2025 Guide: The Best Open-Source LMS for Universities, Governments & Enterprises

TL;DR

If you’re responsible for selecting or upgrading your institution’s learning management system (LMS)—whether you work in a university, government department, or enterprise—this guide is for you.

Below, you’ll find our no-fluff take on:

• the essential factors to consider when evaluating an LMS, so you can make a confident, future-ready choice;
• practical tips for implementing a platform that works for learners, instructors, and administrators; and
• examples of how institutions are leveraging Open edX to power everything—from large-scale university programs to secure government training platforms and fully customized corporate learning systems.

By the end, you’ll have a clear framework for making the right decision, and you’ll see why Open edX is a robust, flexible option that puts you in control.

Table of Contents

Why Institutions Are Choosing Open Source LMS Solutions

Universities, governments, and enterprises are increasingly turning to open-source LMSs. Beyond cost savings, open-source software offers control, flexibility, and long-term value—advantages that proprietary platforms simply cannot match!

The Open-Source Advantage

In a rapidly evolving educational landscape, open-source LMSs provide a stable foundation with the freedom to adapt. Here’s why teams are making the switch:

Control Over Features, Data, and Hosting

An open-source LMS puts your institution in the driver’s seat. You decide which features to use, how the system appears, and where it runs. That means you can shape the platform to fit your needs, whether it's adding new exercise types, building dashboards, expanding reporting, or experimenting with AI-driven tools—it can all be in your hands now!

You also control hosting—that is, the environment in which the LMS “lives” and who manages it. Some institutions run it on their own infrastructure, while others opt for a trusted external provider. With platforms like Open edX, you can tap into a wide network of providers. And if one no longer meets your needs, you can switch without losing access to your platform or your data. Over time, many institutions also build in-house expertise, increasing their independence.

The key advantage is freedom: you control your platform, without being constrained by a single vendor’s roadmap.

Data Sovereignty and Security

With open source, your learner data remains in your hands. It isn’t sold, locked away, or used without your consent. You’re not restrained by a single vendor’s rules or business model, which means your institution controls how and where data is stored. For universities and government programs, where strict regulations often apply to how learner information must be handled, this control is a significant advantage. It ensures compliance, builds learners’ trust, and protects one of your institution’s most valuable assets.

Customizing the Learner Experience

Branding matters! An open-source LMS enables you to brand your platform with your institution’s identity, from colors and logos to the overall look and feel. You’re not limited to swapping out a few images or settings; you can completely redesign the interface if you choose. This flexibility helps create a consistent, recognizable learner experience that embodies your institution’s values and sense of pride.

Integrations that Fit Your World

Your LMS doesn’t need to do everything, but it should seamlessly connect to everything that matters. With open source, you can integrate the tools your teams already use—from single sign-on and student information systems to video conferencing, payment gateways, or analytics platforms. If an integration doesn’t exist yet, one can be developed by your developers or a trusted partner. This means your LMS becomes the hub that links your entire digital learning ecosystem.

In Step with Academic and Public Values

Open source has always been closely associated with education. Born out of universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard, it reflects the academic tradition of openness, collaboration, and the free exchange of knowledge. Utilizing open-source tools for learning continues this legacy of keeping education transparent and accessible to all.

For public institutions and governments, these values are equally important. They require platforms that prioritize transparency, inclusivity, and national interests, rather than the profit goals of a single vendor. By choosing open source, institutions ensure their learning systems serve learners and communities first, aligning with their commitment to the public good.

Lower Costs and Freedom from Lock-In

Open-source LMSs don’t incur ongoing licensing fees. The software itself is free to download and use. While institutions may invest in hosting, support, or custom development, the overall cost is often significantly lower than proprietary systems. At scale, these savings accumulate quickly.

Equally important, open source avoids vendor lock-in. With closed, commercial platforms, you’re restrained by one company’s pricing, rules, and upgrade schedule. You can’t simply move to another provider and retain your software or even gain full control of your data. Some vendors entice institutions with low introductory prices, only to raise fees once the system becomes critical, leaving you with little choice but to comply.

Open source empowers you. You can change providers, scale on your own terms, and adapt the platform to your needs without being constrained by a vendor’s roadmap. For large universities, school systems, and national programs, this freedom translates into significant cost savings and long-term strategic flexibility.

Open edX Explained: An Open Source LMS Built for Institutional Innovation

The Open edX platform was initially developed by edX, an organization founded by MIT and Harvard. Their goal was to create a better way to deliver online education, and in collaboration with other leading universities, they built a platform for accessible courses.

From the outset, the mission was global. The edX team recognized they couldn’t achieve it alone, so they open-sourced the technology, rendering it freely available for institutions everywhere to use, adapt, and improve. Today, this software and its accompanying tools are known as the Open edX Platform, which offers several unique advantages over other open-source LMSs. Let’s take a look:

Built to Scale

The Open edX Platform was originally designed to power edX.org, which serves millions of learners worldwide. The platform can support a virtually unlimited number of users. Because of these benefits, governments and national initiatives repeatedly choose it for their country-wide e-learning programs.

Other open-source LMSs often struggle at scale, forcing institutions to migrate later. With Open edX, you can begin with a platform that already meets large-scale needs and avoid costly future transitions.

A Robust Provider and Extension Ecosystem

The Open edX platform boasts one of the largest service ecosystems of any open-source LMS. From the beginning, it was released for institutions to host and customize themselves, rather than being tied to a single service like edX.org. A community of providers quickly developed around this model.

Today, institutions can choose from a wide range of hosting providers, extension developers, and consultants. If one no longer meets their needs, they can switch to another while retaining full control of their platform and data.

Over the years, this community has produced a rich library of plugins and extensions: AI-based evaluation tools, new problem types, credentialing services, video integrations, conferencing systems, and more. If you need something new, the platform’s extensibility and active developer community make it possible to build it. The result is a learning platform that can be customized to meet almost any requirement.

Multitenancy

Open edX also supports multitenancy through extensions, enabling different institutions or brands to share the same platform while maintaining their unique identities. This makes it ideal for large, inter-organizational projects.

For example, Ethiopia’s eSHE project uses Open edX multitenancy to connect 50 universities on a single platform. Each institution delivers a branded learner experience while sharing infrastructure and course materials.

Unique Governance Model

Every open-source community is structured differently, and the Open edX community has a governance model unlike any other LMS project. In addition to its extensive network of providers, Open edX is supported by Axim Collaborative, an independent organization that coordinates larger initiatives and guides its development, product, and community efforts.

Axim works alongside the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC), a group of elected community members who provide technical direction for the platform. Axim also manages the Core Contributor program, which allows trusted universities, companies, and other institutions to make direct improvements to the core software.

Importantly, Axim is not funded by service sales. This independence allows it to focus entirely on strengthening the Open edX platform and supporting the community, from setting standards to organizing events and pursuing shared goals. This mix of central coordination and distributed authority makes Open edX one of the strongest open-source LMS communities in the world. It also ensures your institution can have a real say in how the platform evolves. Participation is open to everyone, but for greater influence, your team can become core contributors or even join the TOC. The community is open to you!

Key LMS Evaluation Criteria for Institutions

When it comes to selecting an LMS, the number of options available can be overwhelming. However, several requirements apply to virtually all large organizations (universities, enterprises, and governments), significantly narrowing the field. We refer to these as the six Cs: capability, customization, cost, compliance, [cyber]security, and continuity. Institutions can use this framework to shape their decision-making process.

Capability (Features and Scalability)

The most apparent of the six Cs, capability refers to an LMS's ability to deliver your desired learning experience, at the required scale. Depending on your use case (e.g., from app-based microlearning like Duolingo, to massive online courses with hundreds of thousands of learners, to highly focused continuing education for professionals), the platform features required for delivering an excellent learning experience can vary significantly.

As an institution considering an LMS, you may already have a great understanding of the capabilities you’ll need based on the content you wish to present, the features your instructional designers have requested, and the number of learners you’d like to reach. However, for anyone offering courses to a wide audience, we also recommend taking some time to identify your Organizational Value Proposition. Are learners most attracted to your brand, your accreditation, your content quality, your specialty subjects, your instructors, your pedagogy, your peer learning community, your integrated programs, or several of these? Whichever it is, select an LMS that can effectively communicate your unique value proposition.

The feature set is irrelevant if the LMS becomes unusable or impractical because it’s not designed to handle the number of learners you have. Therefore, the scalability of the platform is almost as important as the feature set to ensure these features work effectively with the number of learners, number of instructors, and the required volume of content.

The good news for those considering the Open edX platform is that it has a broad feature set and has been designed from inception to scale up to support large numbers of students—this has been proven by its track record of hosting some of the largest massively open online courses (MOOCs) ever taught.

Customization

Customization is essential for nearly all institutional LMS use cases, involving the adaptation of an “off-the-shelf” solution to better serve your requirements and vision. Typically, this involves several types of simultaneous customization:

• Theming, to ensure the LMS reflects your visual identity and matches your branding.
• Integration, to ensure the LMS works with your other platforms, such as Salesforce, a single sign-on system, a learning experience platform (LXP), an analytics platform, and a virtual proctoring provider.
• Configuration, to modify the LMS settings to match your requirements.
• Extensions, to add custom features to the LMS.

Sometimes, these four customization options may not suffice. In such cases, you may need to modify the LMS’s core code or replace the entire interface with a fully custom design and user experience (UX).

In general, open-source LMSs (like Open edX, Moodle, Canvas, or Frappe) are often more customizable. While almost all LMSs support theming, integrations, and configuration, most proprietary LMSs (like Docebo or Absorb) do not offer the same level of support for extensions and almost never allow modification of the core, which requires access to the LMS source code.

Additionally, in some cases, adding custom features to a proprietary LMS can be more expensive to build and maintain. For example, with Open edX, you can integrate a gamification toolbar directly into your existing system. With a proprietary LMS like Docebo, you typically cannot run your own code on their servers,  so you’ll need to pay for a separate system just to host that feature. Over time, these extra hosting and maintenance costs can accumulate, especially if you wish to make more than one customization.

Cost

LMSs have various costs and pricing models, making comparisons challenging—and many LMS providers won’t disclose their pricing until you provide your contact information to their sales team. Your best option may be to obtain budget information from peer institutions that have already invested in their own LMS and associated programs.

Here is an overview of the various costs institutions will need to plan for when setting up an LMS:

• Setup costs—your LMS provider may charge a setup fee for provisioning, configuring, and theming your new LMS, as well as integrating it with your other platforms and applications. If they don’t, your staff will be responsible for the work. So factor in significant time costs for your team to learn how to set it up themselves.
  
  
• Customization costs—beyond the setup costs, any unique integrations, extensions, modifications, or custom features/interfaces will require a software development team to build them. This can be done in-house if you have the right skills and availability on your team, or primarily handled by your LMS provider. This type of LMS customization work is OpenCraft’s specialty.
  
  Tip: In our experience, we often see institutions dive into a new LMS with an extensive wish list of custom features, only to find that some of them never get used. It’s an easy way to exhaust your budget quickly. If it’s your first time running your own LMS, start simple. Use the built-in features, gather real-time feedback from your learners and instructors, and then add customizations gradually. You’ll save money, avoid wasted effort, and end up with features that people actually want and use.
  
  
• Subscription/licensing or hosting costs—whether you’re using a proprietary LMS with a monthly subscription or hosting an open-source LMS on your own cloud infrastructure, there will be some monthly costs from your LMS provider and/or cloud infrastructure provider. These costs will scale over time with an increase in the number of active users. You may also need to pay for other integrated software, like an exam proctoring service, an AI tutor bot, or an e-commerce platform, depending on your plans.
  
  
• Maintenance costs—LMSs can be complex, and their smooth operation requires ongoing work, such as data backups, scaling with usage, security updates, and new version rollouts.
  
  If you’re using a vendor-hosted subscription platform (often referred to as software as a service, or SaaS), these maintenance costs are usually included in your subscription fee. If you host the LMS yourself, your internal team or a hosting partner will need to manage them.
  
  Custom features you’ve added, such as integrations, extensions, or interface changes, also require upkeep. The more your LMS is customized, the more time and money it will take to update when new versions of the platform are released.
  
  Tip: Institutions are often surprised by how quickly LMS maintenance costs can add up. The more you customize a platform, the more work it takes to keep it running smoothly. When a new version of the platform is released, your technical team has to check that all custom changes still work, and fix anything that needs fixing. Over time, this work can compound.
  
  At OpenCraft, when we customize Open edX for our clients, our goal is to “upstream” as many of your custom features as possible, meaning they’ll be built into the official platform code, so they get updated automatically with each upgrade. Where upstreaming isn’t feasible, we recommend flexible options like plugins or integrations, which are far easier (and cheaper) to maintain than modifying the platform’s core code. A little planning now can save a lot of money, stress, and delays later.
  
  
• Content creation costs. If you plan to create courses from scratch, you may need learning designers, graphic designers, subject matter experts, videographers, editors, a project manager, and more. That’s outside the scope of this article, but we mention it for the sake of thoroughness.
  
  
• Content conversion costs. Even if you have existing course materials, converting them may incur costs worth considering. Various content formats are interoperable among LMSs, such as SCORM and H5P, but they are typically used for content at the level of an individual lesson or smaller. Small pieces of content can be reused across platforms, and sometimes entire courses can be “embedded” as-is from one system to another (e.g., displaying a Canvas course inside Open edX or vice versa). However, to fully leverage all the features of any given LMS, typically the course must be (re-)created using that LMS’s native course format. Parts of this process can be automated, but much depends on the specifics. This is truly negligible only when you’re migrating content from one platform to another instance of the same platform (e.g., the External Learning Department’s Open edX instance to the Faculty of Science’s separate Open edX instance).
  
  
• Other internal costs. Of course, you may need instructors, teaching assistants, support staff, project managers, sales/marketing personnel, and so on.

We understand these costs might feel vague. If you’re exploring the Open edX platform, OpenCraft’s specialty, our pricing page will give you a clear idea of what to expect for typical projects. You can even view the numbers without providing your email (because really, why isn’t that the norm?). If you’d like more tailored advice, just reach out; we’re always happy to answer questions or discuss your specific needs.

Compliance

Depending on your corporate policies, the location of your institution, the demographics of your learners, and other factors, you need to comply with a number of regulations and best practices, such as general data protection regulation (GDPR), systems and organization controls 2 (SOC 2), family educational rights and privacy act (FERPA), and web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) for accessibility, and local data residency requirements. Ensure that your LMS and its provider support the relevant standards for safeguarding learner privacy, meeting legal obligations, and protecting your organization from reputational risks.

Unfortunately, this is not merely an exercise in checking boxes. Each requirement is distinct and must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. For example, an LMS like Open edX, which is designed to meet WCAG accessibility guidelines, limits the disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII). It will be hosted in the country of your choice (or even on-premises) and will provide functionality such as user deletion necessary for GDPR compliance. However, actual compliance will depend on how you configure, customize, and operate the platform. Your legal counsel can advise on the functionality, configuration, and policies necessary.

[Cyber]security

While many LMSs primarily store basic personal information (such as learner and staff names, emails, and course progress), they often hold more sensitive data, including assessment results, compliance records, or proprietary course content.

Typical security risks related to LMSs include:

• Unauthorized access to or exposure of sensitive personal data.
• Compromise of the LMS platform, enabling access to other systems.
• Exposure of confidential or proprietary training materials.

When comparing LMS platforms, evaluate the platform and vendor’s security reputation, history of handling incidents, and auditability. If using an open-source LMS like Open edX, ensure that security patches and updates are applied promptly by your vendor or internal team. Prioritize ensuring that your platform customizations do not hinder the timely installation of security updates.

Continuity

SaaS-based LMS solutions, while convenient, typically tie you to a single vendor. Your data, customizations, and workflows become bound to their proprietary platform. Switching providers can be technically challenging, expensive, and time-consuming—especially if the platform does not support a wide range of data export formats. Moreover, closed-source LMSs are entirely dependent on the product decisions of the owning company as well as their business decisions. If the company is acquired or goes out of business, their LMS service could be discontinued, rebranded, or merged into another offering, leaving customers scrambling for alternatives.

In contrast, open-source LMSs do not have the same level of vendor lock-in. One vendor could install and operate the platform on your own cloud infrastructure, and if you are dissatisfied with their services, you could simply switch to a different vendor or even begin managing the LMS in-house—without having to migrate any data or interrupt your LMS in any way. An open-source LMS cannot be “taken away from you” unexpectedly (although smaller or newer systems could cease development). This flexibility allows you to negotiate better terms with service providers and ensures that your learning environment can evolve on your own terms.

If you’re considering the Open edX platform in particular, you should know that it is governed by a non-profit organization with a sustainable endowment, dedicated to maintaining and improving the open-source platform for the long term. This governance model reduces the risk of sudden changes in direction or product shutdowns and provides sustained funding for ongoing maintenance and development.

Future-Proofing Your LMS Investment

Is anything truly future-proof? Probably not. There’s no crystal ball that can tell you exactly what education will look like in 5 to 10 years. 

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t plan wisely.

Choosing the right learning platform isn’t just about what works today—it’s about setting yourself up for what’s next. If you're evaluating LMS platforms, especially as a university, government ministry, or enterprise, it’s important to consider where education in your sector is heading, and whether your system is ready to grow with it.

How Do You Know if an LMS Is Built to Endure?

Here are some key questions worth asking and qualities to look for:

1. Will it Grow with Us as We Expand?

If your learning offerings are likely to grow—whether that means launching new courses, reaching more regions, or serving larger learner cohorts—your LMS needs to scale with you. It should handle higher volumes without performance issues and let you manage additional content or teams without constant restructuring.

Beyond scale, flexibility is also key. Can you easily integrate new tools? Can you experiment with formats like live sessions, self-paced modules, or project-based learning? A future-ready LMS should provide room for adaptation as your needs evolve.

2. Can it Support Different Ways of Learning?

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to education. What works for a university may not work for a government-led training program or a corporate upskilling initiative. 

A flexible, future-ready LMS should support a variety of approaches, including:

1. Short courses and formal programs that accommodate anything from microlearning to multi-year degrees.
2. Structured or self-paced learning that supports both guided journeys and flexible exploration.
3. Learning paths or content sequencing that enable content to be released in a set order based on progress or prerequisites, especially for skills-based learning and modular credentials.
4. Blended learning that facilitates seamless transitions between in-person and online formats.
5. Competency-based education (CBE) that allows learners to progress once they’ve mastered a skill, rather than being based on time.
6. Personalized learning and AI-enhanced journeys that adapt pace, recommend next steps, and enable learner choice.
7. Engagement features, including forums, progress tracking, badges, or gamification.
8. Mobile responsiveness and offline access, which ensure access in remote or low-connectivity contexts.

In short, the more learning models your LMS can support, the more freedom it provides your course authors to design compelling learning content that can adapt over time.

3. Can Course Authors Design the Experiences They Need?

A future-ready LMS doesn’t just support learners; it also supports the individuals creating the learning environments. Course authors and instructional designers need tools that facilitate the easy creation, adaptation, and management of content at scale.

Open edX places a strong focus on author experience. The platform is evolving to simplify content creation by making content reuse a priority. OpenCraft has assisted the community in advancing this vision, building a flexible tagging feature and search system enabling authors to swiftly find and organize content, and a copy-paste feature that simplifies content transfer between courses.

If your LMS keeps authors organized, supports reusability, and allows updates without technical setbacks, you’re investing in the long-term sustainability of your learning programs.

4. Will it Fit into Your Wider Digital Ecosystem?

An LMS rarely operates in isolation. It should connect seamlessly to other platforms, such as student information systems, HR platforms, analytics tools, and video conferencing, ideally using open integration standards like learning tools interoperability (LTI), which serve as a common language between platforms. This simplifies the integration of new tools and the streamlining of workflows.

5. Can it Help You Improve Over Time?

Your LMS should do more than just deliver content; it should help you understand how learners are progressing, where they’re dropping off, and what’s working well. Many platforms offer dashboards or built-in reporting tools, but not all of them go beyond surface-level statistics. You want to track learner progress meaningfully, assess the performance of different content, and use that data to enhance your learning experiences. This is where analytics becomes a powerful tool for institutional growth.

6. Is it User-Friendly For Learners?

This is a big one! Can learners quickly find what they need? Is it easy for them to navigate through their learning content? Where do they experience frustration? The best platforms guide learners through the experience without hindrance. If you’re working in a public or global context, accessibility is important. The LMS should support all users, including those with disabilities, and meet recognized accessibility standards. Ultimately, a user-friendly LMS makes learning easier and far more enjoyable.

7. How Does it Handle Privacy and Security?

Security is essential for protecting your learners, your staff, and your organization. A modern LMS should have robust data protection measures in place and clearly communicate how personal information is stored and managed. This is especially critical in sectors like healthcare, government, finance, or when working with minors. Look for compliance with standards like GDPR, POPIA, FERPA, or HIPAA (depending on your sector). A future-ready LMS should facilitate compliance, not complicate it.

8. Is it Part of an Active Community, or Is it Locked Behind a Vendor?

Some platforms are developed by a single vendor, with limited flexibility or visibility into future developments. Others are open and community-driven, shaped by the people who actually use them. This fosters faster innovation, diverse input, and independence from a single company’s roadmap. Many institutions prefer this governance model because it provides them with more voice, choice, and resilience over time.

Why Is Open edX Built for What’s Next?

No LMS can predict the future, but Open edX is designed to adapt to it. It’s open, flexible, and continually evolving. Because it’s open-source, you’re not tied to one vendor’s roadmap. Instead, you’re part of a global network of universities, governments, and organizations that are constantly improving the platform, sharing ideas, and adding new capabilities.

When new ways of learning emerge, its open architecture allows you to plug in the tools, features, and systems you need to make them work. Whether you’re running a single institution, a nationwide training program, or a large-scale corporate rollout, Open edX provides the freedom to adapt, the ability to scale, and the support of a community that responds to its users’ needs. In a shifting learning landscape, that’s as close to “future-proof” as it gets.

Real-World Implementation Tips

One of the most critical early decisions you’ll make is how your LMS is hosted. Hosting refers to where the system “lives”—on servers or in the cloud—and who is responsible for keeping it secure, updated, and running smoothly. The hosting model you choose will influence how much control you have, how flexible your system can be, and how easily it scales as your needs grow.

Hosting Models to Consider

There are three main types of hosting models: self-hosting, vendor-hosting, and partner-managed hosting. 

Self-Hosting: Full In-House Control

With self-hosting, your institution runs the LMS entirely on systems you own or in a cloud account you control (such as Amazon Web Services). This gives you maximum authority over how the platform is set up, secured, and maintained.

The trade-off is responsibility: you need in-house technical staff to install, update, and troubleshoot the system. If something goes wrong, your team must intervene to fix it. For some institutions, especially government programs with strict security regulations, this level of control is not just useful, it’s essential.

Vendor-Managed Hosting: Fully Outsourced

In this model, a vendor takes care of everything. They host the LMS on their own infrastructure, apply updates, patch security issues, and ensure it remains online. Many institutions may initially find this simpler and more cost-effective.

The drawback is flexibility. With a vendor-managed system, you have limited ability to customize, and moving to another provider later can be challenging. Closed-source platforms are particularly restrictive. However, even with open-source software, not all vendors are willing, or able to support tailored versions.

Self-Hosted, Partner-Managed: The Best of Both Worlds

For many institutions, a hybrid model offers the right balance. Here, the LMS operates in your own cloud account (so you retain ownership of your data and platform), while a trusted partner routinely manages it.

This approach provides the independence of self-hosting without the heavy operational burden. If you decide to change partners, you keep the “keys” to the system and can hand it over to someone else or bring it in-house once your team is ready. For governments and large organizations, this model combines sovereignty, flexibility, and professional support, with a smoother transition to full independence if that’s your long-term objective.

Keys to a Smooth Rollout

Choosing the right hosting model is only part of the implementation process. Long-term success depends on how you launch, support, and maintain your LMS once it’s in place. The exact approach will vary depending on your scale, but several proven practices can make a significant impact.

Stakeholder Alignment

Ensure decision-makers are aligned not just on the “what” of your platform choice, but also on the “why.” If you select a fully managed, closed-source system, the trade-off is usually speed and simplicity. If you choose an open-source LMS like Open edX, it’s because flexibility, data ownership, and a broad network of providers give you an advantage.

It also helps to clarify:

• Who is your main point of contact for your project? Having one lead avoids confusion and ensures accountability.
• Which provider, if applicable, is managing the platform?
• What options are available for customization, and how are decisions about new features made?
• How much influence do you have over the platform’s future direction?.

Clear alignment upfront makes rollout and long-term maintenance much smoother.

Training, Support, and Institutional Onboarding

Before launch, your team needs time to familiarize itself with the system. Many LMSs include built-in training, and a technical partner can set up a “staging environment” where staff can explore features and practice before the official rollout.

On launch day, ensure everyone knows:

• The contact person if they can’t log in.
• Where to report bugs or feature requests.
• Who is monitoring the system in case it goes offline.

Having these answers ready prevents unnecessary frustration. If you’re working with a partner, inquire about their training options, documentation, and support channels. This knowledge transfer is critical whether you’re deploying an LMS for a university, a corporate training program, or a government project.

Ongoing Upgrade Support

All software evolves, and your LMS is no exception. Updates bring new features and security fixes, but they can also change or remove tools you rely on. To avoid surprises, test new releases in advance by:

• Creating a new course.
• Importing and browsing through older content.
• Enrolling each other as students to check the learner experience.
• Reviewing release notes for new features or changes.
• Testing complex assessments.
• Checking your branding and custom themes.

This preparation ensures you can update quickly, stay secure, and maximize new features. A good partner will identify opportunities, suggest alternatives if something changes, and, with open source, even reintroduce features as plugins if needed.

Success Stories

At OpenCraft, we believe every Open edX project tells a story, not just about technology but about real people solving real problems. Whether it’s a university making courses more accessible, a corporation training teams faster, or a government educating at scale, the heart of our work is helping learning happen more easily and effectively.

Here are some of the ways we have helped organizations turn big ideas into real-world impact:

Higher Education: Content Chaos to Clarity

Ever opened a course library and thought, “How is anyone supposed to find anything in here?”

That is the problem our Content Tagging tool solves. We built it to give educators and course authors an easy, consistent way to label and organize materials, including lectures, videos, quizzes, and PDFs, so they can be searched, reused, and assembled into new courses without hours of digging.

Imagine you are a professor building a new blended-learning program. Instead of hunting through dozens of past courses for the right video on climate modeling, you just search by tag and drop it straight into your lesson plan. Over time, this builds a rich, reusable library that saves staff countless hours and helps learners get content that is always relevant and high-quality.

When educators want to make lessons more engaging, our custom XBlocks are the answer. We’ve built interactive elements such as AI-powered assessments, timelines for history courses, flashcards for quick revision, and data-driven visualizations for science and engineering. These features keep students curious, active, and eager to return.

Read the full Case Study here.

Corporate Training: Speed, Consistency, and Global Reach

When you are onboarding hundreds or thousands of employees in different regions, efficiency matters. One of our corporate clients, Axim Collaborative, needed a way to rapidly create and adapt courses without having to rebuild them from scratch every time.

Our solution was a Studio Clipboard (Copy-Paste). On the surface, it is just a copy-and-paste feature, but in practice it’s a game changer. Instructors can duplicate entire sections from one course to another in seconds, reusing high-performing modules and keeping branding, tone, and quality consistent across the board.

Before, launching a new training program meant days of re-authoring content. Now it's morning work. That efficiency means the company can roll out compliance updates, leadership programs, and skills refreshers in record time, and employees worldwide get the training they need exactly when they need it.

Read the full Case Study here.

Growing the Open Source Community

We have always believed in giving back to open source. Our Open Source Masterclass is a free program we’ve designed to help people contribute to projects like Open edX, whether they are seasoned developers or complete newcomers.

Participants learn not just how to code for open source, but also how to navigate communities, submit pull requests, and collaborate across cultures and time zones. Several alumni have gone on to become active Open edX contributors, strengthening the platform for everyone.

Read the full Case Study here.

Government and Public Sector: Education at National Scale

Governments often face the challenge of delivering high-quality education to huge, diverse audiences, sometimes in areas with limited internet access. We have helped ministries and public agencies use Open edX to roll out national training programs, from professional certification to university-level MOOCs.

One large-scale implementation included multi-language support, offline access options, and a custom analytics dashboard so administrators could track engagement across regions. The result was a platform that reached tens of thousands of learners while meeting strict data-sovereignty and security requirements.

These projects are wildly different in scope and audience, but they share a common thread: the right platform, tailored by the right team, can change how people learn and how organizations teach at a fundamental level.

How OpenCraft Supports your Open edX Journey

We understand that launching or upgrading an LMS can feel confusing and even a little daunting. That’s why we don’t just deliver software. We guide you from your first idea to your first course launch and beyond, making the process clear, collaborative, and even enjoyable.

Step 1: We Start With Your Goals

Before we write a single line of code, we want to understand your vision:

• Who are your learners?
• What does success look like for you?
• What challenges do you need to overcome?

We’ve been building with Open edX since 2013, so we know the right questions to ask and the pitfalls to help you avoid. Often, we can save you months of effort (and budget) simply by showing you what the platform already supports out of the box.

Step 2: We Design With Your Learners in Mind

Even the best technical platform can fall short if it isn’t designed with learners and instructors in mind. Many LMS issues aren’t bugs at all, they’re usability problems that frustrate learners, slow down instructors, and hurt adoption.

That’s why our product design team helps you create an experience that feels intuitive and engaging. Every customisation we design is based on real needs, not a wish list that gathers dust. Whether it’s integrating with your HR system, creating a custom learning dashboard, or adding interactive course components, we design for practicality, scalability, and ease of use.

What can you expect in the product design phase?

• User research: talking to learners and instructors to uncover what they really need.
• Wireframing: mapping the structure and task flows without distractions, so we can focus on usability.
• Prototyping: creating interactive mockups you can test early, before a single line of code is written.
• Visual design: refining the look and feel, aligning it to your brand, and ensuring visuals support good UX.
• Usability testing: testing early and often, during prototyping, post-launch, and after new features are added.
• Design systems: creating a style guide that ensures consistency and accessibility across every touchpoint.

Good design isn’t just about how a platform looks. It ensures the platform works beautifully for the people who use it, creates positive and meaningful learner experiences, and lets your content shine.

Step 3: We Build to Grow With You

Once the design is right, our developers bring it to life with the same focus on clarity and collaboration. They work side by side with our product designers to ensure the platform you get is technically sound, practical, and enjoyable to use.

We build with the future in mind. The foundations we put in place can scale from hundreds of learners to millions without slowing down. Every feature goes through rigorous testing so it works reliably across devices, courses, and integrations. And because we contribute our code upstream to the official Open edX project, your platform stays aligned with core releases, avoiding the technical debt that comes from one-off forks.

In short, our developers don’t just code features. They create a platform that grows with your institution and remains clean, stable, and easy to maintain for years to come.

Step 4: We Keep You Running Smoothly

After launch, we remain in your corner, handling updates, monitoring performance, applying security patches, and answering your “how do I…?” questions. If your needs change, we will help your platform evolve with you.

Some clients keep us on for long-term maintenance. Others work with us intensively at the start, then take over once their in-house team is ready. We are flexible, and you can involve us as much or as little as makes sense for you.

Step 5: We Plug You Into the Community

We are active in the Open edX ecosystem, leading working groups, contributing to the core platform, and sharing ideas at global conferences. When you partner with us, you benefit from that network. You hear about new features early, you get access to best practices from other institutions, and you can influence the platform’s future.

The End Game: A Platform You Love to Use

An LMS should not be something you simply tolerate. It should be something you are proud of, because it works for your learners, your instructors, and your institution as a whole.

With OpenCraft, you get:

• A platform tailored to your needs.
• A partner who understands your world.
• The peace of mind that comes from knowing you are supported.

Let’s Talk about your LMS needs

At OpenCraft, we see ourselves as an extension of your learning team, working alongside you to understand your vision, share ideas, and shape a learning experience that delivers real value for both your learners and institution.

This means you’re not just hiring a vendor; you’re working directly with the team that is hands-on with your project—a warm, approachable, and passionate group of product designers and developers. We love solving problems, refining ideas, and finding better ways to help learning platforms succeed.

We’ve worked on everything from nationwide upskilling platforms to highly customized enterprise training systems, all built on the Open edX® platform. As one of the earliest and most active contributors to Open edX, we’ve made thousands of improvements to its core and helped guide its roadmap alongside edX and Axim Collaborative. We have a comprehensive knowledge of this platform and are committed to sharing that experience with you.

Whether you need a customizable LMS for a university, a secure LMS for government, or corporate training programs, we can help you design, build, and grow an LMS that works for your users today and evolves with education tomorrow. 

When you’re ready, schedule a free introductory call with us. Let’s discuss your goals and how we can bring your vision to life.