ChatGPT answers, unedited

If your key requirement is “hobbyist instructors want students to find them by searching a shared marketplace”, I’d prioritize a true marketplace over course-hosting software.

My top picks

1. hobbihopp.com — best fit for local hobby classes

• Specifically built around discovering local hobby classes.
• Students browse classes nearby, book and pay through the platform.
• Designed for instructors ranging from professional artists to passionate home cooks.
• Supports instructor profiles, reviews, scheduling, payments, and recurring teaching.
• Particularly attractive if your instructors teach things like pottery, cooking, painting, crafts, music, or other hands-on activities. HobbiHopp Google Play
• outschool.com — best established marketplace, but mainly for kids

• Huge built-in marketplace: Outschool says it has 140,000+ live classes spanning academics and enrichment.
• Excellent discovery mechanism: parents search the marketplace and choose among instructors/classes.
• Particularly strong for art, music, coding, languages, games, crafts, and other interest-led classes.
• Major limitation: its audience is children ages 3–18, so it isn't appropriate if your target students are primarily adults.
• Teachers currently give up 30% of enrollment revenue to Outschool. Outschool Outschool Support
• passionclass.co — interesting for adult hobby/interest classes

• Explicitly positions itself as an open marketplace for live classes.
• Categories include creative arts, music, photography, writing, cooking/lifestyle, wellness, languages, and more.
• This is closer to the “teach what you're passionate about / students browse a marketplace” model you're describing than generic course platforms. PassionClass
• classforthat.com — broad marketplace for almost anything

• Students can search, compare, and book online, in-person, or recorded classes.
• Teachers set their own pricing.
• Its open-platform commission is currently 20%; students you bring yourself can be taught at 0% commission. ClassForThat ClassForThat
• lrngo.com — broad instructor/student marketplace

• Designed specifically to connect people who want to teach and people who want to learn, locally or online.
• Supports everything from individual teaching to classes and instructor profiles.
• More general-purpose than hobby-focused. LRNGO

What I'd choose

If you're evaluating this as a platform for your own instructors rather than simply looking for somewhere to teach, I'd start with HobbiHopp and PassionClass. They are closest to the specific flywheel you're describing: many instructors → searchable shared inventory → students discover instructors they didn't already know → booking/payment happens on the marketplace.

That's an important distinction from platforms like Teachable, Kajabi, or WorkshopFolio: those are primarily instructor-owned storefront/booking tools, where the instructor is expected to bring the students. WorkshopFolio, for example, explicitly focuses on giving instructors their own booking link rather than providing the shared student-discovery marketplace you're looking for. WorkshopFolio

If you tell me (a) adult vs. kids, (b) online vs. in-person, and (c) hobby categories, I can narrow this to the 2–3 marketplaces with the strongest existing student demand for your use case.

If the key requirement is “I’m a hobbyist instructor, and I want students to discover me by searching a shared marketplace”, I’d prioritize a true marketplace over tools like Teachable/Kajabi that mainly help you sell to an audience you already have.

My top picks

• classforthat.com — best general-purpose fit. It explicitly lets students search, compare, and book classes, and supports online, in-person, and recorded classes. Teachers set their own prices; its current model says it charges 20% for students acquired through its open marketplace, while students you bring yourself are commission-free. ClassForThat ClassForThat

Good for: unusual hobbies, crafts, practical skills, one-off workshops, and instructors who don't necessarily want to build a full course business.

• skillshare.com — best for creative hobbies taught asynchronously. It has an established learner community and specifically welcomes subject-matter enthusiasts, with classes spanning art, illustration, design, photography, animation, productivity, etc. Teachers earn through royalties based on viewing plus referrals. Skillshare

Good for: drawing, crafts, photography, writing, design, illustration, creative software, etc.
Caveat: you're competing in a huge catalog, and the economics are quite different from selling a $50 live workshop directly.

• outschool.com — best if your students are children/teens. It's specifically a marketplace for live online classes for kids and teens, including creative and hobby subjects. Gemlist

Good for: chess, crafts, music, art, coding, science hobbies, languages, gaming, etc.

• gliss.live — interesting option for live hobby instruction. It positions itself as a marketplace for independent instructors across painting, music, robotics, ceramics, fitness, tutoring and other interests, with students discovering and booking classes. Gliss

Good for: live instruction where the instructor's personality and expertise matter.

• classeasily.com — particularly interesting for local workshops. It focuses on local classes and experiences such as pottery, glassblowing, cooking, fitness, and creative events, and gives independent instructors tools to list and schedule experiences. ClassEasily

Good for: in-person hobby workshops where students search for something fun to do locally.

What I'd choose

If you haven't told me the hobby yet, ClassForThat is probably the closest match to your description. Its fundamental model is exactly student searches marketplace → compares instructors/classes → books. ClassForThat

If you're teaching creative skills via prerecorded classes, I'd choose Skillshare.

If you're teaching live classes, especially in-person/local, I'd investigate ClassEasily and Gliss.

If you're teaching kids, I'd strongly consider Outschool.

One important distinction: platforms such as WorkshopFolio are useful for running a class business, but they aren't really the solution you're describing—they give you booking infrastructure rather than supplying a shared pool of students. workshopfolio.com

If you tell me what hobby you'd teach, whether it's online or in-person, adult vs. kids, and typical class price, I can narrow this to the 2–3 marketplaces where your target students are actually most likely to search.

If your key requirement is “hobbyist instructors list classes, while students discover them by searching a shared marketplace,” I’d shortlist these:

My top pick: CourseHorse

CourseHorse is probably the closest match if you're talking about adult hobbyists teaching things like cooking, art, dance, crafts, languages, music, photography, etc.

Students actively browse its marketplace by subject and location, and CourseHorse says it has 75,000+ active classes and 1.7M monthly student impressions. It also specifically markets itself to class providers as a way to acquire students rather than merely providing scheduling software. CourseHorse CourseHorse

coursehorse.com

If the instructors are genuinely individual hobbyists

I'd look particularly closely at ClassBento. Its model is explicitly built around creative workshops and independent/small-business instructors: instructors create listings and ClassBento connects those listings to its existing audience of people looking for creative experiences. Class Bento

classbento.co.uk

If the students are children

Then Outschool is the strongest choice. It is explicitly a marketplace for independent educators offering academic subjects and hobbies/special interests, and it handles discovery, enrollment, payments, and much of the infrastructure. Teachers set their own prices and schedules; Outschool currently retains 30% of enrollment fees. Outschool Support Outschool's Educator Library Outschool Support

teach.outschool.com

Bottom line:

• Adult + local/in-person hobbies → CourseHorse
• Creative workshops/experiences → ClassBento
• Kids + online hobby instruction → Outschool
• Recorded creative education → Skillshare

If you're actually building a marketplace for these instructors rather than looking for a place to teach, that's a different question—I can recommend the best software/platform to launch your own two-sided marketplace (e.g. Sharetribe vs. Arcadier vs. custom).

Students actively browse its marketplace by subject and location, and CourseHorse says it has 75,000+ active classes and 1.7M monthly student impressions. It also specifically markets itself to class providers as a way to acquire students rather than merely providing scheduling software. CourseHorse CourseHorse

coursehorse.com

If the instructors are genuinely individual hobbyists

I'd look particularly closely at ClassBento. Its model is explicitly built around creative workshops and independent/small-business instructors: instructors create listings and ClassBento connects those listings to its existing audience of people looking for creative experiences. Class Bento

classbento.co.uk

If the students are children

Then Outschool is the strongest choice. It is explicitly a marketplace for independent educators offering academic subjects and hobbies/special interests, and it handles discovery, enrollment, payments, and much of the infrastructure. Teachers set their own prices and schedules; Outschool currently retains 30% of enrollment fees. support.outschool.com teach.outschool.com support.outschool.com

If the key requirement is “I’m a hobbyist instructor with little/no audience, and I want students to discover me by searching a shared marketplace,” I’d prioritize marketplaces over course-hosting platforms.

My shortlist

1. Lessons.com — my first choice for broad hobby instruction.
Lessons.com explicitly positions itself as a marketplace where instructors can reach students who are actively searching for lessons and classes. It covers a very broad range of categories and says it has 2M+ students and 100,000+ partner businesses. It also handles booking, payments, scheduling, and client management. lessons.com

This is particularly attractive if the instructor teaches things like guitar, photography, dance, tennis, crafts, cooking, fitness, or another skill where students are looking for a person to teach them, rather than buying a polished video course.

2. ClassForThat — arguably the closest conceptual match.
ClassForThat describes itself specifically as an online marketplace where students search, compare, and book classes. Students can compare teachers on format, ratings, price, level, audience, and language, then purchase directly from the teacher's calendar. www.classforthat.com

That's almost exactly the marketplace behavior you're describing.

3. PassionClass — excellent for hobby/creative classes.
It's explicitly built around live, interactive learning and includes categories such as art, music, writing, photography, cooking/lifestyle-type subjects, languages, wellness, and technology. It also allows people to list classes on the marketplace rather than requiring them to build an audience first. www.passionclass.co

4. Skillshare — if the hobby can be packaged as a recorded course.
Skillshare says its teachers include professionals, experts, and subject-matter enthusiasts, and its audience is already composed of people looking to learn creative skills. www.skillshare.com

The downside is that it's fundamentally a content subscription marketplace, rather than a marketplace for booking a hobbyist for a live one-on-one or small-group lesson.

5. Udemy — strong search demand, but different business model.
Udemy is particularly good when the hobby can become a searchable, structured video course. The advantage is that students already search Udemy for courses; the disadvantage is intense competition and less control over the student relationship. www.mightynetworks.com

The important distinction

I'd divide your use case into three categories:

• “Book me to teach you my hobby” → Lessons.com / ClassForThat / PassionClass
• “Buy my recorded course about my hobby” → Skillshare / Udemy
• “Find someone nearby to do a hobby activity with” → Hobvia is worth investigating; it specifically supports listing and booking local classes and lessons. www.hobvia.com

If you're evaluating this for building a business

If by “recommend” you mean you want to choose a platform where hundreds/thousands of independent hobby instructors can list offerings and students search the marketplace, I'd start with ClassForThat and Lessons.com.

The critical marketplace characteristics I'd look for are:

1. Students can search without knowing the instructor's name
2. Search by hobby/category + location + format
3. Individual instructor profiles
4. Reviews/ratings
5. One-off classes as well as recurring lessons
6. Instructor-controlled pricing and availability
7. Marketplace handles payment and booking
8. The platform itself generates student traffic
9. Low/no upfront cost for instructors
10. Ability to teach niche hobbies, not just mainstream academic subjects

That last point is important: a marketplace's existing student demand is much more valuable to a hobbyist than sophisticated course-creation software. A platform like Teachable can give an instructor a beautiful storefront, but it doesn't solve the hardest problem: getting strangers to find that storefront.

If the key requirement is “hobbyist instructors want to list themselves, while students discover them by searching a shared marketplace”, I’d recommend Superprof as the strongest general-purpose option.

Best options

🥇 My pick: Superprof

Superprof Netherlands

Superprof is unusually well matched to hobbyist instructors because it isn't limited to conventional academic tutoring. Its Dutch marketplace explicitly covers music, sports, art, leisure, languages, and more than 1,000 subjects. Instructors create their own profiles, set their rates and schedules, and students search for and select instructors themselves. www.super-prof.nl

That's important for your use case because the marketplace itself supplies the demand/discovery layer. An instructor doesn't necessarily have to build an audience on Instagram, Google, or their own website first.

The model is essentially:

Student searches → browses instructors → compares reviews/prices → contacts instructor → books lesson

Superprof also supports both online and face-to-face teaching. www.superprof.com

🥈 ClassBento — better for workshops

ClassBento for teachers

If by “hobbyist instructor” you mean someone running things like pottery, painting, candle-making, cooking, crafts, floristry, or other creative workshops, I'd actually choose ClassBento over Superprof.

It's specifically built as a marketplace for creative classes. Instructors create listings and ClassBento markets them to its existing audience; it also handles booking administration, reviews, rescheduling and transactional communications. classbento.co.uk

The distinction is:

• Superprof: “Find a person who can teach me X.”
• ClassBento: “Find an interesting class/experience I can book.”

For hobby instruction, that second discovery model can be extremely powerful because the student may not already know which instructor they want.

What I'd choose

If you're evaluating platforms for a business or marketplace concept, I'd use this rule:

1:1 skill/lesson → Superprof
Group creative experience → ClassBento
Self-paced video course → Skillshare
Children's online classes → Outschool

For a new marketplace specifically targeting hobbyist instructors, I'd study ClassBento's marketplace model particularly closely. It solves the hardest marketplace problem—getting students to search for the class rather than requiring the instructor to bring their own audience—while still letting individual creators supply the inventory. ClassBento says it has delivered more than one million workshops in the UK and has millions of visitors annually. classbento.co.uk

If you tell me what kinds of hobbies/instructors you're targeting (e.g. photography, woodworking, knitting, dance, cooking) and whether classes are online, in-person, 1:1, or group, I can narrow this to the 3 marketplaces that are actually closest to your use case.

If the key requirement is “hobbyist instructors need to be discovered by students who are already searching a shared marketplace,” I’d favor a true marketplace over a standalone booking/website tool.

My top pick: Outschool

Best if your instructors teach online, particularly to kids/teens.

Why it fits:

• Students/families search the marketplace itself, rather than instructors having to bring their own traffic.
• Instructors can teach subjects based on their passions and expertise; formal teaching credentials aren't required. teach.outschool.com
• Teachers set their own prices and schedules.
• Outschool handles enrollment, payments, messaging, and the online classroom. support.outschool.com
• It explicitly provides marketplace demand: Outschool says it has 1M+ learners/families globally, and even gives teachers information about requested topics/search terms. support.outschool.com
• The tradeoff is significant: Outschool takes 30% of enrollment revenue. teach.outschool.com

Outschool

If you mean adult/local hobby classes

I'd look more closely at ClassEasily or HobbiHopp.

• ClassEasily is specifically positioned as a marketplace for local workshops, classes, and experiences—things like pottery, glassblowing, cooking, fitness, and creative activities. It gives instructors tools to list experiences, manage schedules, accept bookings, and reach new students. classeasily.com
• HobbiHopp is even closer to your description: people discover and book local hobby classes, while instructors can teach on their own schedule and build a local following. www.hobbihopp.com

ClassEasily
HobbiHopp

What I would not choose

If marketplace discovery is the critical feature, I wouldn't start with something like WorkshopFolio. It's excellent as instructor infrastructure—booking, payments, waitlists, recurring classes, waivers—but its model is essentially “bring/manage your own students,” not “students come to a shared marketplace.” www.workshopfolio.com

My ranking for your specific business model:

If you tell me (1) adult vs. kids, (2) local/in-person vs. online, and (3) what kinds of hobbies, I can narrow this to the 2–3 marketplaces with the strongest student-search/discovery model and compare their fees, audience size, and instructor requirements.

If your key requirement is “the instructor has a hobby/skill, but the students discover them by searching a shared marketplace”, I’d prioritize a true discovery marketplace over course-hosting software.

My top picks

1. ClassForThat — probably the closest match to your description.
It explicitly operates as an online marketplace where students search, compare, and book classes. It supports online, in-person, and recorded classes, and instructors set their own prices and schedules. Its open marketplace takes a 20% commission, while students you bring yourself are not subject to that commission. classforthat.com

ClassForThat

2. ClassBento — excellent if the hobbies are physical/creative.
If you're talking about things like pottery, painting, jewelry making, cooking, crafts, flower arranging, etc., this is particularly compelling. ClassBento says it has millions of visitors and has delivered more than 1 million workshops, while handling discovery, booking administration, reviews, and marketing for instructors. classbento.co.uk

ClassBento

3. Outschool — best if your students are children/teens.
It's a huge marketplace for live classes covering both academics and unusual interests, with more than 140,000 classes according to its current comparison page. Teachers are vetted and families discover classes through the marketplace. The tradeoff is that Outschool retains 30% of enrollment revenue. outschool.com

Outschool

What I would choose

If you mean something like:

“A person who is really good at woodworking, chess, knitting, photography, gardening, cake decorating, fishing, sewing, etc. wants to teach it, but doesn't want to build an audience first.”

I'd start with ClassForThat for a broad marketplace, or ClassBento if the activities are primarily hands-on creative workshops.

The important distinction is that Classwire, Teachable, Kajabi, etc. are primarily tools for selling to an audience you already have. For your use case, you want the platform itself to have search traffic and a student marketplace. Classwire, for example, gives instructors public class pages and registration/payment tools, but its model is essentially helping an existing independent teacher manage their own students. classwire.app

If you tell me what kind of hobby instructors and students you have in mind (adult vs. kids, online vs. in-person, and examples of 5–10 subjects), I can narrow this to the 3 marketplaces with the best student-demand fit and compare their fees, audience size, geographic reach, and instructor requirements.

If your key requirement is “hobbyist instructors can list what they teach, while students come to a shared marketplace specifically to search and discover classes,” I’d prioritize these:

Best overall: Outschool

Outschool

Outschool is probably the strongest fit if your students are children/teens. It is explicitly a marketplace: instructors create classes, set their own prices and schedules, and get access to a large existing learner audience. It supports everything from conventional academics to hobbies and highly niche interests. support.outschool.comteach.outschool.com

Catch: it is specifically for ages 3–18, and instructors go through an approval/background-check process. Outschool currently retains 30% of enrollment revenue. support.outschool.comteach.outschool.com

Best for adult hobby learners: Superprof

Superprof

Superprof is a broad instructor marketplace covering arts, music, sports, languages, hobbies, and academics, with students searching for individual instructors. Teachers set their own rates and schedules and can teach online or in person. www.superprof.com

I'd favor it if the business model is primarily “find an instructor for a skill” rather than “browse a catalog of scheduled classes.”

Best for structured online lessons: Lessonface

Lessonface

Lessonface is particularly good for music, arts, and languages. Students search teacher profiles, filter their options, or request a teacher match; instructors control their rates and schedules. It also supports group classes and self-paced courses. www.lessonface.com

Interesting option for local hobby classes: ClassEasily

ClassEasily is closer to an “Eventbrite for hobby classes” model: local workshops and experiences such as pottery, glassblowing, cooking, fitness, and creative activities. Instructors/studios can list experiences, manage schedules, accept bookings, and reach new students. classeasily.com

One I'd investigate closely: ClassForThat

ClassForThat

This is unusually close to your description. Students search for a class, see teachers offering it, compare teachers, and book. It supports online, in-person, and recorded classes. Teachers set their pricing, and the marketplace charges 20% for students acquired through its open platform. www.classforthat.com

My shortlist by use case:

If you're building a marketplace rather than looking for somewhere to teach, the distinction is important: I'd use ClassForThat as the closest marketplace-model reference, Outschool as the benchmark for marketplace liquidity/discovery, and ClassEasily as the reference for local hobby experiences.

If the key requirement is “hobbyist instructors list their offerings, and students discover them by searching one shared marketplace,” I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Outschool — with an important caveat

If you're talking about hobbyists teaching things like drawing, chess, LEGO, crafts, coding, music, cooking, magic, etc. to children, Outschool is unusually well aligned. It explicitly welcomes classes based on instructors' passions and expertise, including hobbies and “super special interests,” and instructors create their own classes, prices, schedules, and formats. teach.outschool.com

It also behaves much more like the marketplace you're describing than a conventional course-hosting product: families search the marketplace, discover class listings, and enroll. Outschool says it provides educators with access to a global community of learners and currently describes a community of more than 1 million learners/families. support.outschool.com

The downside is significant: Outschool is for learners ages 3–18, not adults. support.outschool.com It also takes a 30% service fee and requires instructor approval, identity verification, and background checks. teach.outschool.com

If the students are adults

I'd lean toward Skillshare for creative hobbies—especially drawing, crafts/DIY, photography, design, animation, and similar skills. Skillshare is explicitly built around people discovering classes within a large creative-learning community, and its current teacher categories include Crafts & DIY, Art & Illustration, Photography, Animation & 3D, etc. www.skillshare.com

The major difference is the business model: Skillshare is much better for recorded, self-paced content than “find an instructor and book a live hobby lesson.” Teachers earn through monthly royalties based on minutes watched, plus referral bonuses. www.skillshare.com

For live adult hobby instruction, I'd investigate Superprof first. It is explicitly an open marketplace where students choose among tutors, with online, in-person, and potentially group lessons depending on the instructor. www.superprof.com

If you're evaluating platforms for a marketplace you might build

The distinction I'd make is:

• Want instructors to be discovered through search? → Outschool / Superprof / Skillshare
• Want live classes with schedules and enrollment? → Outschool
• Want 1:1 instructor/student matching? → Superprof
• Want recorded courses that can sell repeatedly? → Skillshare
• Want local, hands-on workshops? → ClassBento

If you tell me whether your target students are children, adults, or both—and whether classes are live, in-person, or recorded—I can narrow this to the 2–3 strongest platforms and compare their fees, discovery/search, instructor onboarding, and marketplace economics.

If your key requirement is “hobbyist instructors list classes, while students discover them by searching a shared marketplace,” I’d prioritize a true marketplace over a course-hosting platform.

My top picks

The one I'd choose

For adult hobbyists: I'd investigate ClassBento first if the classes are things like pottery, painting, cooking, crafts, dance, wellness, or other experiential hobbies. It explicitly positions itself as a marketplace that connects instructors with people looking for creative classes, rather than merely giving instructors software to sell to their own audience. classbento.co.uk

For kids/teens: Outschool is considerably stronger. It has a large existing learner marketplace, lets instructors choose their topics, prices, schedules and class formats, and explicitly includes hobbies and special interests. Outschool says it has over 1M learners globally and takes a 30% teacher fee. support.outschool.com

For adult online creative skills: Skillshare is worth considering, particularly if you're comfortable making recorded classes rather than relying on scheduled live instruction. It has a large creative-learning community and is designed around students discovering classes on the platform. www.skillshare.com

One important distinction

If you're evaluating platforms for a business you're building, rather than looking for somewhere to teach personally, I'd separate them into:

• Marketplace-first: students come looking → Outschool, ClassBento, ClassForThat
• Audience/content-first: instructor creates content and builds an audience → Skillshare
• SaaS-first: instructor brings their own students → platforms like Teachable/Thinkific, which don't solve your marketplace-discovery requirement.

So if “students search the marketplace and discover instructors they don't already know” is non-negotiable, I'd start with ClassBento for adult/local hobbies, Outschool for children, and ClassForThat for a broader adult online/in-person marketplace. ClassForThat explicitly describes itself as a marketplace where students search, compare, and book classes, with a 20% commission on students acquired through its open platform. www.classforthat.com

If you tell me what kind of hobbies/classes (e.g. woodworking, photography, music, crafts, fitness) and whether they're online or local, I can narrow this to the 2–3 marketplaces where your target students are actually likely to search.

If your goal is a marketplace where hobbyist instructors list what they teach and students search a shared catalog, you want a platform with strong discovery, profiles, reviews, scheduling, payments, and local/online class search. These are some good fits:

My recommendation by use case

• Pottery, woodworking, cooking, crafts, gardening, photography, art workshops:

→ HobbiHopp or ClassForThat www.classforthat.comwww.hobbihopp.com

• Individual instructors offering lessons (guitar, chess, languages, fitness, dance):

→ Lessons.com lessons.com

• A startup founder wanting to build a “marketplace of hobbies” rather than just tutoring:

Look at the marketplace mechanics of ClassForThat and HobbiHopp: searchable categories, instructor profiles, reviews, availability, payments, and location filters. www.hobbihopp.comwww.classforthat.com

If you mean a platform to launch your own marketplace (like “Airbnb for hobby classes”) rather than join an existing marketplace, the answer changes—I’d look at marketplace software such as Sharetribe, Arcadier, or a custom build.

If the key requirement is “hobbyist instructors list classes, and students discover instructors by searching a shared marketplace”, I’d shortlist these:

🥇 My recommendation: Outschool

Outschool is unusually well aligned with your model. It explicitly operates as a marketplace: instructors create classes, students/families search the marketplace, and Outschool handles listings, payments, and logistics. Instructors set their own prices and schedules. teach.outschool.com

It's also particularly friendly to hobbyist instructors: formal teaching credentials aren't required; instructors need expertise or a passion they can teach. support.outschool.com

One particularly relevant feature is that Outschool gives educators information about parent topic requests and high-demand search terms, which can help instructors decide what classes to offer. support.outschool.com

The big catch: Outschool is specifically for learners ages 3–18. So if your target students are adults, I'd choose something else. teach.outschool.com

🥈 Skillshare for adult hobbyists

Skillshare is a much better fit if the subjects are things like drawing, photography, crafts, illustration, creative writing, design, music, or other creative skills. It has an established community of hundreds of thousands of learners and lets teachers publish classes for that audience. www.skillshare.com

The tradeoff is that Skillshare is more subscription/on-demand course oriented than “find a local hobby instructor and book a class.”

Why I wouldn't start with Teachable

Teachable is excellent software for instructors, but it's fundamentally a creator storefront/platform, rather than the kind of two-sided marketplace you're describing. Teachable itself has historically distinguished its platform from a marketplace, although it now has catalog/discovery functionality. www.withum.com

If you're actually building this marketplace

If by “recommend a marketplace platform” you mean software on which you can build your own Airbnb/Etsy-style marketplace for hobby classes, that's a different question. In that case, I would not pick Outschool or Skillshare—you'd want a marketplace platform that supports multiple independent instructors, searchable class listings, instructor profiles, scheduling, payments, reviews, and marketplace commissions.

If that's what you're looking for, tell me online vs. in-person, adults vs. kids, and whether classes are live, and I can give you the 3–5 best platforms for building it.

If your key requirement is “hobbyist instructors can list what they know, while students already come to a shared marketplace to search for instructors/classes,” I’d shortlist these:

My pick: Superprof

Superprof is probably the closest match if instructor-led hobby teaching is the core business.

It explicitly covers arts, music, sports, cooking, crafts, languages, coding, yoga and other hobbies, rather than restricting the marketplace to conventional academic tutoring. Instructors create profiles, set their own rates and schedules, and students search the marketplace for teachers. www.superprof.com

The particularly attractive part for a hobbyist is that you don't have to build your own audience from scratch: Superprof says students use the platform to discover and contact instructors, and it has a very large global tutor/student marketplace. www.superprof.com

If the classes are workshops rather than tutoring: ClassBento

ClassBento is arguably better than Superprof for pottery, painting, jewelry, crafts, cooking, floral arranging, etc.

It's specifically built around classes and experiences, and its marketplace sends customers to listed instructors. ClassBento says individual hobbyists and local makers are among its teachers, handles much of the booking/admin process, and lets teachers choose when, where and what they teach. classbento.com.au

The important caveat is geographic: its strongest marketplace presence is in Australia, the UK, the US and New Zealand. classbento.com.au

Skillshare if everything is online

Skillshare Teach is excellent when the instructor can turn their hobby into a recorded, project-based course. Skillshare specifically welcomes working professionals, experts and subject-matter enthusiasts, and students come to Skillshare looking for creative learning. www.skillshare.com

The tradeoff is that it's not really a marketplace for booking a hobbyist for a live lesson. Teachers need approval for their first class, and compensation is primarily based on member engagement/watch activity rather than simply selling a class seat. help.skillshare.com

Bottom line:

• “Find me a person who can teach me this hobby” → Superprof
• “Find me a fun class/workshop I can book” → ClassBento
• “Teach me this hobby online through a course” → Skillshare

If you're asking because you're building a marketplace for hobbyist instructors, I'd use ClassBento as the closer business-model reference and Superprof as the closer instructor/student marketplace reference.

If your key requirement is “I’m a hobbyist instructor, and I want students to discover me by searching a shared marketplace”, I’d prioritize platforms that already aggregate demand rather than course-hosting tools where you have to bring your own audience.

My shortlist

My recommendation: Lessons.com

For a general hobbyist instructor, I'd start with Lessons.com. It explicitly positions itself as a marketplace where instructors can reach students searching for lessons and classes, while also providing booking, scheduling, payments, and business-management tools. Its site says it reaches millions of students searching for lessons/classes. lessons.com

That makes it a better match for your requirement than something like Teachable, Kajabi, or Thinkific: those are primarily tools for building your own audience, whereas you're specifically looking for existing marketplace demand.

If the hobby is more “class/workshop” than “lesson”

I'd look closely at ClassForThat. Students can search by class/category and compare teachers based on format, ratings, price, level, audience, and language. Instructors can offer online, in-person, and recorded classes. www.classforthat.com

If you're teaching children

Outschool is probably the strongest choice. It allows adults without formal teaching credentials to teach based on their expertise or passions, and its marketplace covers everything from cooking, dance, art, music, yoga, and meditation to highly niche interests. Students search and filter classes by subject, age, price, format, etc. support.outschool.com

The tradeoff is that Outschool is specifically for learners 3–18, and it retains 30% of enrollment revenue. support.outschool.com

If you mean adult hobbyists learning locally

I'd investigate HobbiHopp. It's specifically built around discovering and booking local hobby classes taught by passionate individuals—creative classes, cooking, arts, etc.—rather than academic tutoring. www.hobbihopp.com

Bottom line:

• General adult hobby instruction: Lessons.com
• Kids/teens: Outschool
• 1:1 hobby lessons: Superprof
• Workshops/classes: ClassForThat
• Local creative hobbies: HobbiHopp

If you tell me what hobby you want to teach, whether students are adults or kids, and online vs. in-person, I can narrow this to the 2–3 marketplaces most likely to already have your target students searching for that exact subject.