Canvas LMS vs Moodle comparison

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93% willing to recommend

Canvas LMS

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Moodle and Canvas LMS are competing in the learning management system market, offering distinct advantages. Canvas LMS appears to have the edge due to its user-friendly interface and innovative tools.

Features: Moodle offers extensive customization, open-source adaptability, and powerful analytics. Canvas LMS features a user-friendly interface, seamless third-party integrations, and mobile accessibility.

Room for Improvement: Moodle could improve in user interface design, real-time support, and integration challenges. Canvas LMS has room to enhance customization options, offline access, and analytics depth.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Moodle's open-source nature requires technical expertise for deployment, with community-based support which might be limited. Canvas LMS offers a cloud-based deployment model, simplifying implementation and providing comprehensive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Moodle often has lower upfront costs due to its open-source model but may incur higher total costs due to maintenance. Canvas LMS uses a subscription-based model with higher initial costs and potentially greater ROI due to operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Canvas LMS vs. Moodle Report (Updated: June 2025).

Canvas LMS vs. Moodle

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Canvas LMS

Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Moodle

Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) category, the mindshare of Canvas LMS is 4.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Moodle is 9.7%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Featured Reviews

James Phelps

Adjunct Professor at Nova Southeastern University

Intuitive, easy to learn, and easy to adapt to various teaching methodologies

It is scalable. There must be 20,000 people using it on that campus. We run a medical college, a public health department, and the hard sciences department. We also have a lot of things that are spread out across the state of Florida through Canvas. So, it is pretty scalable. In terms of our plans to increase its usage, I don't know what the university is going to do, but right now, the university is saturated with Canvas. Even if you're doing classes in a regular standard classroom, all of your exams, all of your quizzes, all of your practicals, and all of your teaching are recorded and loaded into the Canvas system for future review by accreditors. So, it is pretty well saturated on that particular campus.

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Agnes Mindila

Director School of Computing and Information Technology at JKUAT

Offers customized features that allow us to see whether students visited the platform and watched the provided videos

An improvement would be to have it support physically challenged students, who we think should be able to participate in some of our courses. If the learning management system could support blind students or students with learning disabilities, it would expand the reach of education by providing tools that support challenged learners. In future releases, I'd like to see more features that support challenged students, as I just mentioned above. This is because of the university's goal to make education accessible to all groups without discrimination. If we can have more tools that support students who are challenged, that would be very good. If AI could help, that would be nice. We want to support learners who are remote and provide learning to disadvantaged learners or certain groups of people. AI would come in very handy if Moodle had such capabilities.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"We have been using Canvas LMS, and overall, it has served our needs well for managing courses and general settings."

"Its easy adaptability to whatever form or methodology you are using to teach is valuable. It tends to be seamless, and it is very much a self-intuitive product. It requires almost no instruction, and you can be fully up to speed and ready to run on it. You can bring someone in who has never worked with any online learning or LMS system, and in a week's timeframe, they would almost be fully functional because Canvas is so simple to use."

"It's easy to follow. It flows well, and it's easy to use."

"The solution is easy to access."

"The assessment tools in Canvas significantly contribute to educational outcomes by allowing instructors to create and manage assessments effectively."

"The integration with Zoom is a notable feature. It allows for seamless access to live class sessions directly from Canvas after authentication, enabling quick entry into Zoom calls. You can also schedule Zoom calls or private recordings directly within Canvas, making it convenient, especially for situations like self-recording exams. Additionally, Canvas excels in collaboration and discussion capabilities. Users can engage in discussions on various topics, and there's the option to create custom groups for more focused interactions. These groups provide a level of privacy and isolation from the broader class, which is a significant advantage."

"They have a more extensive support base in terms of infrastructure."

"The product's flexibility is exceptional."

More Canvas LMS pros

"One of my biggest pet peeves is that many LMSs do not offer a course or site-level backup that is an industry-standard file. So, if you decide you don't like Moodle or some other LMS, you should be able to back up all your data and take it and go somewhere else. Moodle does offer that. There are several others that do that as well, but there are some LMSs that don't, which isn't a very good business practice because they hold their clients hostage. That's one of the things I really like about Moodle."

"Cost-effective and intuitive."

"Moodle is useful for several things, and you can customize it."

"What I liked most about Moodle was that I could create nice online quizzes. It takes very little time to do. You don't have to even read the paper, it automatically evaluates the quizzes. It gives the student grades and provides a lot of useful statistics. For example, it indicates which question was the hardest, easiest, and where students made the most mistakes. Everything is available to you. You couldn't do this in regular paper test hard copies. This was my first use case."

"Since it's an open-source product, you can integrate it with many other things."

"This is a scalable solution. We have had 30,000 students using the solution. During COVID, we were able to accommodate a 500% increase in traffic."

"They have made it really easy for you to see the flow on the forums. The information is well organized and the UI is fairly easy to navigate."

"The number of permissions that are available and different ways to report and get the information out are the most valuable features. We have been able to get precise bits of information out, and we have also been able to delegate a lot."

More Moodle pros

Cons

"Integrating more AI capabilities for the product could enhance its functionality, particularly in automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning experiences."

"There are a couple of areas that could be improved. Firstly, the discussion feature is not very interactive and can be slow to respond, making it less intuitive at the moment. This is an aspect that needs substantial improvement. Another point to consider is related to the cost of the LMS system. It's perceived as relatively expensive, which has led to discussions about transitioning away from Canvas, potentially to a more cost-effective alternative. This cost-related aspect is a significant factor to consider when implementing such a system."

"The solution could be upgraded and improved."

"The learning curve is not steep, but it is intermediate."

"It would be nice to be able to do more real-time comprehensive reporting with Canvas LMS."

"In our working, we are encountering many challenges with Canvas LMS. One of the major area is their business model which is having a very different pricing structure. The structure is made in such a way that the license fee is needed to be paid for the complete year even if the student has been enrolled for a programme of short duration. This structure is not conducive with our needs and hence, in the past few years, been increasing our costs manifold. Along with this, Canva LMS also lacks many functionalities such as notifications and adaptive learning. There is a specific issue with the licensing model that affects us in continuous education. The inability to reuse a license for the same course in different terms hinders our cost efficiency. For instance, if a program runs from January to April, we are required to pay for the license twice within the same academic year. This contrasts with other platforms like Hyper, where reusing a license is possible, allowing us to use the same license multiple times in different terms. Along with the use, we are exploring the integration of artificial intelligence into our processes, and Canvas LMS falls short in this regard. While some platforms allow connections with external AI services, Canvas does not currently offer built-in artificial intelligence capabilities, a feature we find valuable for enhancing the learning experience."

"It would be good to be able to do teleconferencing within the LMS."

"The high-tech interactivity with other software, like ArcGIS or RSA Archer, can be better. It is not as easily compatible with them. You can put apps in it that the students can then access, but the routing of apps through the Canvas system slows down functionality on the other types of products."

More Canvas LMS cons

"Setting up groups and allocating privacy settings to different groups is quite complicated."

"One aspect that I found a bit confusing was the dual editing system, where you could edit the layout of the course separately from editing the content."

"It would be a benefit if there was an easy single sign-on with social media services for Moodle. There are some plugins that I tried, but they didn't work seamlessly. it is a work in progress. Having the single sign-on with social media services would be appreciated because in my school we are using Google suite and the main reason why we use Google Classroom is that it is integrated seamlessly with the suite."

"An improvement would be to have it support physically challenged students, who we think should be able to participate in some of our courses."

"Where Moodle could definitely improve is the user interface. You have a lot of themes and you can customize themes, but if you are going to use Moodle off the shelf, even with a hosting company, a lot of training is involved. Training is available, but if your faculty or your development team isn't highly technical, it's going to be a challenge, whereas there are other interfaces that are much easier, but they don't do as much. So, there is a give and take there. If Moodle could find a way to make the user interface for the instructional designers and the learners more intuitive, it probably would be a huge improvement. The manager area and the admin area are fine, but when it comes to the people who are using the system but might not be highly technical, it needs improvement."

"Sometimes, the gradebook can get broken if an incorrect formula is entered during creation."

"The solution should continue to allow and foster the ability to integrate with cloud services."

"Everything is very text heavy. There are no videos or moving images. For a visual learner, there's not a lot of visual content so Moodle is not suitable for all types of learners."

More Moodle cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Canvas LMS is low-priced compared to other vendors."

"The pricing of Canvas is satisfactory for my university. We have negotiated a good price, especially considering that we are a large university with twenty-six campuses across the country. Canvas offers a favorable pricing model for academic institutions, and the cost is reasonable. However, in continuous education, the challenge lies not in the price itself but in the business model. The requirement to pay for the entire year when our students may only use the license for a shorter duration creates challenges. The inability to adjust the licensing based on actual usage is a significant drawback for us, making the effective cost higher compared to other platforms like Hyper Learning"

"Canvas LMS is an affordable solution."

"The platform can be expensive for smaller organizations with fewer students."

"Moodle is free. It should probably stay free. There isn't really any support for Moodle unless you pay an astronomical amount, which is weird."

"It is open source, and it has a lot of free documentation. It can be by far the least expensive option, but it depends on how one decides to use it. It can be free if you download it and host it on-prem, and you don't count your time as being worth anything. So, it can be almost free, or it can be very expensive just depending on if you get a package with a provider and if it is a huge solution."

"It is a free-of-cost solution."

"Moodle have a very robust licensing system that is user friendly. It's not very expensive."

"Moodle is an open-source solution that is free of cost."

"It is a one-time registration with the Moodle site. There isn't a yearly or monthly fee."

"Moodle is a free open-sourced solution. This is one of the best aspects of Moodle."

"In terms of cost, it is available at no charge."

More Moodle pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

University

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Comms Service Provider

13%

Educational Organization

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Canvas LMS?

We have been using Canvas LMS, and overall, it has served our needs well for managing courses and general settings.

What needs improvement with Canvas LMS?

Integrating more AI capabilities for the product could enhance its functionality, particularly in automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning experiences.

What advice do you have for others considering Canvas LMS?

I rate Canva LMS a nine out of ten.

What do you like most about Moodle?

The customization features of Moodle significantly enhance the learning experience for our users.

What needs improvement with Moodle?

The customization of the interface could be improved. Although we can load and change themes, it still always looks like Moodle. We have not found a way to significantly alter its appearance.

What is your primary use case for Moodle?

We use Moodle to manage our students' information, the classes, and the course catalog, which are mainly related to education. It serves as a learning management system for teaching in class.

CYPHER Learning vs Canvas LMS

Comparisons

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Open LMS vs Moodle

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Canvas LMS

Download Canvas LMS product report

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Overview

Canvas LMS is a comprehensive learning management system that enhances the educational experience. It offers a user-friendly interface that allows educators to create and manage courses, assignments, and assessments. Canvas enables seamless communication and collaboration between students and teachers. It supports various multimedia formats, making it easy to incorporate engaging content into lessons. Canvas also provides a mobile app, ensuring accessibility on the go. Its built-in analytics and reporting allow educators to track student progress and identify areas for improvement. Canvas LMS can integrate with other educational tools and platforms, enhancing its functionality. Canvas LMS is a powerful and versatile platform that empowers educators to deliver effective and engaging online learning experiences.

Instructure

Moodle is an open-source LMS offering course management, community plugins, and comprehensive integrations. Its modular design supports extensive customization, making it suitable for education sectors and corporate training.

Moodle provides a robust platform for creating and managing educational content. It integrates seamlessly with tools like Zoom and Teams, enhances cheat prevention with exam question shuffling, and supports advanced customization and accessibility. While its flexibility caters to diverse educational and corporate environments, Moodle faces challenges with login issues, improving mobile functionality, and a cumbersome setup process. Efforts to enhance documentation and ensure ease of navigation are ongoing. Its integration capabilities with ERP systems and support for LTI tools further position Moodle as a valuable resource for both educators and learners.

What are Moodle’s key features?

Course Management: Enables the creation and organization of courses, assignments, and exams.
Community Plugins: Offers extendable features through a variety of plugins supporting collaborative learning.
Integration with Tools: Supports platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Google Suite for enhanced communication and collaboration.
Security: Ensures robust protection of data with advanced security measures.
Accessibility Options: Provides tools to make learning accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.
Document Import/Export: Easy management of course materials via import/export capabilities.
LTI Tool Integration: Seamless incorporation of Learning Tools Interoperability standards for broader resource access.

What benefits can users expect from Moodle?

Customization: Flexibility allows tailoring of the platform to specific requirements or objectives.
Ease of Use: Designed for efficient course administration and facilitation of learning.
Role-Based Access: Supports personalized user roles and permissions.
Cost-Effectiveness: Open-source nature ensures budget-friendly deployment and maintenance.
Wide Range of Plugins: Enhances capability through a supportive plugin ecosystem.

In educational and corporate industries, Moodle is implemented for exam scheduling, resource management, and online assessments. It facilitates instructor-student interactions and is adaptable for both on-premises and cloud deployments. Organizations leverage Moodle for customizing employee certifications and training programs, benefiting from its versatile access controls and management tools.

Sample Customers

Pragmatic Group, MRWED Training and Assessment, RedHill Education

Acacia University, Alliant International University, American University of Health Sciences, Anaheim University Online, Aspen University, Cal State University San Bernardino, California State University Los Angeles, Chattanooga Fire Training, City of Humble Fire Department, George Washington University, Georgia Institute of Emergency Medical Services, Michigan Online Classroom, Virginia Beach Sheriffs Office, Washington Post

Canvas LMS vs. Moodle