It’s a great time to be a creator. There’s never been more flexibility and options for online platforms that let you take your following or your vision and transform it into an amazing business that actually pays you what you’re worth and frees you up to do what you do best: to create.
And while there are a ton of platforms out there, solutions for things like courses, events, and communities, there are very few platforms that bring all of these together.
Most of the platforms created over the past decade focus on one thing. Which is too bad! Because a lot of creators are feeling the joy of an all-in-one space that doesn't hold them back and lets them create whatever it is they want to create. So if you are a creator who wants the option to do more with your audience, maybe it's time to look at an all-in-one platform.
Podia and Mighty Networks are two platforms that do exactly what we described above. They let you bring together courses, community, and events so that you can serve your audience in whatever way you choose. This is an amazing step forward for creators because these platforms give them a blank canvas and they can create whatever they want on it, without losing sleep over the tech.
At face value, these do a lot of the same things. But when we look more closely, Podia is actually missing a lot of the key features that Mighty Networks has. In this article, we compare Podia vs. Mighty Networks and walk you through the features and differences so you can figure out which one is right for you.
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1. Podia vs. Mighty Networks: Who are they?
Podia is an online platform that gives creators the ability to create and sell online courses, products, coaching, and downloads. They can also host webinars and create discussions around their content. Podia comes with some marketing features as well, things like email campaigns, which you can use to support the products you’re selling.
Mighty Networks is an all-in-one cultural software platform that lets you mix courses, community, content, and commerce. Mighty's flexible Spaces can combine live streaming, live events, courses, forums, video and written content, and more! It's the place to bring together a strong community of members dedicated to learning something interesting.
2. Podia vs. Mighty Networks: Judgment criteria
While each of these platforms does a lot, these are the features we will be using to run this comparison. We'll show you the main differences between the two and help you decide which one is right for you.
Community Features
An all-in-one platform should come with a community built-in. And this doesn't mean a chat room or even just a discussion forum. Modern communities are robust and versatile, giving members the ability to engage in a bunch of different ways, allowing hosts to create polls, share just about any sort of content they want, live stream, and host great events.
Courses
Any good all-in-one platform should give you the option to create courses. It should give you tons of ways to deliver content to your members, making learning engaging and fun. You should be able to create whatever you want to create, without feeling limited by what the platform lets you build. And, you should be able to bring your own flavor and brand into the course.
Monetization
Your platform should give you the ability to make money off of your content. But it should go further than this, giving you a bunch of different options to monetize, bundle things, create membership tiers, and charge for access to subgroups. We'll compare each of these two platforms based on the monetization options.
Apps
An all-in-one platform should do one final thing. It should give you the ability to engage with your community through an app. Not a website that users have to try to load through their phone, but an actual native app that lives on your phone, no matter what type of device you have.
3. Podia vs. Mighty Networks: Community features
Podia
When it launched, Podia didn't have the option to build communities. They added the functionality a couple of years ago. The community basically works like a discussion forum or Slack, letting you add topics of interest and posts under the topics. Within these, you can create simple posts. Podia also gives you the option to upload videos to community posts.
Community features
- Clean design, simple organization
- Some options for content (text, video, links, downloads)
- Limited features compared to Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks
Here at Mighty Networks, we describe ourselves as being built on community, so maybe it's not a surprise that we take a ton of pride in our community platform. Over and above the features that Podia has, we’ve built in dedicated messaging between members, beautiful live events that integrate into the community, and polls and Q&A features to really help your community shine. Add to this live streaming and the ability to create and even charge for dedicated subcommunities and you’ve got the ability to make something great.
Community features
- All the community features Podia has
- Polls, quizzes, and the option to create posts or articles
- Live streaming
- Integrated events
- Group messaging
- Customized activity feed for each member
4. Podia vs. Mighty Networks: Courses
Podia
Podia gives you the option to create and add an online course. You can build different course sections, quizzes, video lessons, and you can drag-and-drop the order until you're happy with it. The course creation platform is fairly intuitive and simple, which means it should be fairly easy for anybody to create a course.
Course Features
- Simple to create lessons, quizzes, and sections
- Drag and drop ordering
Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks’ approach to course-building is considerably different from Podia’s. With Mighty Networks, the course-building is incredibly intuitive, with prompts to guide you through best practices and tips as you go. Instead of a list of lessons, you get to experience the course as you create it, putting each section together visibly. You can also choose to either pre-record the course or deliver it live, with other valuable options like dripping content.
The thing that Mighty Networks does best of all is to create a community around your course. That’s our thing. So instead of experiencing the course as a list, as if it was a table of contents from a textbook, you get to go through it with others, seeing their questions, comments, and reactions, and making friends along the way. Each course comes with a community built-in, and its own activity feed, meaning that you can create conversation around your content.
Course Features
- Intuitive creator platform that’s easy to use and organize
- Helpful instructional design prompts
- Choose to pre-record or deliver live
- Course feedback, Q&As, and activity feed
- Individual course branding
5. Podia vs. Mighty Networks: Monetization
Podia
When comparing the monetization features of Podia and Mighty Networks, Podia is more geared towards product while Mighty Networks focuses on community. Podia lets you create individual courses, or digital downloads, or coaching. You can opt to sell these to your audience.
If you add a community, it lives in a different space. If you wanted to monetize through selling a PDF or a printable, Podia would let you create and sell these. Podia also gives you the option of creating sales and adding an affiliate program to help incentivize your audience to promote your products.
Monetization
- Digital Downloads
- Courses
- Webinars
- Coaching (with premium plan)
Mighty Networks
While the end result is the same, the focus of monetization with Mighty Networks is different. A Mighty Network isn’t created around building products per se, it’s built around a community and products that serve that community. This means that you can still choose to monetize through online courses or events, but you also have the option to monetize the community itself.
So, for example, you could charge admission to the general community, and then have an upsell into a course (which would also include its own subgroup). Or, you might choose to have a free membership to the community and then sell memberships to a subgroup and/or a course.
However you want to monetize, Mighty Networks has a ton of options to help you get there.
Monetization
- Community access/membership
- Spaces
- Charge in 135 currencies
- Token-gating
- Events and webinars
- Courses
6. Podia vs. Mighty Networks: Apps
Podia
Podia doesn’t have a mobile app. You can only access it online.
Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks has responsive mobile apps for all devices. Even on the community plan, Hosts and members can access the app for iOS or Android. The apps aren’t just for consuming content either, you can create with the app– posting to your members, uploading videos, or live streaming. Hosts using Mighty Pro can also choose to create and brand their own app.
Apps
- Responsive mobile apps for all devices
- Branded apps with Mighty Pro
7. Try Mighty Networks Free
We hope the information above has helped you get a sense of which of these two platforms is right for you. But since you’re here, why not give Mighty Networks a try for 14 days? It’s totally free to take it for a test ride, we won’t even ask for your credit card.
There’s no better way to figure out if it’s right for you than to try it.
