Built on Drupal LMS — forked from Opigno, rewritten for Drupal 10
Drupal LMS is a Learning Management System for Drupal, designed to be extensible and modular. It began as a fork of the Opigno distribution and has been rewritten from the ground up on Drupal 10.3 and above. OpenLMS builds on that ecosystem and tailors it for Hong Kong.
Key facts
- What it is built on
- Drupal LMS — a Learning Management System for Drupal, forked from the Opigno distribution and rewritten from the ground up on Drupal 10.3 and above.
- Modules in the ecosystem
- LMS H5P, LMS SCORM, LMS Xapi, LMS YAML, LMS Certificate, LMS Messages, LMS Webform, LMS Membership Request, LMS File Upload, LMS Migrate.
- Licence
- GPL open-source code. Free for every customer, permanently. No proprietary licence, no seat count, no annual renewal.
- Ownership
- Your data, your code, your infrastructure. Full database access and standard export throughout.
- Where our profit goes
- Our margin on installation and customisation work funds engineering on this platform — the code you run is the code we improve.
- Why it matters in Hong Kong
- Data residency under the PDPO, no vendor lock-in, and no per-seat cost for a school district or a large enterprise.
The Drupal LMS ecosystem
Individual modules are enabled as needed, with views and theming added around them — start a new LMS site from scratch or integrate with an existing one.
Drupal LMS
The learning management core itself. Version 1.2.x supports Drupal ^10.3 and ^11, is covered by the Drupal security advisory policy, and is used on hundreds of reported sites.
LMS H5P and LMS SCORM
H5P gives access to the open-source interactive activity library. SCORM adds support for SCORM packages, including content authored in third-party tools.
LMS Xapi
Ingest xAPI packages, provide a field formatter for any entity type, supply an xAPI package activity-answer plugin, and offer a minimalistic LRS for storing scores and states.
LMS YAML
Export and import courses using zip packages with files in YAML format — version-controllable, reviewable and portable between environments.
LMS Certificate
Generate PDF certificates for completed courses, with a companion entity module for certificate lifecycle management.
LMS Messages and LMS Webform
Automatic messages on LMS events through the Message module, and webform integration so activities can use forms for submissions.
LMS Membership Request
Require students to request membership on selected courses, supporting approval workflows for controlled or cohort-based enrolment.
LMS File Upload
Adds a file upload activity type, so assignments can collect submissions rather than only record a completion state.
LMS Migrate
Migration plugins and template examples for moving from Opigno to Drupal LMS, so existing investments are not stranded.
LMS File Upload and dev starter kit
A dedicated local development repository and starter kit for Drupal LMS, so deployments start from a working baseline rather than an empty page.
Open source components and what they replace
| Open-source component | Replaces the paid part of |
|---|---|
| Drupal core + Drupal LMS | Proprietary LMS platform licence |
| LMS H5P activity library | Per-seat interactive content authoring tools |
| LMS SCORM / LMS Xapi | Paid content delivery and LRS tiers |
| LMS Certificate | Paid certificate generation add-ons |
| LMS YAML packages | Vendor content export and migration services |
| SAML / OIDC modules | Paid enterprise identity connectors |
| Views, workflows, webform | Paid reporting and form builders |
No rows match your filter.
What open source means for you in practice
What you gain
- HK$0 licence fee with no seat-based scaling
- Full ownership of customisation and code
- Access to a large contributor and security community
- Freedom to host on-premise for data residency
- Standards compliance without premium tiers
What you take on
Open source removes the licence fee, not the responsibility. Be clear-eyed about this before you commit.
- You need hosting, backup and security patching
- Custom development is yours to maintain
- Feature breadth depends on configuration effort
- Some polish in commercial products is simply paid developer time
- We provide the expertise layer — that is what our services are for
Questions about the open-source foundation
Which open-source technology is this built on?
Drupal LMS, which began as a fork of the Opigno distribution and has been rewritten from the ground up for Drupal 10.3 and above, including Drupal 11. Drupal LMS itself is built on Drupal — a mature, widely deployed content management framework with a large contributed module ecosystem, which is what makes the platform extensible rather than a closed product.
If the core is GPL, do we have to publish our own changes?
GPL governs the distribution of the software. If you modify and redistribute the code, you owe source availability for those modifications. Running the platform internally, and making changes to your own configuration and content, is a different matter. If a specific deployment raises the question, we will get it answered properly for your situation rather than in general terms.
Who applies security updates?
The code is maintained in the open by the Drupal and Drupal LMS communities, and released on their schedules. Your organisation has to consume those updates — which is a capability question, not a licence question, and it is part of what we scope and support.
Can we fork it and develop it ourselves?
Yes, that is what GPL permits and it is one of the strongest arguments for the model. Many Hong Kong organisations will customise far more than they expect. What we would caution against is forking without a plan for upgrades, because a fork nobody can rebase becomes its own maintenance burden.
What are the genuine limitations?
Configuration effort is real. Some polish that commercial products ship out of the box costs implementation time here, and genuinely advanced requirements may need custom development. We will say this during scoping, not afterwards — the value of an open-source conversation only survives if the disadvantages are stated in the same breath as the advantages.
See the open-source platform running
Ask us to walk you through the actual modules, the actual database and the actual export path. No slides.