Chamilovs
Moodle
Moodle: Far larger plugin ecosystem, contributor base and consultant market, at the cost of heavier hosting and administration
Chamilo
Open source learning management system with no licence fee and a Latin American and francophone user base
As of 31 August 2026, Chamilo is free to use. A GPL-licensed LMS used heavily in Spanish-speaking Latin America, francophone Africa and Belgium, where its language coverage and low hosting demands matter more than feature breadth. Softwr lists it under LMS. Chamilo is made by BeezNest Belgium (Chamilo governance since January 2026), available on Web, Self-hosted, Linux.
Overview
What Chamilo does
Chamilo is a PHP and MySQL learning management system released under the GNU GPL. It covers course creation, SCORM content, quizzes and exams, assignments, forums, attendance, certificates, learning paths, a gradebook and reporting, plus videoconference and plagiarism plugins. It runs on ordinary LAMP hosting, which is why it is common in institutions with limited infrastructure budgets and unreliable connectivity, and it ships with a wide set of interface translations maintained by its user community. The distinguishing thing is where it is used rather than what it does. Chamilo has a genuine concentration of deployments in Latin America, Spain, francophone West Africa and Belgian public education, and its Spanish and French documentation and support community are as strong as the English. If your institution operates in those languages, the practical support you can obtain is substantially better than the download count would suggest, and worse in English-speaking markets where Moodle absorbed the same demand. Buyers are universities, vocational training providers, ministries and NGOs that want no per-learner licence fee and are prepared to own hosting, upgrades and security patching or to buy those from a partner. The governance change matters commercially: the project was long stewarded by a non-profit association, and it is now governed by BeezNest Belgium, a commercial company that also sells Chamilo hosting and services. That is not disqualifying, but it concentrates roadmap control in a vendor with a services business, and it is the kind of change a procurement team should read the licence and contribution terms about before committing a five-year deployment.
What people use it for
- A Latin American university that needs an LMS with no per-student licence fee and Spanish-language support from people in a compatible time zone
- A ministry or NGO delivering vocational training over poor connectivity, where a lightweight PHP application on cheap hosting beats a heavyweight platform
- A francophone institution in West Africa or Belgium where French interface and documentation quality decides adoption more than feature count
- An organisation that requires the LMS to run entirely on its own infrastructure with no data leaving the country
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Chamilo.
- Version 3.0 has been in beta since 2024 while production deployments stay on the 1.11 branch, so anyone planning a multi-year deployment is choosing between an ageing stable line and an unfinished rewrite.
- Governance moved to BeezNest Belgium, a commercial company that also sells Chamilo hosting and services, which concentrates roadmap decisions in a vendor with a direct commercial interest in the support market.
- The English-language community and documentation are noticeably thinner than the Spanish and French, so an anglophone institution will find fewer answers, fewer contributors and fewer consultants than the project size implies.
- No licence fee is not no cost: hosting, upgrades, security patching, backups and integration work all fall on the institution or a paid partner, and that ongoing labour usually exceeds what a small institution would have paid for a hosted commercial LMS.
- The third-party plugin ecosystem is small compared with Moodle, so integrations with proctoring, publisher content and student information systems often have to be commissioned rather than installed.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Chamilo
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ChamilovsDocebo
Docebo: If you want a commercially supported hosted LMS with no infrastructure work, and can accept per-learner licensing
- ChamilovsTalentLMS
TalentLMS: A simpler hosted option for small training operations that do not want to run servers at all
Pricing
What Chamilo costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Self-hosted
Free
- GNU GPL licence, no per-learner fee
- Full source code
- Community support in Spanish, French and English
- You provide hosting, upgrades and security patching
Hosting and support from partners
On request
- Managed hosting, upgrades and support sold by BeezNest and other official providers
- Priced per deployment, quoted
Capabilities
Features
Course and learning paths
Sequenced content with prerequisites, SCORM and AICC import
Assessments
Question banks, timed exams, randomised papers and automatic marking
Gradebook and certificates
Weighted grading with automatic certificate issue on completion
Attendance tracking
Session attendance recording suited to blended and classroom-plus-online delivery
Sessions and multi-tenancy
Cohorts of the same course run separately with their own dates and tutors
Wide interface translation
Interface available in many languages with strong Spanish and French coverage
Plugins
Videoconferencing, plagiarism checking and payment plugins from the community
Low hosting requirements
Runs on standard PHP and MySQL shared or virtual hosting
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Who owns and maintains Chamilo now?
The project has been governed by BeezNest Belgium since January 2026. The code remains under the GNU GPL, but roadmap stewardship sits with a commercial company that also sells Chamilo services.
Is Chamilo 3 ready for production?
No. The 3.0 line has been in beta since 2024 and production installations remain on the 1.11 branch. Plan on 1.11 and treat the 3.0 migration as a future project.
Is there a licence fee?
No. Chamilo is GPL software with no per-learner charge. Costs are hosting, support and whatever integration work you commission.
Where is it strongest?
Spanish-speaking Latin America, Spain, francophone West Africa and Belgium. Support and documentation quality in Spanish and French exceed the English.
Keep looking
Where to go from Chamilo
- Chamilo alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Chamilo pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Chamilo badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All LMS softwareThe full category
- Best LMS softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best LMS software for
Compare Chamilo with
- Moodle
- Docebo
- TalentLMS
- Sakai
- Claroline
- Totara
- Canvas
- LearnDash
- Schoox
- Skilljar
- CYPHER Learning
- LearnUpon
- Pear Deck
- Seesaw
- Weet
- Whatfix
- Sakai
- Claroline
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Chamilo, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Chamilo
Chamilo alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Chamilo pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Chamilo
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Chamilo badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best LMS software alternatives
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Per creator per month
External learning platform for companies that sell training to customers and partners as a product
quote
Learning management with interactive content authoring built in rather than bought separately
quoteOpen source learning, performance and collaboration platform derived from Moodle and sold through partners
quoteCustomer education platform that treats training completion as a commercial signal in the CRM
quoteWordPress plugin that turns a site you already own into a course platform with no revenue share
Per site per yearOne learning platform codebase serving schools, universities and businesses with built-in AI course generation
quote