How to build a production-ready Udemy clone in Next.js

Originially published on Whop.

Building an online course marketplace sounds intimidating. You're juggling video hosting, payment processing, instructor onboarding, student enrollment, and complex dashboards. But with the right infrastructure, you can launch a production-ready Udemy clone in a single day.

I recently built Courstar, a full-featured course marketplace, and here's what I learned: pick the right services and focus on your platform. Let Whop handle payments and authentication, Mux stream videos, Neon store data, and Vercel deploy everything. You handle the magic—the actual course platform.

Why This Stack?

A surprising number of tools promise to solve online education, but most add complexity. The stack I chose is intentionally minimal: Next.js (React with server components), Whop (payments and OAuth), Mux (video hosting), Neon (Postgres), and Vercel.

Here's why this combination works: Whop handles two of the hardest problems in marketplace platforms—payments and authentication. The payment system isn't just charging customers; it's managing payment splits between your platform and instructors, handling payouts, and ensuring compliance. For authentication, Whop OAuth lets both instructors and students sign in instantly without building a security infrastructure from scratch.

Mux eliminates video hosting headaches. Instead of managing video transcoding, streaming quality, and CDN distribution, you upload once and integrate their player. Video thumbnails, playback analytics, and responsive streaming are built in.

Neon provides serverless Postgres. You don't manage database infrastructure—it scales automatically and connects seamlessly with Vercel.

The Architecture

Courstar has these core features: a multi-vendor marketplace where any user can become an instructor, a structured course builder with modules and lessons, progress tracking for students, one-time course purchases, and separate dashboards for teachers and students.

The flow is simple. An instructor publishes a paid course. The app creates a Whop product with your 20% application fee. A student enrolls, and Whop fires a payment.succeeded webhook. The app creates an enrollment record. The instructor manages payouts through Whop's dashboard.

Getting Started

Setup takes hours, not days. Create a Next.js project, push it to Vercel, and integrate Neon via Vercel's integrations—no database configuration required. Set up Whop OAuth in their sandbox (a real simulation without real money) by creating an app, registering your redirect URI, and storing your credentials in Vercel environment variables.

Build authentication first. Create login and callback routes using OAuth PKCE flow. The callback route validates the authorization code, fetches the user's profile, and creates a session. Build middleware that protects all routes by default and only allows public routes through.

Then expand your data models. Define nine tables—users, courses, sections, lessons, videos, enrollments, reviews, and completion tracking. Push your Prisma schema to Neon, and your database is ready.

Whats Next?

The foundation handles the hardest infrastructure. Now you focus on features that matter: a beautiful course builder, engaging video player, student progress dashboards, reviews, and discovery.

You can expand easily. Add subscriptions instead of one-time purchases. Implement quizzes that unlock lessons progressively. Add PDF certificates on completion. Create discussion forums. Support coupons and promo codes.

The core lesson: don't build commodities. Payments, authentication, and video hosting are commodities. Services like Whop, Mux, and Neon solve these at scale. Your time is better spent on your platform's unique value: the instructor experience, student outcomes, course discovery, and community.

You can launch today. The infrastructure is ready. What will you build?