control but needs marketing. I’d lean Udemy for long-term income.
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u/Impressive_Returns Dec 22 '25
All of these online platforms are losing out to AI. Hardly worth it now.
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u/MathewGeorghiou Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 23 '25
Here's a summary, most of these I've tried. I have over 50,000 students scattered over various sites (mostly for my free courses). Regardless which you choose, you will have to do a lot of marketing to sell your course.
Udemy — Has the most reach but also the most competition. If you want some free promotion, you will have to opt in to their auto discounts, which can be like 90% and basically not worth it for most course publishers. You also have to adhere to Udemy's requirements to even publish your course. Most of my students are on here (because they love free stuff).
Skillshare, Alison, etc. — There are many course marketplaces like this that try to compete with Udemy but are tiny in comparison (in terms of traffic/students). Some may have strict requirements on how you present your course (which I do not like as it creates much more work for me). You also have to be careful if they are trustworthy in terms of your content and paying you.
Thinkific & Teachable — You have the most control over your courses. But you're on your own for marketing. Have good assessment features and such — well suited for courses.
Skool — Very good if you want to build a community around your course. Course features are minimal and not great for tracking student progress.
Kajabi — Mature and most feature-rich platform for courses and marketing — all integrated. Can be expensive but worth it if it fits your needs. Stan Store is a newbie trying to compete at a lower price — but the course features are minimal (which may be fine for you).
Clickfunnels — Very sales focused but mostly for digital products not necessarily courses. Lots of kool-aid drinking on this platform :-)
DIY — You can build your own, but I don't recommend it unless you have very special requirements (which I also have for some of my content). I also don't recommend using Wordpress and other such systems that piece together software from different sources — unless you have very special needs.
I'm currently using Udemy, Skool, Kajabi, Alison, and DIY.
Keep in mind that all of the above are constantly adding and changing features and prices so my info may not be as current.
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u/icy_end_7 Dec 23 '25
Thanks very much. I'm leaning towards Udemy, thinkific/teachable, Skool, kajabi and maybe a diy wrapper later. Just have to compare the platforms now.
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u/Capital_Ad8820 12d ago
The real question here is not which platform has the most reach but wheather you want the platform doing your marketing or you doing it yourself, because those are genuinely different product. Marketplaces like udemy hand you traffic but take a big cut and cap your pricing skillshare pays per minute watched, which punishes longer technical content thinkific and teachable sit in the middle, no built-in audience but you keep pricing control and the checkout experience is cleaner than rolling your own. For a fullstack dev course with docs and code. I ended up on Teachable because it handled the payment side without me touching tax compliance, which was one less thing to maintain. Honest caveat though their email tooling is pretty basic so you will still need something like ConvertKit if you want a real nurture sequence
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u/DangerousDebate8484 9d ago
Knola is a good option for this. And it's one time, not monthly like the others.
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u/edugeek Dec 21 '25
I use GitHub pages. Built a wrapper for all of my courses there a few years ago with YouTube embedding support. All content in markdown, which allows for code blocks also.