Moodle 5.0: Key Features, Technical Updates & LMS Impact [2025 Guide]

By becoming an official Moodle partner, Pimenko strengthens its expertise on this leading global open-source learning platform. With the upcoming release of Moodle 5.0, scheduled for April 14, 2025, we invite you to discover the developments that will impact the user experience and offer new perspectives to developers. This major update of the LMS (Learning Management System) platform brings practical innovations that deserve your attention, for both system administrators and teachers and learners.

Moodle development follows a well-established rhythm, alternating between two complementary types of major updates that serve different objectives.

The developments are documented as tickets in the official Moodle tracker (https://tracker.moodle.org/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=10011&version=19064) where you can consult the changes for each version.

LTS (Long Term Support) versions, such as Moodle 4.1 and 4.5, are designed for long-term stability. With extended support of 36 months for security patches, they are the ideal choice for production deployments. These versions emphasize visible features that are directly usable by end users.

Intermediate versions, including Moodle 5.0, focus on technical foundations with 18-month support. They prepare the ground for future innovations by modernizing the underlying architecture. While Moodle 5.0 is primarily a technical version, it nevertheless brings several concrete improvements that will positively impact the daily user experience.

These intermediate updates often bring improvements or new features sought by administrators and teaching teams. Depending on your needs, your strategy for Moodle updates can therefore integrate both LTS major updates and intermediate updates.

One of the most visible improvements in Moodle 5.0 is the complete redesign of the activities overview page. This evolution responds to a need expressed by users: to have a clear and organized overview of course activities.

The new interface brings together all course activities in a unified dashboard – assignments, forums, quizzes, BigBlueButton sessions, databases, etc. Smart filters and sorting by due dates allow learners and teachers to better manage their time, and teachers to more effectively track course progression.

This centralized page also integrates contextual action menus and modernized interface components such as badges and collapsible sections, making navigation more intuitive. These actions differ according to user roles in the course (teacher/student).

The question bank benefits from substantial improvements that will greatly facilitate teachers’ work. New filters now allow searching by question type, name, identification number, modification date, owner, or even within the content of questions and feedback.

These features represent considerable time savings for teaching teams managing large collections of questions.

Artificial intelligence continues its integration into Moodle with the continuation of new providers. Ollama should be officially integrated, allowing the use of self-hosted Large Language Models (LLM).

As a reminder, Moodle’s AI system, introduced in version 4.5, is based on a three-component architecture:

• Placements: user interfaces for interacting with AI
• Actions: functionalities that AI can perform (text generation, images, summaries…)
• Providers: connectors to different AI services

Ollama offers an open-source solution allowing AI models to be run locally, without sending data to external services. This diversification addresses a crucial issue: offering institutions the choice of their AI solution according to their needs for confidentiality, performance, and budget.

For users, these developments could translate into more powerful AI assistants, capable of helping with content creation, analyzing student work, or generating questions for quizzes, all in an environment that respects data sovereignty.

Gone are the standard date formats that are sometimes difficult to quickly interpret! Moodle 5.0 introduces a new, more natural date display system. Instead of displaying “15/03/2025,” the system will use relative terms like “Today,” “Yesterday,” or “Tomorrow” for nearby dates.

This change, which may seem minor, significantly improves the readability of dates throughout the interface, particularly for assignment deadlines, calendar events, and activity opening/closing dates. The system automatically adapts to the 12h/24h format according to user preferences and applies alert styles for dates close to deadlines, making information more immediate and relevant.

The “Course Overview” block is enriched with a new sorting option that allows users to organize their courses by start date, in addition to existing options (by name or last access).

This feature facilitates planning for students by highlighting courses that are starting soon. Teachers and learners can better organize their dashboard according to the academic calendar, with better visibility on upcoming courses.

Moodle 5.0 introduces an SMS gateway (Modica) as a new SMS notification method, expanding the available communication channels. This feature could, in future versions, allow users to receive important alerts directly on their phone, even without an internet connection, thus increasing the chances that critical information will be seen in time.

Administrators will now be able to define default name templates for backup files, making the organization and identification of backups more intuitive. A simple but effective improvement for the daily management of Moodle platforms.

Several visual improvements reinforce the coherence and modernity of the Moodle 5.0 interface. The BigBlueButton bitmap icon has been replaced by a vector version, offering better adaptation to different screen sizes and increased compatibility with custom themes.

The harmonization of action menu button styles across the interface also ensures a more fluid and coherent user experience.

Moodle 5.0 introduces several improvements in terms of security and performance. At the same time, the update of PHPUnit to version 11.4 and the refresh of third-party libraries strengthen the overall robustness of the system, ensuring a more stable platform that is better protected against potential vulnerabilities.

The migration to Bootstrap 5 represents one of the most significant changes for developers. This evolution brings a more responsive and accessible interface, in compliance with modern web standards. For users, this will translate into smoother navigation, better adaptation to different devices, and enhanced accessibility for people with disabilities.

Beyond the flagship features already mentioned, Moodle 5.0 brings several significant developments that deserve your attention.

• The Chat and Survey modules are leaving the Moodle core to become external plugins, thus simplifying the central code while allowing institutions that use them to continue installing them separately.
• Digital accessibility has new possibilities with the integration of the premium accessibility plugin for TinyMCE, reinforcing Moodle’s commitment to inclusive education.
• The custom reporting system is also enriched with new options, offering administrators and teachers a more precise view of activities and learner progression.
• For theme developers, the coloring of activity icons has been redesigned with the introduction of simple CSS variables, facilitating visual customization.

Finally, numerous third-party libraries (MathJax, PHPMailer, jQuery UI, etc.) have been updated to their most recent versions, ensuring a platform that is always secure and performant.

These improvements, although less visible to the end user, contribute to building a more robust, more accessible LMS that is better prepared for future innovations.

The migration to Moodle 5.0 requires appropriate preparation according to your profile:

For Administrators

• Evaluate the compatibility of existing plugins
• Plan the migration of themes to Bootstrap 5
• Familiarize yourself with the new security options
• Prepare teams for new features such as SMS notifications and configurable file names

For Teachers

• Explore the new possibilities offered by the centralized activities overview page
  

While Moodle 5.0 is primarily a technical version that prepares for the future, it nevertheless brings concrete improvements that will simplify users’ daily lives. From more intuitive dates to keyboard shortcuts, course sorting by date, and SMS notifications, the new features are designed to respond to real needs expressed by the community.

These developments, combined with the underlying technical modernizations, continue the construction of a more robust, more performant platform that is better prepared to meet tomorrow’s pedagogical challenges. The balance between immediate improvements and long-term technical investments makes Moodle 5.0 a more strategic update than it appears.

As a Moodle partner, Pimenko is committed to supporting its clients in this important transition. Our expertise allows us to guide you in fully exploiting these new possibilities while ensuring a smooth migration to Moodle 5.0.

Do you want to prepare your migration to Moodle 5.0 or explore how these new features can benefit your organization? Contact our certified Moodle experts now for personalized support or discover our optimized Moodle hosting solutions.