Google Classroom vs Moodle comparison

Read 29 Moodle reviews

1,695 Views
1,224 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Google Classroom

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Moodle and Google Classroom compete in the educational technology category. Based on feature richness and flexibility, Moodle seems to have the upper hand, while Google Classroom excels in simplicity and ease of integration.

Features: Moodle offers customizable features including a vast library of plugins, the ability to randomize exam questions to prevent cheating, and comprehensive course management with integration capabilities like H5P. Google Classroom highlights its simplicity, easy integration with Google Suite products, and streamlined assignment distribution, making it ideal for quick setup and use, especially for those already within the Google ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Moodle could improve its user interface and provide a more intuitive experience for new users. Addressing the absence of seamless multi-tenancy and better documentation for complex setups would be beneficial. Google Classroom faces critiques for having limited organizational features and grading functionalities. Enhancing integration capabilities with non-Google services and improving offline accessibility would address user concerns.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Moodle may require technical expertise for deployment, especially in self-hosted environments, and its community-driven support can vary in responsiveness. Google Classroom benefits from straightforward deployment through public cloud services with strong community forums, although the direct support from Google might not meet all user needs consistently.

Pricing and ROI: Moodle, as an open-source platform, offers a cost-effective solution with no licensing fees, leading to potential high ROI, though hardware and third-party support costs might be incurred. Google Classroom's free version is valuable for educational purposes, with affordable paid upgrades available. However, integration with Google Workspace could add additional costs, yet the return on investment remains favorable in educational contexts.

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

Google Classroom vs. Moodle

Download the complete report

Helped 860,168 peers since 2012

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

Google Classroom

Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

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 Google Classroom is 3.6%, down from 10.4% 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

Wafaa Salah

Professor at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

User-Friendly Platform with Valuable Features but Needs Improvement in Pool of Questions and Statistics

The integration with Google Workspace is great because we have many tools such as Google Meet, Google Sheets, and Google Drive. However, the space is very limited. We purchased extra space until it reached 100 gigabytes. I have been using Google since having a Gmail account in 2001 when I was a student. Google Classroom allows me to make quizzes and assignments for students with random ordering, but I would appreciate having a pool of questions feature. For example, having 1000 questions and extracting 20 for each student would allow every student to have a different version. Currently, while using quizzes, every question appears to every student, though the order might differ. Adding the pool of questions would be beneficial. Having statistics while students take their exams would be helpful - showing how many students submitted, how many are in progress, and how many have not started the quiz. Having a log file to track students who opened documents would be valuable. In Moodle, I can see which students opened files, downloaded them, or watched videos. This feature is not available in Google Classroom, which is why I prefer other applications with more powerful statistics to trace student performance.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like about Google Classroom are the video lessons. I enjoy using it because it makes my life easier, for example, I can easily change my class and my lecture notes."

"Google Classroom is easy to use and intuitive, and it's not difficult to set up."

"What I liked most about Google Classroom is it was very easy to communicate with the students and simple for me to learn even though it was the first time I was using it. I was able to learn the features very well by navigating through the different discussions forums and becoming proficient, not necessarily a master but knowledgeable in using the solution. The ease of use was the best feature."

"Company-wise, the most important feature is that it is a product of Google. It is a part of Google Suite. With Google Classroom, you can easily embed a Google Sheet, Google Doc, or Google Form. You can easily create a quiz in Google Form. It is integrated with Google Drive. So, everything is on Google Drive, and you can easily use it. With single sign-on, you can use it with Google Apps as well."

"The customer service and support are very good."

"Google Classroom is very effective for communication and excellent for assigning homework and resources."

"The most valuable feature of Google Classroom is the ability to share my lectures with many students, assign tasks to be completed, and overall student engagement."

"The most valuable feature of Google Classroom is the ability for the lecturer to put in work. Additionally, the work can be graded after completion, and there can be feedback provided through the system which has a good interface."

More Google Classroom pros

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The most valuable feature is the community. Moodle is a completely open source application and provides a lot of development knowledge. The other features we find valuable are the LTI tools, integrations and BigBlueButton."

"The fact that it's modular means you can easily expand with thousands of plugins that you can freely download from Moodle headquarters, and adding or removing functionality is easy."

"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."

"Cost-effective and intuitive."

"The ability to insert a variety of tools, create and organize course content, and share large volumes of materials, written, audio, or visual, is very valuable."

"The solution is stable."

"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."

More Moodle pros

Cons

"The stability could be improved."

"Google Classroom could improve by being easier to use. For example, making it functional with only a few buttons. It's difficult to know how to connect with students and make a link and share it with them. I found it difficult, and this is why I didn't continue using it. Additionally, it should be available to be downloaded to the desktop for use, similar to Zoom."

"Technical support from Google has been very frustrating in unrelated areas like Google Pay and Google Wallet. It has been quite challenging, with unresolved tickets and a lack of response creating lots of frustration."

"There are some websites where you can create activities and guide students to do them in a sequence. You can guide them to do an activity first and then go to the next one. You can automatically link activities, and there is a flow, but in Google Classroom, you don't have that feature. All you can do is put the material and tell students what to do. For example, I have an assignment, but I want my students to read a particular text before that. They need to tick it, or they need to click next before they start doing the activity. After that, I want them to do comprehension questions or something else. In Moodle, there are activities such as assignments, quizzes, etc. There is a lesson module in which you can put all of the activities in a flow. So, you can decide what they need to do first. If students answer a question incorrectly, you can decide and design to which page do they need to go next, and which part do they need to review. This is currently missing in Google Classroom."

"The product's UI needs improvement."

"We found that Google Classroom is it is missing a lot in current engagement. We know it has got guardian access, where it sends the reports to the guardian at the end of either the week or the month, depending on how you set it. However, it lacks collaboration between the teacher, student, and parents. The engagement is mostly between the student and the teacher. If you have a school similar to ours, where you're dealing with little children where the parent is supposed to be engaged, you need a system that can engage them as well. It's good for senior students, but not for our students."

"There are a lot of things that need to be fixed in order for it to be called a learning management system. I think that's where a lot of people are very confused in terms of what Google Classroom actually does. Google Classroom is not a learning management system. A learning management system allows teachers to grade with authenticity and doesn't provide only one grade for a particular document or assignment."

"I would like to see a better user experience, a more engaging interface, and more templates. Google should develop templates or at least encourage developers to share them. You'll only get a basic framework when you create a new course. You don't have different themes to choose from like you do in Moodle."

More Google Classroom cons

"The customization of the interface could be improved."

"The multi-tenancy system within Moodle could be improved. IOMAD is what makes the multi-tenancy possible but this comes with many issues."

"For a first time user, especially someone who is non-technical, Moodle is difficult for them to understand and they often need assistance."

"Moodle Mobile is a really good area for improvement. All of 4.0 hasn't been released yet, and Moodle Mobile is not yet available for all different devices."

"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."

"The UI and interface of Moodle could be greatly improved. There has been some improvement in recent releases by Moodle but there is still a lot to be improved upon. It is challenging to get buy-in from different stakeholders when they see what it looks like."

"They need to have a better way to illustrate competencies so that, when people go through the programs, they can actually show they are competent in the subject matter."

"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."

More Moodle cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My child's school made payments on a subscription-based model to use Google Classroom."

"Google Classroom is a free solution."

"If you do a certain size and build, it's like any Google solution. You have to pay for storage, but you don't need to pay extra to use the interface. There may be Google Classroom partners that provide more integrated solutions, but I don't know. I'm strictly DIY."

"The tool is available for free."

"The solution is affordable."

"The price of Google Classroom has been reasonable."

"The product offers a yearly based license."

"I use the free version of Google Classroom."

More Google Classroom pricing and cost advice

"The licensing cost is quite high and it operates on an annual basis."

"Moodle is a free solution."

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

"Moodle is a free online learning platform, but it also offers a paid version of it."

"It varies depending on the partner you're going with. It depends on whether they are a certified partner or not. It also varies depending on the demand. Usually, with Moodle and other LMSs, there is concurrent licensing. It's hard to figure out the best way to do it at the company that is selling the LMS. Moodle is usually one of the most cost-effective LMSs you can get."

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

"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."

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

More Moodle pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Learning Management Systems (LMS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

University

10%

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 Google Classroom?

The product's UI is good and user-friendly.

What needs improvement with Google Classroom?

There is room for improvement in AI integration, specifically in the education sector. Google Classroom could benefit from tools that help correct coding errors for students, thereby enhancing lear...

What is your primary use case for Google Classroom?

We are using Google Classroom for assessments, homework, and providing resources to students. We also use it for tuition and online interaction, focusing on IT subjects such as computing and progra...

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.

Blackboard Learning Management vs Google Classroom

Comparisons

Compared 24% of the time

Canvas LMS vs Google Classroom

Compared 15% of the time

EduWave vs Google Classroom

Compared 10% of the time

More Google Classroom Competitors

SAP SuccessFactors Learning vs Moodle

Compared 17% of the time

Cornerstone Learn vs Moodle

Compared 10% of the time

LearnWorlds vs Moodle

Compared 8% of the time

CYPHER Learning vs Moodle

Compared 7% of the time

Chamilo LMS vs Moodle

Compared 7% of the time

More Moodle Competitors

Product Reports

Google Classroom

Download Google Classroom product report

Download Moodle product report

Overview

Google Classroom is an online learning platform that allows teachers to create and manage virtual classrooms. With Google Classroom, teachers can easily distribute assignments, communicate with students, and provide feedback. Students can access their assignments, submit their work, and collaborate with their peers all in one place. The platform integrates seamlessly with other Google tools like Google Drive and Google Docs, making it easy for students to create and share their work. Google Classroom also provides a streamlined workflow for teachers, allowing them to save time and stay organized. Google Classroom is a user-friendly and efficient tool that enhances the learning experience of teachers and students alike.

Google

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

Google Classroom is used in major urban school districts throughout the United States, including: * Los Angeles Unified School District * Chicago Public Schools * New York City Department of Education * Houston Independent School District * Miami-Dade County Public Schools * Dallas Independent School District * Broward County Public Schools * Clark County School District (Las Vegas) * Philadelphia School District

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

Google Classroom vs. Moodle