TrueCommunity – Community & LMS: Social Network, Groups, Courses & Quizzes

الوصف

TrueCommunity is a community and LMS plugin for WordPress. Build a private social network and run online courses on the same site, with the same members, on your own domain. Members use their existing WordPress accounts, your data stays in your own database, and there are no per-member fees.

Instead of stitching together a community plugin, a separate LMS plugin and a messaging add-on, TrueCommunity gives you the activity feed, member profiles, groups, private messaging, notifications, courses and quizzes in one connected plugin. It is free, and it is a complete community with courses, not a trial.

Use it to build a course community, a membership community, a coaching or cohort program, a customer or support community, a school or academy space, or a niche social network.

Features | Comparison | Docs | Pricing

Why choose TrueCommunity?

• Community and LMS in one plugin. Learners and community members share one account, one profile and one feed.
• Courses and quizzes included free. Sections, lessons, auto-graded quizzes with seven question types, enrollment, progress tracking and completion.
• Uses your existing WordPress users. No second login and no duplicate user database.
• Your data, your site. Everything stays in your WordPress database. No platform fees and no per-member pricing.
• Switch features on or off. Enable only the modules you need: feed, groups, courses, messages, notifications.
• Multisite compatible. Activate it on each site that needs a community.
• Your own name and branding. Set your community name, slug and light and dark brand logos.
• Dark mode. Dark mode across the whole interface.
• Limits you control. Set per-page limits, upload size and attachment count.
• Works with any theme. The community runs in its own layout, so it does not depend on your theme’s templates.

Activity feed

A social-style feed gives members a reason to come back. Members post, react and reply, and you can keep important announcements at the top.

• Rich posts with mentions, emoji, links and media
• Photo, video and file attachments with a lightbox
• Polls with live results
• Reactions, likes and threaded comments
• Bookmarks and pinned posts
• @mention notifications, so people know when they are being talked to

Members, profiles and groups

Profiles help members recognise each other, and groups split a large community into focused spaces: one for each course cohort, topic, region or team.

• Searchable member directory
• Profiles with cover, avatar, bio, location and clean URLs
• Friend requests and blocking
• Public, private and locked groups
• Join requests, invitations and admin, moderator and member roles
• A separate feed in each group
• Moderation tools to keep discussions healthy

Online courses and quizzes (built-in LMS)

Teach inside your community, so learning and discussion live in one place instead of a course platform plus a separate forum.

• Courses built from sections and lessons
• Auto-graded quizzes with seven question types, passing scores and attempt limits
• Enrollment (open, private or locked), progress tracking and completion
• An instructor view of course members
• A discussion feed for learners

What learners see

Learners open Courses from the left menu and click a course. Depending on the course they see Enroll, Request to Enroll (which waits for admin approval) or Accept Invitation, and the courses they have joined appear under My Courses.

• An Overview tab showing how many lessons are finished and how many remain
• A Continue learning card that takes them back to their next lesson
• Mark as Complete and Next buttons, and a Course Outline that ticks every finished lesson
• A Comments tab for asking questions about a lesson
• A Personal Note tab, a private notebook that only the learner can see
• Quizzes that show the question count, pass mark and attempts left before they start, then a score and pass or fail result, a Review of the correct answers and Retake quiz while attempts remain

Quiz details

• Seven question types: single choice, multiple choice, true / false, short answer, fill in the blank, matching, and sorting / ordering
• Points for each question, and an optional explanation that learners see after they submit
• A passing score (for example 70%) and a maximum number of attempts (0 means unlimited)
• Short answers can accept more than one spelling, such as color and colour
• Choose when a quiz appears: after a lesson, after a section, after the whole course, or not automatically
• Quizzes stay hidden from learners until you publish them

For instructors and course admins

• Invite people one by one, or enroll whole groups: current group members are enrolled and anyone who joins those groups later is enrolled automatically
• Course roles: Admin, Instructor and Student
• Accept or reject join requests to private courses, cancel pending invitations, and remove or block a member from a course

Messaging and notifications

• One-to-one and group chats with attachments and mentions
• Unread counts and near-real-time delivery
• In-app notification bell
• Branded notification emails: your logo, sender name, footer and chosen events
• Email is sent after the page response, so it never slows your site down

How courses and community work together

Most course sites lose students in the gaps between tools: the lesson is in one plugin, the discussion is in another, and the student profile lives somewhere else. TrueCommunity keeps it together. A student joins a course, asks a question in the lesson comments, shows up in the member directory, posts a win in the feed and sends a private message to the instructor, all with one WordPress account.

• Enroll whole groups into a course, so a cohort group and its course stay in sync
• Use a group for every cohort, class or program, each with its own feed
• Keep private notes and lesson comments next to the content
• Show learners a “continue learning” shortcut that takes them back to their next lesson
• Let instructors see course members, progress and quiz results in one place

Ideas you can build today

• A cohort course with a private group. Create a private group for the cohort, enroll the group in a course and let members support each other in the group feed.
• A free community with paid courses. Keep the community open to all members and make advanced courses private or locked.
• A self-paced academy. Publish courses with sections, lessons and quizzes, and let learners track their own progress.
• A customer community. Public groups for product topics, private groups for beta testers, and announcements pinned to the top of the feed.
• A coaching program. One group per client program, private messages for one-to-one support and polls for quick check-ins.
• A paid cohort launch. Set open and close dates and a seat limit, sell the course through WooCommerce, and enroll the cohort’s group so people who join the group later are enrolled automatically. Needs Pro.
• A drip-fed program. Release lessons a few days after each student joins, or on dates you choose, and keep students talking in the lesson comments. Needs Pro.
• A paid course with renewals. Let access end after 365 days and let students renew with a single purchase. Needs Pro.
• A skip-ahead path. Add a challenge exam so experienced students can test out of a course. Needs Pro.
• A homework course. Require a file upload in lessons, approve submissions and answer students in the feedback thread. Needs Pro.

Free and Pro at a glance

• Free: the complete community (feed, profiles, groups, messaging, notifications) and courses with sections, lessons, quizzes, enrollment, progress and completion. Updates come from WordPress.org and support is in the WordPress.org forum.
• Pro (optional add-on): advanced course tools, course selling through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, and gamification, with updates and private email support while your license is active and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Pro course tools in detail

These advanced course tools are part of the optional Pro add-on. The free plugin keeps its courses, lessons, quizzes, enrollment, progress and completion.

Course settings. Every course gets a Settings tab with:

• Free or paid: students join at no charge, or buy the course once and then join
• Lesson list visibility: show the lesson list to everyone before they join, or only to people who have joined
• Progression: in order, where each step unlocks the next, or any order with nothing locked
• Prerequisites: anyone can join, or students must finish other courses first (all of them, or any one of them)
• Access expiry: access ends after a number of days, such as 365, with an option to delete progress when access ends
• Open and close dates, useful for cohorts and launches
• A maximum number of people, so a full course shows “Course is full”

Lesson rules.

• Free preview lessons that anyone can open before joining
• Drip content: open as soon as students join, a few days after they join, or on a date you choose
• Live classes held outside the site, with attendance that is optional or confirmed by a manager before students continue
• A required video, a required file upload or a minimum time on the lesson (one of these finish rules per lesson or topic)
• Points for completing a lesson, when gamification is on

Assignments. Students upload files inside a lesson. You approve one or several at once and leave feedback that students can reply to. Learners see “Awaiting approval” until you approve, and approval completes the lesson.

Challenge exams. Experienced students can skip a course by passing an exam. Each course has one challenge exam and students get one try. Passing marks the whole course complete; failing means they work through the lessons as usual.

Selling courses. Link a private course to a WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads product. The course shows a Buy button with the price (and the original price when the product is on sale), buyers are enrolled right after checkout, and students whose access has expired see Renew access. Open courses are free to join, and locked courses do not appear for purchase.

Student progress and results. Reset a student’s progress from the course members list, and see quiz submission details.

Built for the modern web

TrueCommunity is built on the WordPress REST API and runs in its own layout, so community pages stay consistent and do not depend on your theme’s page templates. Its authentication and data endpoints are available to other clients, which makes future mobile experiences possible.

TrueCommunity runs as a single-page React application on top of the WordPress REST API, and its token authentication endpoints let mobile and other clients sign in against the same site.

What is coming next

TrueCommunity is under active development, and your feedback in the support forum helps decide what comes first. These items are planned and are not available yet:

• Certificates and SCORM support for courses
• A migrator to bring your community over from other community plugins
• More integrations
• More powerful gamification
• More of what a smart community and course site needs

Perfect for

• Online course creators and coaches who want students to learn and connect in one place
• Membership communities that want a private space for members
• Schools, academies and training providers with cohorts and lessons
• Brands and customer communities that want conversations on their own site
• Support and help communities where customers answer each other
• Clubs, nonprofits and professional networks
• Internal company or team communities

Looking for an all-in-one alternative?

If you currently run a community plugin and a separate LMS plugin, or you are comparing a BuddyPress-style community with a dedicated LMS, TrueCommunity gives you both in one plugin, with a free tier that includes real courses and quizzes.

Need more? TrueCommunity Pro

The free plugin stays free, and nothing in it moves to Pro. Pro is an optional add-on that works alongside the free plugin and adds advanced course tools (topics, drip content, prerequisites, cohort seat limits and dates, access expiry, required video and timers, assignments, live classes with attendance, challenge exams), course selling through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, and gamification (points, ranks, badges, challenges and leaderboards). Compare Free and Pro.

Documentation

Step-by-step guides are in the TrueCommunity documentation.

• Create a course
• Sections and lessons
• Create quizzes
• Take a course
• Course members
• Course settings (Pro)
• Lesson rules (Pro)
• Sell a course (Pro)

External services

TrueCommunity can embed content from third-party services. These connections happen in the visitor’s browser and only when a member adds or opens such content.

TrueCommunity does not call any external service on its own and sends nothing in the background.

• YouTube: used to display YouTube videos that members share in posts. The video is embedded from youtube.com and its thumbnail is loaded from img.youtube.com. Data sent: the video ID and the visitor’s IP address. No account or API key is involved. Terms, Privacy
• Vimeo: used to display Vimeo videos that members share in posts. The video is embedded from player.vimeo.com and its thumbnail is requested from the public oEmbed endpoint (vimeo.com/api/oembed.json). Data sent: the video URL and the visitor’s IP address. No account or API key is involved. Terms, Privacy
• Google Maps: used to display a map of the location a member adds to their profile. The map is embedded from maps.google.com. Data sent: the location text and the visitor’s IP address. No API key is involved, and no location is sent unless the member enters one. Terms, Privacy