Managed Moodle Hosting
We run the server so you can run the courses. Fully managed hosting for your Moodle learning platform — updates, tested backups, monitoring, and tuning, handled by senior engineers in Nashville. Free migration in, no contract.
- Security patches applied within 48 hours of release — not "next maintenance cycle."
- Nightly off-site backups we restore-test on staging every month.
- Month-to-month. Free export the day you decide to leave.
What you're actually buying
You run the courses. We run everything underneath them.
"Fully managed" usually means "we installed it once and there's a ticket queue." We mean five specific jobs, done on a schedule, by engineers you can name.
- ✓ Security updates inside the release window. Moodle publishes point releases on a set cadence and holds the security advisory details back for about a week afterward. That week is the patch window before exploit details go public. We apply security releases within 48 hours of publication — not "next maintenance cycle."
- ✓ Nightly off-site backups with tested restores. A database dump plus a moodledata sync to storage in a different region, every night. Once a month we restore your site to staging, log in, and confirm grade history is intact. A backup you've never restored is a rumor, not a backup.
- ✓ Monitoring that includes cron. Uptime checks are table stakes. The failure we see more often is Moodle's cron silently dying — the site loads fine while scheduled tasks, enrolment syncs, and automated course backups quietly stop. We alarm on both.
- ✓ Plugin vetting before every upgrade. Before a core upgrade we check each installed plugin's supported-versions declaration and whether its maintainer is still active on the tracker. Abandoned plugins are the number-one upgrade blocker we see in the wild.
- ✓ PHP and database tuning. max_input_vars raised to 5000 (Moodle refuses to upgrade without it), opcache sized properly, innodb_buffer_pool_size matched to your data, and mdl_logstore_standard_log archived before it hits twenty million rows and drags every report down with it.
Nobody's Moodle is "just slow" — something specific is wrong, and it's usually findable in an afternoon. (One favorite: 60-second page loads because PHP tried the database over IPv6 first and waited out the timeout.)
Plans
Three sizes. Same service in every one.
We don't feature-gate. The smallest plan gets the same patch windows, tested restores, and monitoring as the largest — the only variable is capacity.
Small
Up to 100 users
Right for a single training program, a small nonprofit, or a department that wants its pilot run properly.
Growing
Up to 250 users
The plan most MoodleCloud refugees land on — usually because they finally need plugins.
Established
Up to 500 users
Resources sized for concurrent quiz load — the thing that actually takes Moodle sites down.
Over 500 users? We spec dedicated resources and quote a flat monthly figure, usually within the week. Every plan includes free migration in from any Moodle host, month-to-month billing, and no setup fee.
The comparison nobody publishes
Sternfast vs. MoodleCloud vs. doing it yourself
| Option | Effort & engagement | User cap | Third-party plugins | Custom theme | Updates & backups | Commitment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sternfast Small | Light — monthly subscription | 100 | Yes — any plugin, vetted | Yes | We do both; restores tested monthly | Month-to-month |
| Sternfast Growing | Moderate — monthly subscription | 250 | Yes — any plugin, vetted | Yes | We do both; restores tested monthly | Month-to-month |
| Sternfast Established | Substantial — monthly subscription | 500 | Yes — any plugin, vetted | Yes | We do both; restores tested monthly | Month-to-month |
| MoodleCloud | Fixed annual tiers, billed yearly | 750 (hard cap) | No | Logo and colors only | Handled for you | Annual |
| Self-hosted | Server is cheap; staff time is the real cost | Whatever you build | Yes | Yes | You do — or, more often, nobody does | — |
Two honest notes. If you have 40 users, no plugins, and no grade history at stake, MoodleCloud's entry tier is the right answer — we'll say so on the call. And self-hosting looks cheap until you count staff time: the server is inexpensive, the patching, backup checks, and annual upgrade project are not.
Moving in
Free migration in — the real kind, with verification
Moving to us from MoodleCloud, a reseller, or a cPanel box costs nothing, and it isn't a "we'll copy some files" migration. It's the same process as our paid LMS migrations: full database and moodledata transfer, row-count verification on the tables that matter — including mdl_grade_grades_history, the one careless migrations silently drop — and a parallel test site you sign off on before DNS moves. Coming from Blackboard, Canvas, or Brightspace is a proper migration project, quoted per project after a free scoping call, and hosting picks up afterward.
Why "no contract" isn't a gimmick
Lock-in subsidizes bad service. A host holding a three-year agreement gets paid whether or not last night's backup ran. We'd rather have to re-earn your subscription every month, because that arrangement is what keeps the backups running.
And if you do leave: complete export — database dump, moodledata directory, config.php — within two business days, free. Your data was never a hostage.
Honest advice
When you should not buy managed hosting
Two cases where we'll talk you out of it — before you spend a dollar.
Your site is tiny and static
Five self-paced courses, no quizzes, no grades anyone will ever audit — you don't need us. MoodleCloud's entry plan, or a cheap shared host you patch yourself, will do. Patching one small Moodle is an afternoon-a-month job: take a backup, run php admin/cli/upgrade.php, click through the site. If that sentence doesn't scare you, do it yourself and keep the money.
You have a real IT team
If your organization already patches Linux boxes on a schedule and monitors services, hosting Moodle won't challenge them. What in-house teams usually lack is Moodle-layer depth — upgrade planning, plugin triage, grade-history quirks. That's a Care Plan, a straightforward monthly subscription on your own infrastructure, not hosting.
Check your version first: Moodle 4.1 and 4.4 hit security end-of-life on December 8, 2025 and have been unpatched since. We put hosted clients on 4.5 LTS (patched through October 2027) by default. Check yours in ten seconds: Site administration → Notifications.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask us
Can I install third-party plugins and a custom theme?
Yes — any plugin from the Moodle plugins directory, or custom code you own. Before every core upgrade we check each plugin's supported-versions declaration and maintainer activity so an upgrade never strands you. This is the single most common reason people leave MoodleCloud, which doesn't permit third-party plugins at all. If you need something built, our development team does custom themes and plugins, quoted per project after a free scoping call.
Where is my data hosted, and does this work for a school under FERPA?
US data centers only. We handle student records FERPA-aware by default — access controls, minors' privacy handling, and a data processing agreement template your counsel can start from. Details on our compliance page.
Which Moodle version will I run?
Moodle 4.5 LTS by default — security-supported through October 2027. If you arrive on 4.1 or 4.4, both security end-of-life since December 8, 2025, we fold the upgrade into onboarding. Moves to the next LTS are staged on a test copy you approve before anything touches production.
What does "no contract" actually mean when I want to leave?
Month-to-month billing; cancel whenever. Within two business days we hand you a complete export — database dump, moodledata directory, and config.php — at no charge. Restore that on any host and you have your exact site back.
What happens above 500 users?
We spec dedicated resources and quote a flat monthly figure, usually inside a week. The real architecture question isn't total users, it's concurrency — 300 students starting the same quiz at 9:00 a.m. is much harder than 2,000 browsing casually — so we size against your actual usage pattern, not a headcount.
My SCORM courses load but don't record completions. Will new hosting fix that?
Almost never. Tracking failures usually live inside the package — a manifest reporting cmi.core.lesson_status incorrectly, or suspend-data overflows — and they show up in the mdl_scorm_scoes_track table no matter whose server you're on. You can check the package yourself first with our free SCORM package checker — it flags the common faults in your browser, nothing uploaded. If it needs fixing, that's a repair job, not a hosting change: a fixed, flat per-package fee, quoted up front and verified in SCORM Cloud. See SCORM tracking repair.
Start here
Get a free Moodle health check
Tell us where your site runs now. An engineer replies within one business day with what we'd tune and what it costs — no slide deck, no surprise audit invoice.
- An engineer replies within one business day.
- The health check is the scoping call — 20 minutes, no charge.
- US data centers, FERPA-aware by default.
- What we look at: version and end-of-life status, backup and cron reality check.