Hosting
Below you’ll find a growing matrix of free hosting options for Moodle. NOTE: none of these companies or organizations are official Moodle partners (so if you’re seeking official hosting that provides funding back to the Moodle Trust, try one of the companies listed on this site: http://moodle.com/partners/)
They are in no particular order and we’ll continue to update them as changes become known and new hosting services are introduced. If you know of another hosting service, let us know!
| Org | URL | Ads? | 3rd party plug-ins | Mobile-Enabled | Support | Business Plan | Limits | Comm- unity |
Basic Plan |
| FreeMoodle | Freemoodle.org | no | Certificate and 20+ themes | yes with mobile themes | email/forums, community | Moodle Partner funded | courses must be open/free | 1,000+ | Free course hosting for free/open Moodle courses |
| MoodleReader | moodlereader.org | no | Graded reader module | no | email/forums | University/Gov’t funded | Legit edu orgs only; only the quiz function (nothing else | 25+ | 1 course, full access to the module & 900+ book resources |
| MDL2.com | mdl2.com | yes | no | no | FAQs | ad supported | 250 MB upload | full Moodle 2.2 site with Admin access | |
| Ninehub | ninehub.com | yes | no | no | NA | Web development company | NA | NA | Full admin rights; unrestricted & unlimited disk space |
| ColombiaMoodle | colombiamoodle.com/ | no | no | no | email/when available live chat | supported by a business | NA | NA | Spanish language course hosting/course restore |
| iTeach.org | iteach.org | NA | NA | NA | NA | For teachers, by teachers | 100MB | NA | Must be a current teacher in a US private/public school (verified by phone |
| FreeWebClass | FreeWebClass.com | yes | no | no | NA | Freemium | NA | NA | 35 user limit (for free version); 1 GB bandwidth; 10 GB storage |
| MoodleShare | courses.moodleshare.com | no | no | no | NA | NA | 1 course | NA | editing teacher rights |
| Sqooltools | sqooltools.com | yes | yes^ | no | self serve is free, $10 per ticket for help desk | Freemium model | yes | NA | k-12 only, 1 course, 30 students, 250MB |
| Gnomio | gnomio.com | yes | yes* | mle | NA | Donations | no | 1000+ sites | Full admin rights v 1.9; honor code (no large files) |
| Teclet | Teclet | no | yes | no | wiki | NA | 10 MB upload limit, course control only |
small | Editing teacher/course creation rights |
| TuitionClass | tuitionclass.net | no | no | no | NA | Supported by service/hosting company | 128 MB upload limit, 10 student limit |
NA | Editing teacher/course creation rights |
| e-Socrates² | e-socrates.org | yes | no | no | forums (English and Italian) | IT company, focused on open source software | courses must be open | 1000+ courses | 1 course |
| Learning Objectivity² |
learningobjectivity.com | no | NA | no | self serve, email | Consultancy | NA | 67 courses | 1 course |
| 000webhost¹ | www.000webhost.com/ | no | no | no | no | Freemium | 1.5 GB storage; 100 GB bandwidth | NA | full admin rights |
^audio recording only, other 3rd party modules with paid contract.
*10+
¹note that this enables site set up via cPanel
²these hosting companies are currently not accepting new registrants. In the case of K2S it’s been said that they are waiting for the release of Moodle 2.0.
I noticed the table is cut off when I view it in Firefox 3.6.6 or Internet Explorer 8. Is there a file I can download to view the whole table?
Tom, that’s fixed, at least for IE8 and FF (sorry for the mis-formatting).
Even with free, there are some other aspects that would be good to know from people providing a hosted service:
Backups (if the server blows up have you a copy of the data available for u, or if they go out of business / close down)
Upgrades/security patches – Is it secure, is it up to date …
Anti-Virus scan on uploads?
These are just 3 questions you should always know answers to whether you pay or not.
Key2School is a wonderful host site – we have been very happy with upgrades, backups, and the help forums. Just waiting for moodle 2.0 now!
I was just taking a look through these to find a hosting site for my high school class and found that tuitionclass.net has a limit o 10 students per course. Not very practical for normal school use.
Brian, thanks for pointing that out, I’ve included it in the table.
SO disappointed with Key2School! I’m currently looking for a comparable host: full admin rights, no ads, up to 1,000 users…ANYBODY have any ideas? I’m not in the US, so can’t use iTeach.org.
@Raabster
What exactly did dissapoint you so much, when using Key2school?
A lot of things will improve, definitely check back when they’ll reopen in March!
@Tommy – I’m disappointed that in the middle of an academic year Key2school decides to change their hosting policy and I’m disappointed that even if I stayed with Key2school that my school’s moodle site would be down for several MONTHS during the school year.
I need a WORKING site. Period. Currently we’re working to host our own site if I can figure out how to export what we have.
This is TERRIFIC! We support many schools and some do not like our policies, or they have grown so much they want their own server. This now gives me a ONE STOP shop to help them find suitable resources. You always do such wonderful work Joseph, there are few words to say how much you have helped my work in the past. *Thank you!*
I also have used Key2school as a provider they have been great with smaller projects and for my students.
Thank you for listing my website (moodlereader.org) on your listing, but since I do not offer full Moodle functionality, it probably is not appropriate to list it here. Teachers only have access to the reader quiz module and related functions but cannot use their course for discussions, assignment submissions and the like since this eats up too much bandwidth. We now have over 15,000 student users and 100+ schools using the site.
Tom, I still think it’s a great resouce…I can add those limitations so potential users know exactly what Moodlereader provides.
Do you need to be an accredited school to use moodle?
Anyone can use Moodle. You don’t even have to be a school.
Very nice list. I had not heard of quite a few of the hosts you mentioned. I think I’ll give FreeMoodle a try.
FreeMoodle gets my vote!
ninehub and freewebclass both give the message: the free version of FreeWebClass.com is currently
unavailable. 000webhost has a 10,000 file minimum and moodle is higher than 10,000 files now. gnomio and mdl2 have obnoxious ads all over the page, TecLet.com is for sale, I guess the only way is to have open courses at freemoodle but people feel insecure – they don’t want their work open to the public, so I guess there is no free way to have a moodle site
It appears so. From experience I know that it takes a lot of resources to keep a Moodle up and running that provides free access (or free Moodle sites). I would say there aren’t free Moodle sites, but there are cheap ways to get a site up and running.