Moodle 5.3 LTS: what's new, requirements and how to upgrade

Moodle 5.3 is the latest Moodle release and the new long-term support (LTS) version, with a release date of 5 October 2026. It adds learning outcomes tools, per-marker feedback in assignments, a quiz due date, an opt-in dark mode, an Anthropic Claude AI provider and new API tokens. It gets bug fixes until 4 October 2027 and security fixes until 1 October 2029.

For most organisations the support dates matter more than the feature list. Moodle 4.5, the previous LTS, stops receiving security fixes on 4 October 2027, so every site on 4.5 has about a year to move, and 5.3 is the version to move to. You can upgrade directly from Moodle 4.5 or later, and the server needs PHP 8.3 or 8.4 and a current database.

This guide is for Moodle administrators, IT leads and training managers who have to decide when to upgrade and what to test first. Versions, dates and setting names were checked against Moodle's release notes and MoodleDocs on 4 October 2026.

Moodle 5.3 at a glance

Moodle ships a major release every April and October and a minor release every two months. A standard release gets about 12 months of bug fixes and 18 months of security fixes, while an LTS release gets security fixes for three years. That is why an LTS version is the sensible target for any site that upgrades once a year or less. The dates above come from Moodle's releases page and the Moodle 5.3 release notes.

What's new in Moodle 5.3 for teachers and learners

Moodle sums up this release as helping educators design learning with intent. These are the changes course teams will notice first, taken from the Moodle 5.3 new features page:

• Learning outcomes. Each course gets a Learning outcomes page that lists every outcome enabled for the course and the activities linked to it. Outcomes no longer need a scale, so you can describe a skill without grading it. An administrator turns the feature on under Site administration > Advanced features.
• Multiple markers in assignments. Each marker can leave their own feedback alongside the overall feedback, and students see both. Optional markers can be added for submissions that need a second opinion, which suits moderation and sample marking.
• Quiz due date. A quiz can now have a due date as well as open and close dates. Students can still attempt it after the due date, and the attempt is marked overdue until the quiz closes.
• Quiz reports and Safe Exam Browser. The Grades and Responses reports gain user search, group and name filters. Safe Exam Browser settings can allow up to three displays and screen access, for example for a proctoring tool.
• Question bank. Export a selection of questions as one Moodle XML file, delete a category together with its questions (questions used in a quiz are protected) and work from a bulk actions bar.
• Linear navigation. Previous and Next buttons appear at the bottom of activity and resource pages. They are on by default in the Custom sections and Weekly sections course formats.
• Editor and reports. TinyMCE gains accordion sections and more list styles, and the Course completion report can be downloaded with your filters applied as CSV, Excel or PDF.

Interface changes: dark mode, a visual refresh and the end of Classic

Dark mode arrives in the Boost theme. Moodle describes it as the most-voted request from its community, and in this release it is opt-in and experimental. An administrator enables it under Site administration > Appearance > Themes > Boost > Experimental settings. Users can then switch between Light, Dark and System from the navigation bar.

The interface also gets updated typography, a centre-aligned page layout and a clearer hierarchy on the course page, with a Collapse all control for long courses. Global search now matches the start of words, and its field stays visible in the top navigation bar. Boost itself moves to Bootstrap 5.3.8.

The bigger change is a removal. The Classic theme is no longer part of core, so Boost is the only theme that ships with Moodle. Sites that use Classic are switched to Boost during the upgrade. If you want to keep it, MoodleDocs says to install Classic as an additional theme before you upgrade. Pages that used to sit in Classic's Navigation block, such as Site participants and Site badges, are now reached from Site administration and the user profile.

Treat dark mode as a test item, not a switch. Custom themes, logos with transparent backgrounds and course content with hard-coded text colours are the usual places where a dark background exposes unreadable text.

What's new for Moodle administrators

• Background course deletion. Turn on "Delete courses asynchronously" under Site administration > Courses > Delete course and large courses are deleted by a background task without timeouts. Waiting courses show a "Queued for deletion" badge.
• Run ASAP for scheduled tasks. A task can be queued to run on the next cron run, with no risk of a browser timeout.
• Role risk visibility. The role list shows colour-coded risk icons and how many users hold each role, and you can filter a role's capabilities by risk.
• New login notifications. They are on by default for new installs. On upgraded sites you turn them on under Site administration > General > Messaging > Notification settings, and a security check warns you if they are off.
• Moodle app deep links. Automatic login from app deep links must now be enabled explicitly, under Site administration > Mobile app > Mobile authentication.
• Reports. The System status, Performance overview and Security checks reports show each result as soon as its check finishes, and Report builder can aggregate timestamps by week, month or year.
• Quiz statistics. A new delay setting controls how long Moodle waits before recalculating quiz statistics, which helps on busy sites.

The full list is on the New for administrators page in MoodleDocs.

AI and integrations: Claude, an AI usage report and new API tokens

Moodle 5.3 adds Anthropic's Claude as an AI provider in core. It powers the text actions (generate, summarise and explain), does not generate images and needs a paid API key from Anthropic. A new course-level AI usage report, under More > Reports > AI usage, shows teachers how students in a course use AI. Students can see their own usage from their profile.

For integrators, the main news is authentication for Moodle's new REST API:

• OAuth 2 clients. An administrator registers an external app, such as a mobile app or another system, under Site administration > Server > OAuth 2 clients. Authorization code and client credentials flows are supported, and the site's Composer dependencies must be installed.
• Personal access tokens. Users create personal access tokens from their preferences, each with scopes and an expiry between 7 days and 1 year. Every authenticated user can create one by default; remove the moodle/api:createtoken capability to restrict that.

These tokens belong to the new REST API and are separate from the security keys used by the existing web services. Decide who may create personal access tokens before go-live, because a token can do anything its owner can do within its scopes.

For developers, every new API route must declare the scopes it needs, third-party course formats have to opt in to linear navigation, and the Timeline block is the first component moved to React. If you maintain custom plugins, plan time for plugin updates and testing.

Moodle 5.3 requirements and upgrade path

The server requirements match Moodle 5.2, so sites already on 5.2 have no stack changes to make:

• PHP: 8.3.0 minimum (raised in Moodle 5.2), 8.4 supported, 64-bit builds only.
• PHP settings: the sodium extension is required and max_input_vars must be 5000 or more.
• Databases: PostgreSQL 16, MySQL 8.4, MariaDB 10.11, Microsoft SQL Server 2019 or Aurora MySQL 8.0. Oracle has not been supported since Moodle 5.0.
• Browsers: any standards-compliant browser. Moodle tests with current Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge.

The release notes set the minimum version you can upgrade from at Moodle 4.5. When we checked on 4 October 2026 we found the Upgrading page in MoodleDocs still said 4.4, so plan on 4.5 as the floor and let the Environment check on your own site confirm it.

For comparison, the minimums for Moodle 4.5 are PHP 8.1, PostgreSQL 13, MySQL 8.0 and MariaDB 10.6.7, so a 4.5 site often needs server work before the Moodle upgrade itself.

What can break when you upgrade

In our experience, upgrade problems come less from Moodle core than from what surrounds it: the web server, the theme and third-party plugins. These are the items to check, most disruptive first.

The web root moves to /public

From Moodle 5.1 the /public folder is meant to be the only directory the web server exposes, so the document root has to point at it. Sites coming from 4.5 or 5.0 that skip this step show directory listings or errors after the upgrade. Additional plugins have to be moved into the new structure, and Moodle strongly recommends configuring its router (for example with FallbackResource on Apache). The Moodle 5.1 release notes explain the change.

Themes

Sites on Classic switch to Boost, which changes navigation for every user. Custom themes built on Classic need a decision: install Classic as an additional theme, or rebuild on Boost. Boost has used Bootstrap 5 since Moodle 5.0, so themes and plugins written for Bootstrap 4 markup need updating too.

Removed plugins and features

• Removed from core in Moodle 5.0: the Atto editor, the Chat and Survey activities, CAS authentication and the MNet plugins.
• The Activities block has been removed. Any course or dashboard page that uses it loses the block after the upgrade.
• The description field on subsections has been removed, and existing subsection descriptions are not migrated automatically.
• The MimeTeX library has been removed. Sites that use the TeX filter with MimeTeX should switch to MathJax.
• MoodleNet integration has been deprecated since 5.2 and will be removed in a future release.

Third-party plugins and behaviour changes

Every additional plugin needs a version that supports Moodle 5.3, and custom plugins need testing on PHP 8.3 or 8.4. Brief your teachers as well: Previous and Next buttons appear in two course formats, the course page looks different, and app deep-link login stays off until you enable it.

Should you upgrade now or wait for Moodle 5.3.1?

• On Moodle 5.0: security fixes end on 5 October 2026, so plan the move to 5.3 now.
• On 5.1 or 5.2: you have time. Upgrade in a quiet period before April 2027 (5.1) or October 2027 (5.2).
• On 4.5 LTS: the deadline is 4 October 2027, but the jump is the largest. Start testing on staging now and book production for a term break or a low-training month.
• Many plugins or a custom theme: waiting for the first minor release is reasonable. Moodle's two-monthly schedule puts 5.3.1 in the December 2026 window. Use the time to rehearse on a staging copy.

A safe upgrade sequence

1. Take an inventory. Record the Moodle version, PHP, database, theme and every additional plugin, with its Moodle 5.3 status.
2. Fix the server first. Run the Environment check (Site administration > Server > Environment) against 5.3, then upgrade PHP and the database.
3. Clone production to staging with real data, files and integrations pointed at test endpoints.
4. Change the web root to /public and set up routing on staging if you are coming from 4.5 or 5.0.
5. Upgrade staging, update plugins and settle the theme question.
6. Test what your learners rely on: login and SSO, enrolment, a quiz attempt, assignment submission and marking, the gradebook, completion and certificates, reports, web services, the mobile app and cron.
7. Compare performance before and after, using the baseline method in our Moodle performance tuning checklist.
8. Upgrade production in maintenance mode with a full backup of the database, moodledata and code, plus a rollback plan you have rehearsed.
9. After go-live, turn on new login notifications, decide on dark mode and token permissions, and tell teachers what changed.

How we can help

If you would like help planning or running the move to Moodle 5.3, our Moodle development team can audit your plugins and theme, rehearse the upgrade on staging and carry out the production cut-over. Version jumps from older releases are covered by our LMS migration and upgrade service, and ongoing updates by LMS maintenance and support. Tell us your current version and plugin list and we will reply with a practical plan.