D2L Brightspace is a cloud LMS sold to schools, universities, businesses and government; pages here cover replacing it with self-hosted Moodle or Canvas LMS.
Comparing D2L Brightspace with self-hosted Moodle for schools, universities and training teams: course tools, gradebook, competencies and analytics, LTI support, hosting and data location, licensing and who runs and supports each.
Brightspace against self-hosted Canvas LMS: course design and gradebook, LTI tools, what Instructure's hosted service adds that the AGPL code lacks, and the effort of running Canvas yourself compared with a D2L subscription.
Moving courses from Brightspace to Moodle: exporting Common Cartridge packages, which components survive and which, such as release conditions and calculated grades, must be rebuilt, archiving learner records from Data Hub, and SIS and SSO cutover.
Moving from Brightspace to Canvas LMS on your own servers: Common Cartridge exports into the Canvas course import tool, quizzes and question libraries that need checking, learner history kept outside the LMS, and LTI tools re-registered.
Cost of ownership by component, without vendor list prices since D2L publishes none: subscription and add-on modules against Moodle hosting, database and storage, migration, plugins, support and the administrators who run it.
What you can take out of Brightspace before a contract ends: course packages in Brightspace or Common Cartridge format, which leave out learner data, plus Data Hub CSV exports of user-level data sets for grades, enrollments and activity history.
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