LearnDash vs Moodle: Which is the better LMS platform?

LearnDash and Moodle are two of the biggest names in learning management systems (LMS). However, they have fundamental differences that make them suitable for different kinds of audiences.

Which of the two is best suited for you? Let’s find out in this detailed comparison.

LearnDash vs Moodle At a Glance

Before we begin, let’s quickly introduce the LearnDash and Moodle.

LearnDash, the brainchild of Justin and Kloé Ferrima, is an LMS plugin for WordPress. It adds LMS features to the CMS (Content Management System) platform.

It debuted in 2013 and has been part of the StellarWP from 2021 onwards.

Moodle is a different platform altogether. It falls into the learning content management system (LCMS) category, which is a term for CMS meant for eLearning websites.

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Plans and Pricing

LearnDash

LearnDash’s pricing is pretty rigid. There is no free tier or lifetime license, either. You will have to sign up for one of the three yearly subscriptions, which start at $199 per year.  

LearnDash doesn’t have many add-ons since most of the features are included in the plugin itself. However, you’ll have to pay an additional $49 per year for each premium add-on you use. 

LearnDash Plans	Pricing	Benefits
Basic	$199/year  No Lifetime Package	1-site license  Core LMS Features  Free integrations and add-ons  1 year of updates and support
Plus	$399/year  No Lifetime Package	10-site license Core LMS Features  Free integrations and add-ons  1 year of updates and support
Pro	$799/year  No Lifetime Package	Unlimited site licenses Core LMS Features Free integrations and add-ons 1 year of updates and support
Cloud	$25 – $83/month	Fully hosted website with LearnDash LMS

Moodle

Moodle is open-source LMS software. This means its source code is publicly available, and anyone can use it for free. You can even customize the code to your liking if you have the required technical knowledge.

Moodle	Pricing	Benefits
LMS Software	FREE	Moodle LMS Software Community Support
Moodle Cloud	$120 – $1,690/year	Fully hosted website with Moodle

LearnDash and Moodle offer LMS-only and cloud-based solutions. In both, Moodle comes out as the economical option.

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Features

Initial Setup 

When you set up a site in Moodle, you are creating a new website from scratch. This is a more complex process that requires technical knowledge of servers and web directories.

In comparison, creating LearnDash is easy because of all the resources and solutions available for WordPress.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Setup Wizard	✅	❌

Thus, setting up a eLearning website is easier using LearnDash and Moodle.

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Course Builder 

LearnDash uses a drag-and-drop course builder that is more user-friendly and intuitive. On the other hand, Moodle relies on an in-house builder that is more like the classic WordPress editor.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Drag and Drop Builder	✅	❌
Front-end Builder	✅ (Premium Add-on)	❌
Unlimited Courses and Lessons	✅	✅
Course Dashboard	✅	✅
Course Attachments	✅	✅
Download Materials	✅	✅
Course Preview	✅ (Available as Sample Lessons)	✅  (Via PayPal Availability condition)

LearnDash and Moodle both have extensive course creation feature. That said, the course builder on LearnDash is more modern and user-friendly.

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Quiz Builder 

When it comes to question types, Moodle has more options. It has 15+ default question types and supports third-party types using add-ons. In addition, it offers all the features LearnDash uses to engage students in quizzes.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Unlimited Quizzes	✅	✅
Multiple Question Types	✅ (8, Includes Survey)	✅ (15+, Includes Numericals)
Quizzes Import and Export	✅	✅
Randomize Questions	✅	✅
Quiz Duration	✅	✅
Limit Quiz Attempts	✅	✅
Quiz Hints	✅	✅
Answer Explanation	✅	✅
Quiz Leaderboard	✅	✅  (Available as Activity Results)
Email Notification	✅	✅

Thus, Moodle has a more comprehensive quiz building feature for a LMS platform.

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Built-in Order & Payment Support 

LearnDash uses Stripe Connect as the default payment system, while Moodle uses PayPal. Both support selling courses as subscriptions. That said, Moodle doesn’t support profit sharing among co-instructors.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Built-in Order System	✅ (Stripe Connect)	✅ (PayPal)
Course Subscription	✅	✅ (Via Enrollment Duration)
Revenue Sharing	✅	❌

LearnDash offers more ways to sell coures than Moodle.

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Sales and Ecommerce 

With LearnDash, you can easily integrate third-party ecommerce payment gateways to your online course business. The options are limited in Moodle.

	LearnDash	Moodle
WooCommerce	✅	✅ (Via Moowoodle)
WooCommerce Subscriptions	✅	✅ (Via Edwiser Bridge)
Stripe	✅	✅
PayPal	✅	✅
Razorpay Integration	✅	❌
Easy Digital Downloads	✅	❌
Paid Membership Pro	✅	✅
Restrict Content Pro	✅	❌

Moodle doesn’t have as many options as LearnDash when it comes to third-party ecommerce integration.

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Certificate Builder

The custom certificate builder on Moodle offers more than 15 custom elements to add to the certificate. It uses a WordPress-like drag-and-drop approach and mechanisms for certificate verification and email automation.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Certificate Blocks	✅ (4 Custom Blocks)	✅ (15+ Custom Elements)
Pre-built Certificate Templates	❌	❌
Unlimited Certificates	✅	✅
Certificate Dashboard	✅	✅
Auto Attach Certificate to Email	❌	✅
QR Verification for Certificate	❌	✅

Moodle has a more robuts certificate builder plugin compared to LearnDash.

That said, there are WordPress LMS plugins like Masteriyo with premade templates in addition to all the features mentioned above.

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Gradebook and Analytics 

A gradebook allows you to evaluate and compare your learners’ grades properly. Analytics, on the other hand, provides course data that can be used to determine the course’s effectiveness.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Gradebook	✅	✅
Course Analytics	✅ (Available as ProPanel)	✅

Both LearnDash and Moodle have gradebook and course analytics but the latter requires an additional subscription in LearnDash.

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Live Sessions 

You can host live interactive sessions on both LearnDash and Moodle. The two have their respective calendar that lets users track these sessions, among other course events.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Calendar	✅ (Event Calendar)	✅
Live Interaction	✅ (Zoom, Google Meet, GoToWebinar)	✅ (Zoom, BigBlueButton, Google Meet)

Both LearnDash and Moodle have enough options for hosting live sessions.

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Course Protection and Security 

By default, Moodle doesn’t have course video protection. You’ll have to use an external video server like Vimeo to implement it. Other than that, it provides all the protection and security measures as LearnDash.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Course Content/Video Protection	✅	❌
Password Strength Checker	✅	✅
Google reCAPTCHA	✅	✅
Email Verification	✅	✅

LearnDash has a slight edger over Moodle since it has built-in course content and video protection.

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Student Engagement 

Moodle offers forum activity and announcement forums that allow instructors to interact with their learners. These features are missing from LearnDash.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Q&A Section	❌	✅  (Available as Forum Activity)
Review System	✅	✅
Course-wide Announcement	❌	✅
Notification System	✅	✅

Moodle has more features to engage students into the LMS platform.

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Course Control and Access 

With LearnDash, you can control the course flow. The content drop lets you drop lessons based on enrollment duration and a specific date. It is available under the Moodle Access Restrictions and offers more options.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Course Preview	✅ (Available as Sample Lessons)	✅  (Via PayPal Availability condition)
Course Content Access for Instructor/Admin	✅	✅
Course Prerequisites	✅	✅
Content Drip	✅	✅  (Available as Access Restriction)
Course Retake	✅	✅
Challenging Exams	✅	✅ (Available as Competencies)
Course Bundle	✅ (Available as Course Groups)	✅ (Available as Meta and Child Courses)
Course Expiration	✅	✅

For course control and access features, Moodle has more features than LearnDash.

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User Roles and Membership 

LearnDash lets you create a membership site based on a subscription model. However, this feature is not yet natively available in Moodle.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Unlimited Instructors and Students	✅	✅
User Import and Export	✅	✅
Course Content Access for Instructor/Admin	✅	✅
Bulk Course Enrollment	✅	✅
User Profile	✅	✅
Social Login	❌	✅ (Via Elcentra Social Login plugin)
Multiple Instructor	✅	✅
Membership Site	✅	❌

LearnDash lets you create a membership site which Moodle doesn’t.

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Design and Customization 

Because of the difference in the underlying platform, LearnDash and Moodle have different customization options. However, Moodle supports white labeling, allowing users to replace its logo and branding with their own. This feature is not available on LearnDash.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Native Theme	❌	✅
White Label	❌	✅
Webhooks	✅ (Zapier)	✅ (Zapier)
Advanced Email Automation	✅	✅
Shortcodes	✅	✅

Moodle has white labeling which LearnDash doesn’t.

If you want white labeling but are keen on using WordPress, check out Masteriyo, which offers it along with all other LMS features.

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Support and Documentation 

You can leverage multiple support channels when you run into a problem.

	LearnDash	Moodle
Live Chat	❌	✅
Documentation	✅	✅
Video Tutorials	✅ (YouTube, Academy)	✅  (YouTube, Academy)
Live Walkthrough	✅	✅
Facebook Community	✅	✅

LearnDash and Moodle offer similar support channels.

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LearnDash vs Moodle: Which should you choose? 

Here’s a summary of everything discussed so far. To give you a broader sense of the competition, we’ve also included Masteriyo in the comparison chart. 

Feature	LearnDash	Moodle	Masteriyo
Pricing	4 ⭐	5  ⭐	5  ⭐
Initial Setup	4.5  ⭐	3 ⭐	5  ⭐
Course Builder	5 ⭐	4.5⭐	5⭐
Quiz Builder	4.5 ⭐	5 ⭐	4.5 ⭐
Certificate Builder	4⭐	5⭐	5⭐
Live Sessions	5⭐	5⭐	5⭐
Course Protection and Security	5⭐	5⭐	5⭐
Student Engagement	4⭐	4.5⭐	5⭐
Built-in Order and Payment	4 ⭐	4⭐	5⭐
Sales and Ecommerce	5⭐	4.5⭐	5⭐
Gradebook and Analytics	4.5⭐	5⭐	5⭐
Course Control and Access	4.5⭐	5⭐	4.5⭐
User Roles and Membership	5⭐	5⭐	5⭐
Design and Customization	4.5 ⭐	5 ⭐	5⭐
Support and Documentation	5⭐	5⭐	5⭐

To conclude, LearnDash and Moodle each has its strength and weaknesses. Moodle is great for institutions that have technical resource to create and maintain an LMS platform. On the other hand, LearnDash is for individuals who want to sell courses on their own.

Before you make the ultimate decision, we suggest looking into other alternatives, as there are a lot of new promising LMS in the market. One such platform is Masteriyo, which has all LMS features and even more flexible pricing.