Choosing the right platform for your online community can feel overwhelming, right?
There are so many options out there.
You want something that’s easy to use, helps you connect with your audience, and, of course, fits your budget.
But how do you decide?
In this post, we’re breaking down Skool vs Disco, two popular community platforms, to help you figure out which one is the perfect fit for your needs.
Let’s get started!
Overview
We’ve put Skool and Disco through their paces, exploring their features, testing their usability, and even diving into their community engagement tools.
This comparison is based on our firsthand experience, and research is designed to give you a clear picture of what each platform offers.
Skool offers a streamlined platform for building online courses and fostering thriving communities. Try it now!
Pricing: 14-day free trial available. Paid plan Starts at $99/month
Key Features:
- Simple Course Creation
- Built-in Community
- Gamification
Ready to experience the future of learning? Explore Disco’s AI-powered platform and see how it can transform your learning journey.
Pricing: No free plan is available. Paid plan Starts at $359/month
Key Features:
- Course Hosting
- Community Forums
- Live Events
What is Skool
Skool is a platform designed to help creators build thriving online communities.
It’s all about bringing people together to learn, connect, and support each other.
Think of it as a digital clubhouse where you can host discussions, run events, and offer exclusive content.
It’s a user-friendly platform that makes community management a breeze.
Also, explore our favorite Skool alternatives…
Our Take
It excels at building engaged communities and offers excellent value for its price. However, it loses a few points due to its slightly limited course customization and fewer marketing integrations than other platforms. If community is your top priority, Skool is worth checking out.
Key Benefits
Kajabi’s biggest strength is its comprehensive suite of tools.
They’ve helped over 75 million customers turn their passions into profitable businesses.
You get everything you need to create, market, and sell your digital products.
- All-in-one solution: No need for separate website, email, and course platforms.
- Built-in marketing tools: Create funnels, automations, and email campaigns right inside Kajabi.
- No transaction fees: You keep 100% of your earnings on all plans (minus payment processor fees).
- 24/7 support: Get help whenever you need it with their customer support team.
- Mobile apps: Members can access your content and community on the go.
Pricing
- Hobby: $9/month
- Pro: $99/month.
Pros
Cons
What is Disco
So, what’s the deal with Disco?
It’s a platform designed to help you build and manage online communities.
Think of it as a central hub for your courses, discussions, and live events.
It aims to bring everything together in one place, making it easier for you to connect with your audience and for your audience to connect with each other.
Also, explore our favorite Disco alternatives…
Our Take
Ready to experience the future of learning? Explore Disco’s AI-powered platform and see how it can transform your learning journey.
Key Benefits
- All-in-one platform: Integrates course hosting, community forums, and live events, streamlining your community management.
- Customization: Offers branding and design options to reflect your unique style.
- Engagement tools: Provides features like direct messaging, group challenges, and member directories to foster interaction.
Pricing
Disco’s pricing starts at $359/month. They also offer higher tiers with additional features and increased capacity. Here’s a quick look at the upgrade options:
- Organization: $359/month
- Enterprise Plans: Custom Pricing
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Skool vs Disco Feature Comparison These two platforms offer solutions for online communities and online learning, but Skool prioritizes community building and gamification, while Disco excels at collaborative learning experiences and management.
1. Primary Focus and Content Model
- Skool: Focuses on the community feature and community building first, presenting a simple, integrated platform where online courses are hosted alongside an active social feed, often replacing a facebook group.
- Disco: Positions itself as an all in one platform for learning communities, specializing in cohort based course models and collaborative learning experiences, making the learning experience the core feature.
2. Course Creation and Structure
- Skool: The course creation tools are basic and native, allowing users to create courses with video hosting for the course content, and skool offers unlimited courses within its single plan.
- Disco: Offers a robust Learning Management System (LMS) with innovative features, supporting structured online courses, assignments, quizzes, and tracking to enhance learning experiences.
3. Community Feature and Engagement
- Skool: The skool community feature centers on engagement through gamification, using leaderboards and points to incentivize interactive discussions and participation among other community members.
- Disco: Fosters collaborative learning experiences through dedicated discussion channels, peer to peer learning tools, and groups/subgroups, emphasizing deeper knowledge sharing insights rather than competition.
4. Pricing Plans and Scalability
- Skool: Skool pricing is simple and transparent, offering one flat fee for a single community space with unlimited courses and unlimited members, making it a game changer for predictable costs.
- Disco: Uses tiered pricing plans that scale based on the number of members, products, and advanced features needed, which may be more complex but offers high scalability for larger academies.
5. Learning Experience and Accountability
- Skool: The focus is on a simple, distraction-free environment that drives a continuous sense of participation, with basic course completion tracking.
- Disco: Aims to create transformative learning experiences through structured cohort based course delivery, real-time progress tracking, and assessments, which enhance accountability for the learners.
6. Mobile Access and App Experience
- Skool: Provides a dedicated skool mobile app (iOS and Android) that is often praised for its intuitive platform design, ensuring new members have easy access on the go.
- Disco: Also offers a mobile app for learning, with its platform supporting a variety of media types and functionality to enhance the learning experiences across devices.
7. Native Live Sessions and Events
- Skool: Features a skool calendar feature to schedule live sessions and live events but requires integration with external tools (like Zoom) to actually host the live video sessions.
- Disco: Includes built-in live sessions and event management tools, making it easier to host and manage cohort based learning events directly within the platform.
8. Knowledge Base and Resources
- Skool: The core resources are the course material and forum discussions, but it lacks a dedicated knowledge base for organizing evergreen content outside of the course structure.
- Disco: Provides a dedicated Knowledge Library feature for organizing and providing continuous access to evergreen resources, training, and expertise for community members.
9. Customization and Branding
- Skool: Offers very limited innovative features for branding and customization; most skool community groups look similar, providing instant access but less visual control.
- Disco: Provides innovative features for custom branding and design options, allowing creators to tailor disco’s platform to their brand identity for various types of learning communities.
10. AI Tools and Automation
- Skool: While simple to manage, Skool has limited ai tools for automation.
- Disco: Features Disco AI and automations (AI Co-Pilot) to assist with content creation, simplify operations, and answer member questions, which helps to enhance the platform’s resources.
11. Market Positioning and Alternatives
- Skool: Positioned as the ultimate community building platform, a simple alternative to complex software and the mighty networks and facebook groups in the online course platform market, with positive skool review feedback on engagement.
- Disco: Positioned as the innovative features leader for peer to peer learning and running cohort based course businesses, offering a comprehensive alternative to traditional online learning platforms.
What to Look For When Choosing a Community Platform?
Beyond the features already discussed, here are some additional key considerations:
- Evaluate if the platform is just a platform for static content or if it actively encourages the creation and growth of your own community.
- Prioritize platforms that offer deep engagement features like group discussions, gamification, and live sessions over simple forum tools.
- Look for a “Discovery” feature or marketplace that helps discover communities and allows new users to find and join your group organically.
- The platform should seamlessly integrate monetization features for coaching programs, memberships, and creating courses without excessive hidden fees or complex setups.
- Check for robust administrative tools and clear data/IP ownership—you should have complete control over your content and community members.
Final Verdict
Choosing between Skool and Disco depends entirely on your priorities.
If your primary goal is to build a thriving community around your courses, Skool is the clear winner.
Its integrated course platform, combined with community features, makes it a powerful all-in-one solution.
However, if your focus is broader community engagement, general discussions, and less structured learning, Skool’s gamified approach and streamlined interface might be a better fit.
We’ve spent considerable time testing and analyzing both platforms, and this recommendation is based on our direct experience.
Ultimately, the best choice is the one that aligns with your specific needs and vision for your online community.
More of Skool
Here’s a brief comparison of Skool against the listed alternatives:
- Skool vs Circle: Skool integrates community with gamified courses, while Circle focuses primarily on customizable community building.
- Skool vs Teachable: Skool blends community with courses and gamification; Teachable centers on course creation with community as an add-on.
- Skool vs GoHighLevel: Skool is for community/courses with gamification; GoHighLevel is a broad marketing automation platform, including community features.
- Skool vs MightyNetworks: Skool emphasizes gamification within its community/course structure; MightyNetworks offers a wider range of content, event, and community options.
- Skool vs Bettermode: Skool offers integrated courses and gamification; Bettermode provides deeper customization for branded community experiences.
- Skool vs Thinkific: Skool combines community, courses, and gamification; Thinkific is primarily a course platform with community features.
- Skool vs LearnWorlds: Skool adds gamification to community and courses; LearnWorlds focuses on interactive online courses with integrated communities.
- Skool vs Swarm: Skool integrates courses and gamification with the community; Swarm focuses on structured, interest-based community interactions.
- Skool vs Disco: Skool includes gamified courses and community; Disco specializes in cohort-based learning and learning communities.
- Skool vs Kajabi: Skool is focused on community and courses with gamification, while Kajabi is an all-in-one business platform that includes courses, marketing, and community.
- Skool vs Wylo: Skool provides a platform for creators with courses and gamification; Wylo connects people through interest-based community discovery and interaction.
- Skool vs Whop: Skool offers a creator platform with gamified communities and courses; Whop is a marketplace and platform for selling access to communities and digital goods.
More of Disco
Here is a comparison of Disco with several alternatives:
- Disco vs Skool: Disco focuses on cohort-based learning communities, while Skool emphasizes community, courses, and gamification for creators.
- Disco vs Swarm: Disco is tailored for learning communities and courses, whereas Swarm builds structured communities around shared interests.
- Disco vs Teachable: Disco centers on interactive learning communities, while Teachable is primarily a platform for creating and selling online courses.
- Disco vs GoHighLevel: Disco specializes in educational communities, unlike GoHighLevel which is a broad marketing and CRM platform.
- Disco vs MightyNetworks: Disco targets live learning experiences, while MightyNetworks offers a wider range of community, course, and event features.
- Disco vs Bettermode: Disco is designed for cohort learning, while Bettermode provides a highly customizable platform for branded communities.
- Disco vs Thinkific: Disco is built around interactive learning cohorts, whereas Thinkific focuses broadly on creating and selling self-paced courses.
- Disco vs LearnWorlds: Disco supports live learning cohorts, while LearnWorlds specializes in interactive, self-paced online course creation.
- Disco vs Circle: Disco is geared towards structured learning cohorts, whereas Circle offers a flexible platform for building various types of communities.
- Disco vs Kajabi: Disco focuses on the learning community experience, while Kajabi is an all-in-one platform, including marketing and sales tools.
- Disco vs Wylo: Disco facilitates structured learning communities, while Wylo connects people through diverse interest-based groups.
- Disco vs Whop: Disco is a platform for hosting learning experiences, whereas Whop is a marketplace for accessing digital products and communities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform is better for selling courses?
Disco is generally considered superior for selling courses due to its robust course creation and management tools, including features for structuring lessons, tracking progress, and handling payments.
Which platform is more affordable?
Skool’s pricing structure tends to be more accessible for smaller communities or creators just starting out. However, carefully evaluate both platforms based on the specific features you need, as pricing models can vary.
Can I migrate my existing community to either platform?
Both platforms offer some form of migration support, but the process and ease of transfer can vary depending on the size and complexity of your existing community. Contact their respective support teams for detailed information.
Which platform offers better community engagement features?
Skool’s gamification and challenge systems are often praised for driving engagement and interaction within a community. Disco’s engagement is more closely tied to discussions and activities related to its course offerings.
Do either platform offer mobile apps?
Yes, both Skool and Disco offer mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, allowing community members to access and participate in the platform on the go.
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