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Blackboard Learning Management vs Moodle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

Blackboard Learning Management
Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
10
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
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) category, the mindshare of Blackboard Learning Management is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Moodle is 7.0%, down from 15.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Learning Management Systems (LMS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Moodle7.0%
Blackboard Learning Management1.6%
Other91.4%
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
 

Featured Reviews

James Phelps - PeerSpot reviewer
Expandable with good real-time live interactions but is very expensive
Initially, Blackboard had problems for faculty members who were forced to use it to try to get it set up and running. That said, over time, they improved that. Unfortunately, due to its licensing requirements on standalone systems, like at a university on our servers, we run into problems where we can only set it up in one way. The way you teach a biology class is not the way you teach a social science class, for example. It's not flexible. Often you are forced into compromising in such a manner that neither group would be happy. If you need help, the help desk in-house will provide 24-hour help to both students and faculty. That means you have eight people, eight hours a day, supervisors, and an overall manager. It takes at least 12 people to handle maintenance for a 10,000-person campus for 24-hour coverage.
Agnes Mindila - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It encompasses various components, including course delivery modules, content management, community engagement features, digital classrooms, and mobile integration."
"Blackboard enables instructors to collectively gather all the grading data into one place. If students upload content or post it to a Google Doc, I can do my grading and calculate the grades. It is an excellent holding place for all of that data"
"One of Blackboard's strengths is its historical prominence as a leading LMS for universities in the US and Europe a decade or more ago."
"It is scalable."
"One of the most important features is the possibility of creating unlimited subdomains."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The modules and courses are flexible."
"The customization features of Moodle significantly enhance the learning experience for our users."
"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."
"It is relatively easy to use to build processes for establishing and conducting work within the templates that are used. It is not that hard to follow along or use, and it is pretty simple to pick it up and run with it."
"Cost-effective and intuitive."
"A really nice thing about Moodle is that it is very robust and flexible, and one of the big advantages of Moodle is that it is open source. It also has a lot of free documentation."
"Since it's an open-source product, you can integrate it with many other things."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Moodle has a vast array of features which are really useful for the work our company does. Moodle hosts the courses through online systems and also offers quizzes and badges which our customers frequently use."
 

Cons

"Blackboard could benefit from significant improvements in its data storage and software functionality to remain competitive with more innovative LMS solutions."
"The solution is not flexible."
"Blackboard has limitations in terms of delivering content and assessing student assignments because it can't handle large file sizes. It's also limited in its ability to track student activity. Instructors can see the student's most recent login, but they can't follow the activity."
"The system falls short in terms of managing assessments and exams effectively."
"The solution must provide better integration with third-party software."
"It would be ideal to create a more responsive or more intuitive template for access from telephones or tablets."
"The ability to input modified, individual, independent grades in a grade center component is not just hard. It almost always requires you to get tech involved. When you're dealing with a learning system where you have people in an open enrollment with all different levels of learning modes or methodologies, and as well as a worldwide student body, you end up with situations where you have to absolutely exempt somebody from a grade or an assignment and enter a new, different kind of assignment because of their skillset or lack thereof. You can't do that in Moodle. It is virtually impossible to do that in Moodle without having a tech do it for you, and when you have to have that level of tech support, it becomes problematic. They need to fix the grade book center. It is the part where you do evaluations. They need to fix it so that the individual professors can make changes directly without having to get a hold of tech support to do it for them."
"The solution could be improved if support was an integral part of the whole solution. There are a few challenges in terms of performance due to Moodle being a free-to-use platform but these can be overcome with the use of their support team."
"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."
"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."
"The solution should have more student-centric details in the modules."
"Moodle should improve the interface. You can download plugins, such as templates, and use them in Moodle, but they're limited. The interface component in Moodle can improve for students because we always have to train every student on how to use some of each feature. The solution overall could be more user-friendly."
"It would be good to have a feature that would ensure that students are the ones performing the given assessment."
"The solution should continue to allow and foster the ability to integrate with cloud services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"At the beginning, you can choose a basic plan. As your users grow you can buy a more expensive license."
"The product pricing tends to be higher than alternatives."
"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."
"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."
"Moodle offer a 14 day free trial and then requires payment."
"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."
"Moodle is a free open-sourced solution. This is one of the best aspects of Moodle."
"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."
"The licensing cost is quite high and it operates on an annual basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
23%
Educational Organization
18%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
10%
Educational Organization
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Blackboard Learning Management?
The product pricing tends to be higher than alternatives like Canvas, making Blackboard more suitable for larger universities with substantial budgets.
What needs improvement with Blackboard Learning Management?
To make Blackboard Learning Management better, I believe maintaining, updating, and upgrading the content is the key success factor for the platform to provide value to students.
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Derby, University of Warwick, John Moore's University
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Blackboard Learning Management vs. Moodle and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,095 professionals have used our research since 2012.