The 5 Best Self-Hosted Learning Management Systems in 2023

Learning management systems (LMS) are modernizing learning and upskilling. They help organizations to manage and deliver content to a potential audience or group of learners. Self-hosted LMS is hosted in an external environment and has its own servers and database management system. This is an excellent way to obtain a highly customizable tool without incurring the additional costs of cloud migration.

Here are the top five self-hosted learning management systems currently available on the market.

GyrusAim

GyrusAim by Gyrus is a leading learning management system (LMS) platform that was founded in 1987 to assist organizations in enriching their overall learning and development initiatives. For organizations with a keen focus on assessments, grades, and additional reporting to track the progress of learners, GyrusAim offers an unrivaled experience. GyrusAim also provides certificate management to keep learners motivated throughout their learning journey. These certificates are generated automatically once a course is associated with them, offering appropriate tracking functionality. The system also supports hundreds of languages, allowing for a seamless multi-national learning experience within any organization at any location.

Gyrus provides much more than just streamlining learning, assessment, and certification. Some of the top features of GyrusAim include gap analysis, need analysis, skill management, webinars, gamification, individual learning plans, reporting, document repository, security, and more. This makes GyrusAim a one-stop shop for all learning initiatives that an organization needs to conduct. It's indeed a step ahead of other LMS solutions.

Also, Gyrus provides users with 24*7 dedicated support staff via phone or email and an extensive online community, making it a smart choice for busy organizations.

Moodle

Moodle is an open-source LMS platform that allows for extensive customization, making it highly scalable for any user. The software is available in many languages, making it easy for people from all demographics and locations to use the platform for endless learning. Another intriguing aspect of Moodle is its ease of integration with third-party software, themes, and plugins.

This increased integrability, however, has a drawback. When it comes to providing a variety of features, Moodle provides far too many, making it difficult for some users to navigate the solution. Another disadvantage is that interesting tasks and features can only be accessed through plugins, making it difficult for individuals who aren't too tech-savvy or need help understanding plugin systems. It is safe to say that Moodle is the WordPress of the LMS world, which means that the user must know a lot to use it effectively.

Moodle recently released Moodle Workplace to provide LMS solutions to offices and organizations for a segregated learning model - specifically for corporate.

Open edX

Open edX is a free and open-source learning management system that is widely used in educational institutions, businesses, and other organizations. The platform is ideal for learners who want to experience a more relaxed self-learning environment. Open edX makes it simple to access the content and get graded on proctored exams. The platform is highly customizable for content upload and is ideal for an organization where there are a large number of learners. Open edX is an excellent LMS for academic degree courses and programs.

Although the platform is one of the most successful in the LMS market, it still causes some issues for users. For example, the platform is not user-friendly for those who have to upload the content using another counterpart, such as authors or teachers. Uploading content is difficult and would necessitate additional steps to ensure that it runs smoothly on the front end, making it unsuitable for some organizations that might be looking for an easy-to-use platform.

Forma LMS

Forma is yet another open-source LMS service designed to improve and channel corporate training and learning development, where users can upload internal training for specific needs to the platform. This community-driven platform is bringing many innovations and add-ons that organizations can use to gain an advantage. It also provides flexible user management, real-time reporting, simple multimedia handling, integrated e-commerce, and other features.

Although Forma LMS has highly customizable and comprehensive features, setting up the platform for organizational use is a little tricky. Furthermore, the system confuses users when they try to locate menus and functionalities, leaving the end-user perplexed.

ATutor

ATutor is an open-source, easy-to-use learning management system with a few functionalities. Because of its simple design and feel, the platform is extremely simple to use and navigate. But when using ATutor, the administrator cannot upload images with large file sizes, making it difficult for creators to upload files within the course. The platform's creators advise keeping large files separate and linking them later within the material, which counts for some arduous work.

Unfortunately, according to community reviews, the platform's look and feel are bland, making it difficult for users to fully absorb the platform's content. Furthermore, the platform has some difficulty in downloading language packages, which may or may not be available in current versions. In such cases, the required language pack must be exported from ATutor's installation page.

Choose the Best Self-Hosted LMS for Your Needs

For an organization to boost its learning and development initiatives, it must have access to a comprehensive and seamless LMS with continuous support from the provider. This is precisely where GyrusAim proves immensely viable. Schedule a demo today to learn more about GyrusAim's features and capabilities.