I'd bookmarked another LMS but then jumped on this AppSumo deal. The price was right, and indeed WP-Courseware offers many, many good things. I was able to build my first course in a day, with videos and quizzes. I love that the shopping cart is built in, rather than requiring another paid plug-in. Easy prerequisites and multiple quiz types and functionalities. So many good things.

But the styling is...non-existent. WP-Courseware advertises custom styling, but it turns out that's referring to WP's own customizer (turning site title on and off, etc.), not style options within WP-Courseware.

Support told me course pages are their own template which could be replaced if I wrote a new one (so note PHP required to change from default), but this doesn't seem to be accurate. I'd said it looked like course pages inherited the blog post template (but not the CSS, so text is claustrophobic), with no option to select another from my theme's choices, and indeed if I modify the site default template the course page follows, so it's clearly not its own template. But short of writing a new one, there's no way to choose or modify the course template; if my blog has a sidebar, the course is getting that same sidebar, regardless of whether the widgets are appropriate for both pages. Want a clean course catalog, so you select "one column, no sidebar" in WP? Sorry, the blog has a sidebar, so your course catalog will, too. Not its own template.

That snazzy catalog of course options, featuring neat rows of styled upright boxes with images, and even tags marking free courses? You can't do that. The default course catalog is the title and description in plain text, across the width of the page, with no image.

I wouldn't be so frustrated -- as I said, it's a good deal for lifetime -- if I didn't feel misled about styling options, and "It's customizable! (if you know PHP)" feels misleading. I shouldn't have to write new PHP (as support confirmed) just to get a lesson without the datestamp of creation (I want an evergreen course!), and if you show me a gorgeous courses-archive page with lots of colorful graphics I should be able to select more than a line of text without its featured image.

All that said, if pretty isn't important, you're not going to find a better course manager at this price, and you should consider it for that reason. Putting together my course was fast and easy. Making it look polished is an ongoing project.