Learning Management
1 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars — scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Language | License | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 canvas-lms The open LMS by Instructure, Inc. | 6.5k | +18/wk | Ruby | GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | 66 |
Our Analysis
If you need a learning management system — course creation, assignments, grading, student enrollment, quizzes — Canvas LMS is what universities and K-12 schools actually use. It's the open source version of the same platform that Instructure sells commercially to thousands of educational institutions. 6.5K stars, AGPL-3.0, written in Ruby on Rails. You get the full LMS: course management, a gradebook, discussion boards, a calendar, file storage, video conferencing integration, and LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) support for third-party tool plugins. Self-hosting is free under AGPL. Instructure sells the hosted version (Canvas Cloud) — pricing is per-institution and not publicly listed, but think five to six figures annually for universities. The catch: self-hosting Canvas is a serious undertaking. It requires Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Redis, a job queue, file storage (S3 or local), and real ops knowledge. The AGPL license means any modifications you make must be open sourced if you offer it as a service. And without Instructure's support, you're on your own for updates, security patches, and integration issues. This is enterprise software that happens to be open source, not a weekend project.