Assembly Line

Adapt authoring vs Lrsql

Adapt authoring and Lrsql are both course authoring software. Adapt authoring is open source under GPL-3.0, with 562 GitHub stars. Lrsql is open source under Apache-2.0, with 144 GitHub stars.

Which to pick

Pick Adapt authoring when
Your training team builds SCORM courses and wants a free alternative to Articulate Rise.
Pick Lrsql when
You need a lightweight, maintained LRS you can self-host.

Side by side

What it does

A server-based authoring tool for building responsive eLearning courses with the Adapt framework and exporting them as SCORM packages.

A conformant xAPI learning record store backed by SQLite or PostgreSQL.

Watch out

Still pre-1.0 after many years, and it needs Node.js and MongoDB to run.

Pre-1.0 and a small company's project; written in Clojure.

Ready for

Usable (both)

Runs as

Self-hosted server (both)

Built with

JavaScript, Node.js and MongoDB

Clojure, PostgreSQL and SQLite

Source code

Open source, GPL-3.0 (strong copyleft)

Open source, Apache-2.0 (permissive)

What the license allows

Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.

You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.

How widely known

562 GitHub stars

144 GitHub stars

How established

Established: started 13 years ago, latest release v0.11.5.

Established: started 5 years ago, latest release v0.9.11.

Other comparisons

More e-learning authoring tools and SCORM runtimes

Every course authoring product and project, ranked

Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from each project's README and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.