Open-source stack for online course creators 2026

TL;DR

• Six open-source apps cover the full teaching stack: Greenlight for live classes, PeerTube for recorded lessons, Discourse for community, Mautic for course email, Nextcloud for materials, and Pretix for paid enrolment.

• Run on DANIAN, that is six apps at €9 each — €54/month, flat — with hardware, updates, backups, monitoring, and support included.

• The equivalent SaaS line items run past $180/month in subscriptions alone, before a single ticket fee. Eventbrite adds 3.7% + $1.79 to every paid registration; the all-in-one route on Kajabi starts at $149/month.

• This is six building blocks you assemble, not one course platform. You trade all-in-one convenience for ownership of your data and a flat, predictable bill.

• One honest caveat: video is not free at scale. PeerTube storage and transcoding grow with your library, and the section below puts numbers on it.

Who this stack is for (and who it is not)

This stack suits course creators who run live cohorts, publish recorded lessons, and want a real student community — without per-seat or per-attendee fees that climb every time enrolment grows. It is not for someone who wants one login that does everything out of the box, or who would rather never think about where a video file lives.

Most course businesses are a pile of subscriptions. A webinar tool for the live sessions. A course platform for the lessons. A separate community app. An email tool. A drive for the workbooks. A ticketing service for paid cohorts. Each one bills monthly, and several bill per seat, per contact, or per attendee — so the bill grows with the audience you worked to build.

The six apps below replace those line items with software you run yourself, on managed infrastructure. You keep the student list, the video files, and the community data. You pay a flat €9 per app per month, whatever your enrolment.

Be clear about the trade. DANIAN’s catalogue does not include an all-in-one course platform — there is no single Kajabi-equivalent you switch on. You assemble these pieces and connect them. In return, you own the data and the bill stops climbing with your enrolment. If one dashboard that does everything matters more to you than ownership or cost, an all-in-one platform is the better fit, and this article will save you the detour.

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The shortlist

Six apps, each doing one job well: live classes, recorded lessons, community, email, materials, and enrolment. Each runs as its own managed instance at €9/month on DANIAN. Below is what each one does, what it replaces, and where it stops.

Greenlight and BigBlueButton — live classes

BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system built specifically for online teaching, released under the LGPL 3.0 licence. Greenlight is its front-end: you create rooms, share links, and manage recordings without touching a server.

It does what a live class needs. Multi-user whiteboard, public and private chat, polls, shared notes, emojis, breakout rooms, and session recording for later playback. Closed captions carry through as subtitles in the recording, and a moderator dashboard shows engagement during the session. This is not a generic meeting tool with a teaching label — BigBlueButton is the default virtual classroom inside Canvas, Moodle, Sakai, D2L, and Schoology, which together cover most of the learning-management market.

It replaces Zoom Webinars for cohort classes. Zoom’s webinar tier starts at about $79/month for 300 attendees, billed annually, and sits on top of a paid Workplace subscription. Greenlight on DANIAN is €9/month, flat, and you keep the recordings.

Where it stops: BigBlueButton is browser-based and built around the classroom. It is not a 10,000-seat broadcast product, and very large live audiences need real processor behind them. For cohorts of a few to a few hundred, it is the closest open-source match to a paid webinar tool.
See Greenlight for live classes.

PeerTube — recorded lessons

PeerTube is a decentralised video host built by the French non-profit Framasoft, released under the AGPLv3 licence. It stores and streams your recorded lessons on your own instance, with no ads and no algorithm steering students toward other people’s videos. It handles video on demand and live streaming, and federates over ActivityPub if you want reach beyond your own site.

For a course creator, the point is ownership. Your lesson library lives on infrastructure you control, embeds cleanly on your own pages, and stays yours if you ever move. There is no per-view metering and no platform deciding what counts as monetisable.

It replaces the video-hosting piece of a course platform, or a standalone host like Vimeo — from about $25/month on the Standard tier, with a 2 TB monthly bandwidth ceiling above which you are pushed to an enterprise quote. PeerTube on DANIAN starts at €9/month.

Where it stops, and this is the honest one: video is heavy. A growing library and a busy month of streaming will outgrow the base plan, and transcoding uploaded video into several resolutions needs processor. PeerTube scales on DANIAN, but not always at a flat €9. The cost section below puts real numbers on it.
See PeerTube for recorded lessons.

Discourse — student community

Discourse is a modern open-source discussion platform, released under the GPLv2 licence. It is the forum software behind a large share of serious online communities, and it gives your students a real place to talk between live sessions — threaded discussions, categories, trust levels, and good search, rather than posts that vanish down a feed.

For courses, a between-session community is where the learning compounds. Students ask questions, answer each other, and those answers stay searchable for the next cohort. Discourse does that without per-member pricing.

It replaces Circle or Mighty Networks. Circle’s community tier runs about $89/month and adds a 2% transaction fee on sales; Mighty Networks starts around $49/month at its entry tier. Both bill monthly and gate features behind higher plans. Discourse on DANIAN is €9/month, and the member data is yours.

Where it stops: Discourse is a forum, not a social network with native mobile apps and a member-matching feed. There is no built-in course player — it is the conversation layer, not the lesson layer. If your model leans on a branded mobile app for members, weigh that gap. For a searchable, durable student community, Discourse is the stronger long-term home.
See Discourse for your student community.

Mautic — course email

Mautic is open-source marketing automation, released under the GPLv3 licence. It sends your course email — welcome sequences, lesson reminders, re-engagement campaigns, and broadcast announcements — and it does the automation a course needs: segments, drip sequences, and behaviour-triggered sends.

For a creator, this is the engine that turns a sign-up into an enrolled student and a finished cohort into the next launch. You build the welcome sequence once and it runs. Contact data stays on your instance rather than inside a vendor that prices by the size of your list.

It replaces Mailchimp. Mailchimp’s Standard plan, the tier where multi-step automation becomes available, starts at $20/month for 500 contacts and rises with the list — about $100/month at 5,000 contacts. That per-contact curve is the exact cost course creators feel as their audience grows. Mautic on DANIAN is €9/month, and it does not charge by contact count.

Where it stops: Mautic is more involved than a consumer email tool. Deliverability depends on a properly configured sending setup, and the interface rewards a little patience. DANIAN runs the hosting and the mail plumbing; the strategy and the sequences are yours to build. For creators who want automation without a per-contact bill, it earns the learning curve.

Nextcloud — course materials

Nextcloud is an open-source content-collaboration platform, released under the AGPLv3 licence. It is your course’s file layer: workbooks, slide decks, templates, and downloads, shared with students by link or folder and synced across devices. Think of it as a drive you own rather than rent.

For a course, it keeps materials in one place with real access control. You share a folder per cohort, set links to expire, and swap a v2 workbook without re-sending anything. Students get the current file, not whatever was attached to an email three weeks ago.

It replaces Google Drive and the storage half of Google Workspace, which runs about $14/user/month on the Business Standard tier. Nextcloud on DANIAN is €9/month, with the files on infrastructure you control in the region you choose.

Where it stops: Nextcloud is files, calendars, and collaboration — not a course player or a video host (that is PeerTube’s job). It is broad, so the first hour goes on deciding which features you actually want switched on. As a materials hub you own, with sharing that behaves the way a teacher needs, it replaces the rented drive cleanly.

Pretix — paid enrolment

Pretix is an open-source ticketing platform, released under the AGPLv3 licence, built for conferences and equally at home selling cohort seats. It handles paid enrolment: ticket types, discount codes, order management, check-in, and payment-provider integrations.

For a paid cohort, Pretix is how students buy a seat. You set the price, open enrolment, take payment, and manage the order list — without a ticketing middleman taking a cut of each sale.

This is where the per-attendee math bites hardest. Eventbrite charges 3.7% plus $1.79 in service fees per ticket, plus 2.9% payment processing per order, with no cap — an effective 10–20% on lower-priced seats. Even Pretix’s own hosted service charges 2.5% per paid ticket. Self-hosted Pretix on DANIAN is €9/month, flat, with no per-ticket fee at all. Sell ten seats or two hundred; the hosting bill is the same.

Where it stops: Pretix is enrolment and payment, not a course player or a CRM. Your payment processor’s standard fees from Stripe or PayPal still apply — that is the card network’s cut, not Pretix’s. For a creator running paid cohorts, removing the per-ticket platform fee is the single clearest saving in this stack.

How the six fit together

The apps form one teaching loop: Pretix sells the seat, Mautic welcomes the student and runs the email sequence, Nextcloud delivers the materials, Greenlight runs the live class, PeerTube hosts the replay, and Discourse holds the community between sessions. Each does one job; together they cover a cohort end to end.

A cohort launch runs through them in order. A student buys a seat in Pretix. The order triggers a welcome sequence in Mautic, which sends the schedule and the link to the materials. Those materials live in Nextcloud, shared as a cohort folder. The live classes run in Greenlight, and each recording lands in PeerTube for anyone who missed it. Between sessions, the questions and answers happen in Discourse, where they stay searchable for the next intake.

You do not have to adopt all six at once. Most creators start with the one that hurts most — usually the webinar bill or the per-ticket fee — and add the others over time. Each app is a separate €9 instance, so you grow the stack one piece at a time.

Browse the full app catalogue.

The math — €54 flat versus the SaaS bundle

Six managed apps at €9 each come to €54/month, flat, with hardware, updates, backups, monitoring, and support included. The equivalent SaaS subscriptions run past $180/month before a single ticket fee — and several of them bill more as your list and enrolment grow.

Here is the same job done two ways. The SaaS column uses entry tiers on annual billing, in US dollars; the figures rise with scale.

The DANIAN stack is six apps at €9: €54/month, flat. No per-seat charge, no per-contact curve, no per-ticket fee — we do not bill by the size of your audience. At current exchange rates that flat €54 is on the order of $60, roughly a third of the SaaS subscription bundle, and the gap widens as you grow. Mailchimp at 5,000 contacts is $100/month on its own. Every Eventbrite ticket carries its fee.

The all-in-one route does not close the gap. Kajabi bundles community, email, and course delivery, but its Basic plan starts at $149/month and most active creators land on the $199/month Growth tier — and that still does not include true live-webinar capacity or a video platform you own. Convenience has a price, and on Kajabi it starts well above €54.

A worked example makes the per-ticket point concrete. Sell forty seats to a $300 cohort through Eventbrite and the fees come to roughly $22 per ticket — about $860 on that one intake. Run the same enrolment through Pretix on DANIAN and the hosting cost that month is €9. Those fees are passed to the buyer by default, but they are a tax on your enrolment all the same.

At a glance

The six apps, what each replaces, the team size each suits, and the region option. Every app is €9/month on DANIAN, deployed in the datacenter region you pick from 21 locations across six continents.

A word on video costs

Video is the one app here that will not always stay at a flat €9. PeerTube storage and streaming grow with your library and your audience, and transcoding needs processor. The difference is that on DANIAN it scales transparently — per gigabyte and per core — not through a forced enterprise contract.

The €9 base plan includes one vCPU, 30 GB of storage, and 1,000 GB of monthly traffic. That is plenty for a first course. A growing back-catalogue of recorded lessons will pass 30 GB, and storage beyond the base runs €0.50 per gigabyte per month. A popular launch month can pass 1,000 GB of streaming, and traffic beyond the base is €0.03 per gigabyte. Transcoding several uploads into multiple resolutions at once needs more processor, added at €9 per additional core-and-memory unit.

None of that is hidden, and none of it forces a jump to an opaque enterprise tier. Compare the standalone alternative: a typical video host caps self-serve plans at 2 TB of monthly bandwidth and routes anything above into a custom enterprise quote. PeerTube on DANIAN grows by the gigabyte and the core, and you can see the bill before it arrives. Video is the part of this stack to size honestly — for the other five apps, €9 flat is the whole story.

How to start

Pick the one app solving your most expensive problem, deploy it, and run it in production during the 7-day trial. Move a real cohort or a real list onto it before adding the next app. Test the thing that has to work, not a demo.

Start with the line item that costs the most or annoys you the most. For most creators that is the webinar subscription or the per-ticket fee, which points to Greenlight or Pretix first. Deploy that one app, point it at your domain, and run a real session or open a real enrolment during the trial.

Give it a fortnight of actual use. Run a live class in Greenlight, sell a few seats through Pretix, or send a real sequence from Mautic. Email or chat support if a DNS record or a mail setting needs a hand — a named human answers, and the region is yours to choose. Once one app has earned its place, add the next. The stack is built one €9 instance at a time, and nothing forces you to move everything at once.

See pricing — €9 per app, flat.

FAQ

Does DANIAN host an all-in-one course platform like Kajabi?

No. DANIAN’s catalogue is open-source building blocks, not a single course platform. You assemble Greenlight, PeerTube, Discourse, Mautic, Nextcloud, and Pretix into a stack you own. You trade the convenience of one dashboard for control of your data and a flat €9-per-app bill that does not climb with enrolment.

What is the best open-source alternative to Kajabi?

There is no single open-source Kajabi. The closest is a stack of six apps: Greenlight, PeerTube, Discourse, Mautic, Nextcloud, and Pretix. Together they cover live classes, recorded lessons, community, email, materials, and enrolment. On DANIAN that is €9 per app, flat, with no per-seat fees.

How much does the whole stack cost?

Six apps at €9 each is €54/month, flat, including hardware, updates, backups, monitoring, and support. There are no per-seat, per-contact, or per-ticket fees. Video can scale above the base as your library and traffic grow — storage is €0.50/GB and traffic €0.03/GB — but the other five apps stay at €9.

Is it cheaper to self-host a course stack than to use Kajabi or Teachable?

Usually, yes. Kajabi’s Basic plan starts at $149/month, and most active creators use the $199 Growth tier. Teachable’s paid plans sit in a similar range. The six-app stack on DANIAN is €54/month, flat, and the gap widens as enrolment grows.

How much does it cost to host video for an online course?

PeerTube starts at €9/month, which includes 30 GB of storage and 1,000 GB of traffic. A growing library passes that. Storage beyond the base is €0.50 per gigabyte, and traffic is €0.03 per gigabyte. Extra transcoding power is added at €9 per core-and-memory unit.

Can I run live cohort classes without Zoom?

Yes. Greenlight and BigBlueButton give you multi-user whiteboard, breakout rooms, polls, shared notes, and session recording, all browser-based. It is the default virtual classroom inside major learning platforms. For cohorts of a few to a few hundred students, it covers what a paid webinar tool does, at €9/month with recordings you keep.

How many students can Greenlight and BigBlueButton handle in a live class?

BigBlueButton is built for the classroom. It comfortably handles cohorts from a few students to a few hundred. It is not a 10,000-seat broadcast product, and very large audiences need real processor. For most course cohorts, it covers what a paid webinar tool does.

Can I record live classes and reuse them as on-demand lessons?

Yes. Greenlight records each live session, including closed captions. The recording can move into PeerTube as a replay for anyone who missed it. Students watch on demand, on your own video instance, so the class and the lesson library stay connected.

Where are my course videos stored if I use PeerTube?

On your own managed instance, in the region you pick from 21 datacenter locations across six continents. There are no ads and no algorithm steering students elsewhere. Your lesson library embeds on your own pages and stays yours. There is no per-view metering.

Can I build a student community without paying per member?

Yes. Discourse gives students threaded discussions, categories, and good search. Answers stay findable for the next cohort, and it charges nothing per member. On DANIAN it is €9/month, flat, and the member data is yours to export.

Do I own my student email list with Mautic?

Yes. Contact data lives on your own Mautic instance, not inside a vendor priced by list size. You build welcome sequences, reminders, and broadcasts, and they run on your schedule. On DANIAN it is €9/month, flat, whatever your contact count.

Can I sell paid courses and cohorts with open-source software?

Yes. Pretix handles paid enrolment: ticket types, discount codes, order management, and check-in. You set the price, open enrolment, and take payment through Stripe or PayPal. On DANIAN it is €9/month, flat, with no per-ticket platform fee.

Why use Pretix instead of Eventbrite for paid cohorts?

Cost and ownership. Eventbrite adds 3.7% plus $1.79 per ticket and 2.9% processing, with no cap, which lands as 10–20% on lower-priced seats. Pretix on DANIAN is €9/month, flat, with no per-ticket fee — only your payment processor’s standard cut applies. Sell ten seats or two hundred for the same hosting cost.

What payment options does Pretix support for course sales?

Pretix integrates with common payment providers, including Stripe and PayPal. You take payment directly, and only your processor’s standard card fee applies. Pretix adds no per-ticket platform fee of its own. Selling ten seats or two hundred costs the same €9/month to host.

Can I use my own domain for my courses and lessons?

Yes. Each app runs on a domain you choose, so classes, videos, and community sit under your brand. You point a DNS record or two, with help on chat if one needs a hand. The region is yours to pick.

Do I need to be technical to run these?

Less than you would to self-host them yourself. DANIAN runs the servers, patching, backups, and mail setup; you work inside each app’s normal interface. Some changes — a resource upgrade or a region switch — go through support, where a named human helps. You will edit a DNS record or two with guidance, not manage a server.

Who handles updates, backups, and security for these apps?

DANIAN does. We patch the apps, back up every instance daily off-site, and monitor around the clock. You work inside each app’s normal interface and never touch a server. A resource upgrade or region switch goes through support, where a named human helps.

Does this stack suit a solo course creator, or only large teams?

It works whether you teach alone or run a small team. Each app is a separate €9 instance, so you start with the one you need. You add others over time, at your own pace. There are no per-seat fees, so the bill tracks apps, not headcount.

What happens to my student data and videos if I leave?

They are yours. Each app is standard open-source software running on your own managed instance, and you can export your data and download your files on request. There is no lock-in layer — these are the same apps you could run anywhere, so leaving means taking your data with you.

Can I migrate an existing course off Kajabi or Teachable onto this stack?

Yes, piece by piece. These are standard open-source apps, so nothing is locked in. You import videos into PeerTube, contacts into Mautic, materials into Nextcloud, and rebuild enrolment in Pretix. You move at your own pace, one app at a time.

Is there a free trial, and do I need a credit card?

Yes to the trial, no to the card. DANIAN offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. Deploy one app, point it at your domain, and run a real class or enrolment first. Add the next app once one earns its place.

The bottom line

A course business does not need six subscriptions that each take a cut of your growth. Greenlight runs the live classes, PeerTube holds the lessons, Discourse keeps the community, Mautic sends the email, Nextcloud stores the materials, and Pretix sells the seats — six apps, €54/month, flat, on infrastructure you control in the region you choose.

It is not the one-login convenience of an all-in-one platform, and it asks you to assemble the pieces. What you get back is ownership of your student list, your videos, and your community, and a bill that stays put while your audience grows.

This week, pick the one app costing you the most and put a real cohort or a real list on it during the trial. If it holds, add the next. Build the stack one piece at a time, and keep what you build.

Sources

• BigBlueButton documentation — docs.bigbluebutton.org

• PeerTube — joinpeertube.org

• Discourse — discourse.org

• Mautic — mautic.org

• Nextcloud — nextcloud.com

• Pretix — pretix.eu

• Kajabi pricing — learningrevolution.net

• Eventbrite fees — checkoutpage.com

• Mailchimp pricing — emailtooltester.com

• Circle / Mighty Networks pricing — learningrevolution.net

• Google Workspace pricing — workspace.google.com

• Vimeo pricing — checkthat.ai

This article is for general information, not financial or legal advice. SaaS prices are list prices in US dollars and change often; verify current pricing on each vendor’s page before you decide.