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I’ve been meaning to generate an up-to-date list of open source learning management systems for some time. A recent trawl of Sourceforge, Github, Google Code and Codeplex for the term ‘learning’, as well as the list published at http://list.ly/list/1Vt-opensource-learning-management-systems-lms-elearning, resulted in nearly 100 viable projects. There may be more, of course. Many thanks to my colleague, Duncan Croucher, for his substantial help in establishing and refining this list over the past week.
The full list is at the foot of this post. We then set about refining this list against a set of criteria as follows:
- Is code being committed?
- Are there regular stable releases?
- Are there support forums?
- Are there plugins available on the website?
- Are there commercial support services available?
- Is there developer documentation on the website?
Applying this set of filters reduces the full list down to a mere 10 LMS projects which can be considered mature, stable and sustainable. This is clearly a much more manageable and feasible list against which more detailed comparisons can be made. Those comparisons will come in a further post over the coming weeks.
Here are the shortlist of 10 and the full list of open source LMS projects. if you spot anything missing or can help improve the refinement criteria, pls let me know.
Shortlist of 10.
| Name | URL |
| .LRN | http://www.dotlrn.org/product/ |
| Chamilo LMS | http://www.chamilo.org/ |
| Claroline | http://www.claroline.net/ |
| eFront | http://www.efrontlearning.net/ |
| Ganesha | http://ganesha.fr/ |
| ILIAS | http://www.ilias.de/ |
| Moodle | http://moodle.org/ |
| rSmart Sakai CLE | http://www.rsmart.com/sakai/sakai-cle |
| Sakai CLE | http://www.sakaiproject.org/learning-management |
| Sakai OLE | http://www.sakaiproject.org/node/2239 |
Update 17 August: There are an additional three projects which did not make the cut simply because they failed on one criteria: no available plug-ins on the website, which indicates that a mature developer community has become established around the project. In the case of Totara, the absence of a public code repository or public file downloads means that it potentially fails on two further criteria: evidence of recent code commits and evidence of regular releases. However, given my personal knowledge of these three projects I would include them on my own personal shortlist, but whether you would choose to do so I will leave up to you. I think it’s a case of ‘buyer beware’ in these cases and understanding the risk of failing to meet any specific shortlist criteria.
| Canvas | http://www.instructure.com/ |
| Dokeos | http://www.dokeos.com/ |
| Totara LMS | http://www.totaralms.com/about-totara |
Full list of open source LMS projects as at 13 August 2012.
Hi Mark,
It’s a sobering experience to see so many OS products and services in one place; let’s be honest many people (me included) would struggle to name much beyond Moodle, WordPress and the other usual suspects.
Well done to you and Dunc on putting the list together.
Craig
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“Open Source LMS Landscape in 2012 | Open Thoughts” was in fact honestly entertaining
and beneficial! Within modern society that’s tough to execute.
Many thanks, Cyril
Is there a top ten list of these opensource lms systems?
Canvas supports many plugins through the industry standard LTI. That’s how they’ve chosen to support plugins.