Moodle 4.5 to 5.3: what changed and what your server needs

Moodle 5.3 came out on 5 October 2026. It is a long term support release, with security fixes until 1 October 2029. If your organisation runs Moodle 4.5 LTS, this is the release you will most likely move to, and there are four releases’ worth of changes between the two.

Short version for the IT lead: Moodle 5.3 needs PHP 8.3 or 8.4, PostgreSQL 17, MySQL 8.4 or MariaDB 11.4, and you must be on Moodle 4.4 or later before you upgrade. Oracle is not supported at all.

Pick your versions and see what you need

A few things in that table catch people out:

• The PHP floor moves faster than you think. Moodle 4.5 accepts PHP 8.1. Moodle 5.0 needs 8.2. Moodle 5.2 and 5.3 need 8.3. So a 4.5 site on PHP 8.1 has two upgrades to do, not one.
• The database floor moves every release now. PostgreSQL went from 13 in 4.5 to 17 in 5.3. MySQL jumped from 8.0 to 8.4 in Moodle 5.0. Database upgrades need their own maintenance window and their own backup.
• Oracle is gone. Moodle 5.0 removed Oracle support. If you run Moodle on Oracle, your upgrade includes a database migration.
• The upgrade path has a gate. Moodle 5.2 and 5.3 install over 4.4 or later. Moodle 5.0 needs 4.2.3 or later. A 4.1 site can’t jump to 5.3 in one go.

Release dates and support windows

Source: moodledev.io/general/releases.

Moodle now ships a release every April and October. Non-LTS releases get one year of bug fixes and about eighteen months of security fixes. LTS releases get three years of security fixes. 5.0 already lost security support this month, on 5 October 2026. If you upgraded to 5.0 and stopped there, you are already behind.

Our usual advice: organisations that upgrade once every few years should go LTS to LTS, 4.5 to 5.3. Organisations with a staging site and someone who owns upgrades can follow every release and get features a year earlier.

What changed in Moodle 5.0

Moodle 5.0 (April 2025) was mostly a cleanup release. The release notes list a long set of removals:

• Atto editor removed. TinyMCE is the only editor in core. Custom Atto buttons stop working.
• Chat and Survey removed from core, along with CAS authentication, MNet and the PHP machine learning backend.
• Oracle support removed.
• Boost moved to Bootstrap 5, with a compatibility layer for Bootstrap 4 classes and data attributes. Custom themes and plugin templates written for Bootstrap 4 mostly keep working through that layer, but it is a layer, not a promise.

On the feature side, 5.0 added a course overview page, an Ollama AI provider, more AI controls for admins, Open Badges 3.0 and SMS notifications.

What changed in Moodle 5.1

Moodle 5.1 (October 2025) changed where the files live. According to the 5.1 release notes and the upgrade guide, web-accessible files moved into a new public folder, and configuration and other sensitive files sit outside it. Your web server’s document root must point at public.

This is good for security. It also means anyone who upgrades through git has to move every additional plugin into the matching place under public/. The upgrade guide says plainly that existing plugins stay where they were and must be moved by hand. Hosting scripts and backup scripts that assume the old layout need checking too.

5.1 also added a routing engine for cleaner URLs (optional, with a compatibility layer), a reworked activity chooser, a DeepSeek AI provider and access controls for AI at course and activity level.

What changed in Moodle 5.2

Moodle 5.2 (April 2026) raised the PHP minimum to 8.3 and PostgreSQL to 16. The headline features in its release notes:

• Dashboard rework. New installs get the course overview on the Dashboard, and new login and MFA page designs.
• Multiple markers for assignments, with grade calculation between markers.
• AWS Bedrock and Gemini AI providers.
• Moodle Design System, phase 1: design tokens and an npm package in core.
• React support in core. We wrote a separate post about what that means for custom plugins.
• Third-party libraries through Composer.

5.2 also removed the activities block and subsection pages, and dropped code that was deprecated in 4.4 and earlier. That last item is where old plugins break.

What changed in Moodle 5.3 LTS

Moodle 5.3 (October 2026) raised the database minimums again (PostgreSQL 17, MariaDB 11.4) and removed the Classic theme from core. If your custom theme extends Classic, it needs to move to Boost before you upgrade.

For teachers and students, the 5.3 release notes list:

• A visual refresh with new icons, inline global search and names beside avatars.
• Previous and Next buttons through course content, which can be turned on site-wide.
• Due dates on quizzes.
• A learning outcomes page, and scales are now optional.
• Separate feedback from multiple markers in assignments.
• Dark mode in Boost, as an experimental feature.
• An Anthropic Claude AI provider and AI usage reporting.
• Login notifications on by default, and asynchronous course deletion.

How to plan the move from 4.5

1. Inventory first. List every plugin that did not ship with Moodle, with its version and who maintains it. Check each one in Moodle Marketplace, which replaced the Moodle plugins directory in 2026, for a 5.3 release.
2. Fix the platform. Get PHP to 8.3 or 8.4 and the database to the 5.3 minimum while still on 4.5. Moodle 4.5 lists PHP 8.3, so you can do that step on its own.
3. Build a staging copy with a recent database dump and run the upgrade there first.
4. Deal with custom code. Plugins with no 5.3 release need fixing or replacing. Core edits need moving into plugins.
5. Test with real people. One teacher and one student clicking through a real course find more than any checklist.

Step 4 is usually the slow one. We cover it in detail in what breaks when you upgrade Moodle.

Sources

1. Moodle HQ, Releases and support dates.
2. Moodle HQ, release notes for 4.1, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3.
3. MoodleDocs, Upgrading (5.3).
4. MoodleDocs, Plugins FAQ on Moodle Marketplace.
5. PHP Group, Supported versions.