What is Moodle used for?

Moodle is an open-source learning management system that educators and organizations use to build online courses and personalized learning environments. It is a good fit for running online courses for a school or university and corporate training portals.

Is Moodle open source?

Yes. Moodle is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at moodle/moodle and is written mainly in PHP.

Yes. Moodle is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host Moodle?

Yes. Moodle can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Moodle an alternative to?

Moodle is an open-source alternative to D2L Brightspace, Google Classroom, Teachable and Thinkific. Other open-source alternatives to D2L Brightspace include Open edX, Frappe Learning and Tutor.

Is Moodle actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Moodle was on 1 October 2026. The project has 7.5k stars on GitHub.

Moodle: open-source alternative to D2L Brightspace

About Moodle

Moodle is an open-source learning platform used by universities, schools, companies and other organizations. It is designed so that educators, administrators and learners can create personalized learning environments within a single integrated system.

The project is written in PHP and released under the GNU GPL v3. The Moodle site is the hub for a community that includes spaces for educators, administrators and developers, along with Moodle Moot events, developer meetings and the Moodle User Association. User documentation, developer documentation and a demo site let you evaluate it before committing.

You can download Moodle and run it on your own web server, or work with one of the Moodle Partners. Hosting is also offered through MoodleCloud and the partner network, so organizations without technical staff have a managed route.

Key features

Learning management for courses
Personalized learning environments
User and developer documentation
Demo site to try the platform
Hosting through MoodleCloud and partners

Good fit for

→Running online courses for a school or university
→Corporate training portals

Built with: PHP
Tags: lms; e-learning; education; courses; php; self-hosted; open-source; training

Moodle: questions and answers

What is Moodle used for?: Moodle is an open-source learning management system that educators and organizations use to build online courses and personalized learning environments. It is a good fit for running online courses for a school or university and corporate training portals.
Is Moodle open source?: Yes. Moodle is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at moodle/moodle and is written mainly in PHP.
Is Moodle free?: Yes. Moodle is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Moodle?: Yes. Moodle can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Moodle an alternative to?: Moodle is an open-source alternative to D2L Brightspace, Google Classroom, Teachable and Thinkific. Other open-source alternatives to D2L Brightspace include Open edX, Frappe Learning and Tutor.
Is Moodle actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Moodle was on 1 October 2026. The project has 7.5k stars on GitHub.