[verdict][generated prompt][source: teachable.com]
Can I vibecode Teachable?
// buildable in a weekend, but real gaps stay open
A basic course site with Stripe can be built, but student apps, tax/payments, course compliance, certificates, upsells, affiliates, and support make full parity hard.
confidence: high
what it is: Online course platform for creators to sell lessons, coaching, and digital products
Buildability index · an editorial game
- Price 39 $/month weight: plus 3
- Time multi-day weight: plus 1
- Category creator commerce no weight
- Moat compliance and regulation · infrastructure scale · execution quality weight: minus 5
- Confidence high weight: plus 1
- What you lose 7 items weight: minus 3
- Site teachable.com (si apre in una nuova scheda) no weight
The moat outweighs the price: rebuilding this is a project, not an evening.
Gioco editoriale: il verdetto dice se un agente può, l’indice se conviene.
What you build
Build lessons/modules, student login, progress tracking, Stripe checkout, and gated course pages.
what you need
- auth
- payment processor
- course CMS
- video/file hosting
- email receipts
- hosting
Important because course platforms are very tempting to DIY but full business flows are deep.
The prompt
A weekend with a coding agent. The gaps that stay are right below, under “what you lose”.
Build me a single-course sales site to replace Teachable, for one course of mine. Requirements:
- Node + Express + better-sqlite3 on my VPS behind Caddy. Course content is Markdown
in content/: one folder per module, one file per lesson, front matter points at an
optional video file.
- Public landing page: course outline, price, and a Buy button that goes to Stripe
Checkout (keys in .env). The Stripe webhook marks the buyer's email as enrolled.
- Student login by magic link: enter email, receive a signed login link via SMTP
creds in .env. No passwords, no OAuth.
- Lesson pages are gated by enrollment; videos are MP4s served through the app with
short-lived signed URLs so direct links expire.
- Progress: a mark-complete button per lesson and a progress bar per module, stored
per student in SQLite.
- Receipts come from Stripe; do not build invoicing or tax logic (turn on Stripe Tax
if needed).
- Out of scope: multiple courses, affiliates, certificates, upsells, coupons, and
mobile apps. This sells and delivers one course.
- README: Stripe webhook setup, Caddy snippet, where videos live on disk, and an
honest note that a VPS handles a small audience fine but a big launch needs real
video hosting like Bunny.net.Prompt generated from the data on this page, not reviewed by hand yet. In English on purpose — it is the language coding agents work best in.
What you lose
- student apps
- payments/tax workflows
- certificates
- upsells
- affiliates
- support
- course compliance features
Why people still pay
They pay because course businesses need checkout, access, progress, and support to just work.
moat: Compliance and regulation Infrastructure scale Execution quality what a moat is
payments/content hosting/mobile distribution
Free alternatives
Not in the mood to build it? These already exist, they are free or open source, and we checked them one by one.
Who has already built it
Starting from here is still vibecoding: the prompt is for when you want it exactly your way.
- Moodle (opens in a new tab) — Mature open-source learning management system; powerful but heavier than Teachable. (alive)
Do you agree?
The vote balance
Ancora nessun voto: il tuo è il primo.
Nessun voto ancora — il primo pesa.
