Totaravs
Moodle
Moodle: If the requirement is academic course delivery rather than workplace compliance and hierarchy driven assignment.
Totara
Open source learning, performance and collaboration platform derived from Moodle and sold through partners
As of 31 August 2026, Totara's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. Totara is a GPL licensed fork of Moodle rebuilt for workplace compliance, hierarchies and performance management. Softwr lists it under LMS. Totara is made by Totara Learning Solutions, available on Web, iOS, Android, Linux.
Overview
What Totara does
Totara is a workplace learning platform made up of Totara Learn, Totara Perform for appraisal and competency management, and Totara Engage for social and curated learning. It began as an enterprise oriented fork of Moodle and remains open source under the GPL, so the code can be inspected, self hosted and modified. It is widely used in healthcare, government and other sectors where mandatory training must be evidenced against organisational hierarchy. Two characteristics distinguish it commercially. The first is the organisational model. Totara understands positions, organisational units and audiences as first class objects, so a hospital trust can assign mandatory training by job role across a hierarchy of thousands and report compliance by unit, which generic course centred systems handle awkwardly. The second is the route to market. Totara sells only through a partner network of distributors and implementers, and those partners set their own subscription and services pricing on top of the platform subscription. That means the sensible procurement move is to obtain quotes from at least two partners for the same product, which buyers of single vendor systems never think to do. Buyers are learning and compliance leads in large regulated organisations, particularly in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The trade off is the interface and the total cost. The platform inherits a Moodle lineage in look and administrative complexity, and while the code carries no per user licence in the traditional sense, the subscription plus partner hosting plus implementation and upgrade services usually add up to something comparable with a commercial system. Open source here buys exit rights and data control, not a low bill.
What people use it for
- Health services and government bodies that must evidence mandatory training by job role across a large hierarchy
- Organisations with data residency rules that require the platform to run on their own infrastructure
- Moodle users who need appraisal, competency and compliance features the academic product does not carry
- Buyers who want exit rights over the platform code rather than dependence on a single hosted vendor
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 Totara.
- You cannot buy from the vendor. Every purchase runs through a partner who sets its own hosting, services and support pricing, so identical platforms are quoted at materially different totals and buyers must run a partner comparison as well as a product comparison.
- Open source does not mean cheap. Subscription plus partner hosting plus implementation and version upgrade services commonly lands near commercial system cost, and the saving is in control and exit rights rather than in the invoice.
- The administrative interface carries its Moodle lineage and is dense, so administrator training is a real project cost rather than an afterthought.
- Major version upgrades are projects, especially where a partner has customised the deployment, and organisations that customise heavily find upgrades slower and dearer over time.
- The learner facing experience is functional rather than engaging, and organisations wanting a consumer grade learning experience usually front it with something else.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Totara
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.
- TotaravsDocebo
Docebo: A hosted commercial alternative with less administrative burden, at the cost of source access and self hosting.
- TotaravsAbsorb LMS
Absorb LMS: Comparable enterprise compliance capability bought directly from one vendor, which removes the partner pricing variability.
Pricing
What Totara costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Totara subscription via partner
On request
- Sold only through distribution partners
- Partner sets hosting, implementation and support pricing
- Source available under the GPL, but subscription required for supported releases
Capabilities
Features
Organisational hierarchies
Positions, organisational units and audiences drive automatic training assignment
Compliance and certification
Recurring certification with expiry, reassignment and evidence of completion
Totara Perform
Appraisals, check ins and competency frameworks linked to learning
Totara Engage
Curated playlists and workspaces for peer to peer learning
Self-hosting
Full source available under the GPL for on premise or sovereign cloud deployment
Programs and learning plans
Multi course sequences assigned by role with individual learning plans
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.
Is Totara free because it is open source?
No. The source is available under the GPL, but supported releases require a subscription, and it is sold through partners who add hosting, implementation and support costs.
How is it different from Moodle?
Moodle is built around courses and academic delivery. Totara adds organisational hierarchies, role based automatic assignment, recurring certification and appraisal, which is what workplace compliance reporting needs.
Can we host it ourselves?
Yes. Self hosting is a genuine option and is one of the main reasons regulated and public sector buyers choose it over a hosted only competitor.
Keep looking
Where to go from Totara
- Totara alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Totara pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Totara 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 Totara with
- Moodle
- Absorb LMS
- Docebo
- Sakai
- Chamilo
- Claroline
- Canvas
- LearnUpon
- Thought Industries
- CYPHER Learning
- Degreed
- LearnDash
- Teachable
- Coursera
- LearnWorlds
- Podia
- Udacity
- Cornerstone Learning
Other LMS software
Open source learning management system governed by the Apereo Foundation
Open source13 researched notesOpen source learning management system with no licence fee and a Latin American and francophone user base
Open source12 researched notesOpen source French-language learning platform, now developed as Claroline Connect
Open source13 researched notesMulti-portal learning management for training employees, customers and partners from one instance
Pricing on request11 researched notesExternal learning platform for companies that sell training to customers and partners as a product
Pricing on request11 researched notesOne learning platform codebase serving schools, universities and businesses with built-in AI course generation
Pricing on request11 researched notesLearning experience platform that indexes skills and third-party content rather than hosting courses
Pricing on request12 researched notesWordPress plugin that turns a site you already own into a course platform with no revenue share
From $199/yr11 researched notesCreate and sell online courses with interactive experiences
Free, then $24/mo13 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Totara, 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 Totara
Totara alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Totara pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Totara
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Totara badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best LMS software alternatives
Asynchronous training video with AI avatars, quizzes and a searchable knowledge library
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
quote
Customer 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