Everyone, I am really proud to be finally putting a bow on this thing. For those of you who have been with me since the Zen Perfect Design and Envato days, this is Scholar - reborn as I always wanted it to be. And here we are: November 1 is launch day. After months of building, testing and breaking things on purpose, PortIgniter LMS is almost ready. It’s a learning platform for people who teach technical skills and are tired of choosing between bloated open-source giants and SaaS platforms that charge you more every time your audience grows.
Here’s what that looks like: $100 gets you the full source code and a year of updates. It’s MIT-licensed, so once it’s yours, it stays yours. Run it forever, change anything you like, and never pay a per-student fee again.
Why another LMS?
Most course platforms make you choose one of two bad deals.
- The big open-source LMSs can do almost anything, which also means hundreds of settings, a plugin for every feature and a weekend of setup before you write your first lesson.
- The hosted course platforms are easy to start with, but they rent your audience back to you. They charge monthly, take a cut of sales, cap your students and keep your content in a format only they can read.
PortIgniter LMS takes neither deal. It’s built around one goal: get from docker compose up to a
published course in under 15 minutes, then stay out of your way.
What makes it stand out
A drag-and-drop course builder that writes real files
Build lessons from blocks (text, video, audio, images, code, callouts, downloads and embeds) and drag them into place. Autosave, publishing and a check that runs before anything goes live are all included.
Here’s the part nobody else does: every course is stored as plain JSON and Markdown files. The database is just an index that can be rebuilt. That means:
- Your courses can live in Git if you want them to.
- Export any course as a zip and import it anywhere, with no lock-in and no migration headaches.
- You, or your favorite AI assistant, can draft up a course outside the builder. A full authoring spec, a working
example course and a
php spark courses:checkvalidator come with it.
A quiz engine with real depth
Ten question types (single choice, multi-select, true/false, short answer, numeric, fill-in-the-blank, matching, ordering, drag-and-drop categorizing and essays) with partial credit, question banks, randomized pulls per learner, attempt limits and cooldowns.
Timed exams use a server-side clock: the countdown can’t be cheated by fiddling with the browser, and if a learner’s time runs out, their saved answers are submitted automatically. Essays go to a review queue where instructors grade them by hand and learners see the result.
Progression rules that actually hold
Let learners roam freely or require them to go in order, per course or per module. Gate a module behind a quiz score. Make some lessons optional. The rules are enforced on the server, not just hidden in the interface, and the builder even catches setups that would leave learners permanently stuck.
Sell courses and memberships with Stripe, built in
No marketplace taking a cut. Connect your own Stripe account and you can:
- Sell individual courses with a one-time price, with optional time-limited access.
- Sell memberships, monthly or yearly, covering all courses, chosen tracks or hand-picked courses. Courses you publish later are added for members automatically.
- Accept promotion codes you create in Stripe, including 100% off codes.
- Let buyers check out without making an account first. Their account is created and secured by an emailed link.
- Handle refunds and disputes automatically: access follows the money.
- See it all in Admin > Sales: revenue, refunds, discounts, subscribers, an MRR estimate and a CSV export.
Prefer to give access away? Use invitation links and keys instead, or open a free course to everyone.
Certificates people can verify
Turn on certificates for a course and learners get a polished PDF when they finish. Every certificate has a unique ID and a QR code that links to a public verification page, so employers can confirm it’s real in seconds.
A built-in certificate designer lets you choose from three templates, set colors and fonts, add your logo, background and signature, and write the wording with placeholders, all with a live preview.
Looks great, in light or dark
A clean, modern interface with a true dark mode and a carefully tuned light mode. Upload your logo and front-page image, set your site name and footer, and add custom CSS or tracking snippets from the admin panel. Nothing is hardcoded to our brand, so it looks like yours.
It’s also fast and lean: plain server-rendered pages, vanilla JavaScript, all assets served from your own server and zero third-party CDNs.
Ships as a Docker stack
One .env file and docker compose up. Migrations run themselves, the first admin account is created
from your settings, and a scheduler handles the background work. Your data lives in two volumes, so
backups and upgrades are simple.
Roles that make sense
Learners take courses. Instructors get every course and quiz tool. Administrators add site settings, user management, plans and sales. That’s it, with no maze of permission checkboxes.
The $100 advantage
Let’s talk about money, because this is where PortIgniter LMS really pulls ahead.
| Typical hosted course platform | PortIgniter LMS | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Monthly subscription, every month, forever | $100 once for the code + a year of updates |
| Per-student fees | Often, or capped plans | None, ever |
| Transaction cut | Common on lower tiers | None. Payments go straight to your Stripe account |
| Your content | Locked in their format | Plain files + zip export |
| Keep using it if you stop paying | No | Yes, forever |
$100 covers a full year of updates: new features, fixes and security patches as they ship. When the year ends, nothing stops working. Keep running the version you have for as long as you like, or renew to keep getting what’s new. The choice is yours, and nothing is held hostage.
For a lot of trainers, a single course sale covers the whole cost.
The freedom of the MIT license
PortIgniter LMS is released under the MIT license, one of the most permissive licenses in software. In plain English:
- ✅ Use it forever. Your copy never expires.
- ✅ Modify anything. Change the design, add features, rip out what you don’t need.
- ✅ Run it for as many sites, students and courses as you want.
- ✅ Use it commercially. Sell your courses, run it for clients, build a business on it.
- ✅ No phoning home, no license server, no kill switch.
It’s built on CodeIgniter 4 and PHP, a stack that’s easy to read, easy to host and familiar to a huge community of developers. If you can read PHP, you can make it your own.
Get it November 1st
PortIgniter LMS launches November 1, 2026.
Get PortIgniter LMS for $100: full source, a year of updates, yours forever.
Stop renting your classroom. Own it.