---
title: "Moodle"
description: "Moodle is an open-source e-learning platform (LMS) for building online courses. Learn its features, PHP and MySQL architecture, and hosting requirements."
url: "https://nodea.io/en/glossary/moodle"
lang: "en"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---

# Moodle

> Moodle is an open-source e-learning platform (LMS) written in PHP, used to create and manage online courses, quizzes and educational materials.

**Moodle** is one of the world's most popular open-source e-learning platforms, that is, a learning management system (LMS). Written in [PHP](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/php) and backed by a [MySQL](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/mysql) or PostgreSQL database, it lets institutions build online courses, publish materials, run assessments and track learner progress.

## How Moodle works

Moodle organises teaching around courses that learners enrol in with assigned roles (teacher, student, administrator). Each course is a set of activities and resources assembled from modules. The platform's key elements:

- **Activities** — quizzes, assignments, forums, surveys and interactive lessons graded automatically or by hand.
- **Resources** — files, content pages, links and multimedia shared with participants.
- **Roles and permissions** — fine-grained access control over content and features at course and site level.
- **Plugins** — a rich ecosystem of extensions adding integrations, themes and new activity types.
- **Gradebook** — automatic collection and calculation of activity results into a coherent progress report.
- **Reports and analytics** — tracking participant activity, attendance and course completion.

## Moodle in practice

Moodle is used by educational institutions and corporate training teams alike:

1. **Universities and schools** — full handling of courses, grades, deadlines and student communication.
2. **Corporate training** — employee onboarding, mandatory courses and certification with automated reporting.
3. **Commercial courses** — selling access to online content with payment integration.

Because Moodle can spike during exam periods, when hundreds of users log in at once, it's worth running on hosting with headroom — a well-chosen [VPS](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/vps) or managed server keeps the platform stable even under traffic surges. It's also worth enabling a caching layer and regularly backing up the database and course files to protect years of teaching material from loss.

### What are Moodle's hosting requirements?

Moodle needs a server with PHP, a MySQL or PostgreSQL database and enough memory — as concurrent users grow, so does the demand for CPU and RAM. For active platforms running online exams, a VPS or dedicated server is recommended over shared hosting.

## Related

- [PHP](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/php)
- [MySQL](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/mysql)
- [CMS](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/cms)
- [Hosting](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/hosting)
- [Database](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/database)

---

Languages: [pl](https://nodea.pl/pl/slownik-pojec/moodle.md)  
Site index: [llms.txt](https://nodea.io/en/llms.txt)