Quire
Quire and Canvas
Canvas is a widely used learning management system for schools, universities and businesses, sold by Instructure as a cloud service and also published as open-source code.
Last checked 1 October 2026. Quire is pre-release.
Who should pick which
Pick Canvas if
- You want a mature platform with a very large installed base and a large partner and integration ecosystem.
- You need LTI Advantage certified by 1EdTech. Instructure holds that certification; Quire has not yet been certified.
- You want a vendor-run, cloud-first service with a large company behind it and an AI agent that works inside Canvas.
- You want to read and run open-source LMS code under the AGPLv3 licence.
Pick Quire if
- You run many organizations, each with its own domain, branding, sign-in and email sender, and want the database to enforce the boundary between them.
- You want plan prices set by organization size and published in a plain table, rather than a quote.
- You want a tamper-evident, hash-chained audit log and an MCP server in the same product as the REST API and webhooks.
- You want to choose between our hosted cloud and running the same product yourself with one Docker Compose file.
Side by side
| Capability | Canvas | Quire |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple organizations | Canvas uses a tree of accounts and sub-accounts under a root account. The API can list and move sub-accounts.Source: Canvas LMS REST API: Accounts | Each organization is a tenant with its own domain, branding, sign-in, email sender and plan. PostgreSQL row-level security enforces the boundary. Some module stores rely on row-level security alone, and a wider audit of them is not finished. |
| Hosting and self-hosting | Instructure sells a hosted cloud service. The Canvas code is public under the AGPLv3 licence. The README points to canvaslms.com for subscriptions, support and hosting. Instructure's Docker self-hosting repository was archived on 2 June 2026 and was marked alpha, not for production.Source: instructure/canvas-lms on GitHub | The same closed-source product runs in our cloud or on your own servers. One Docker Compose file starts the stack. Quire is pre-release and the install guide has not been proven by outside operators. |
| Pricing model | Instructure announced Canvas Core, Plus and Next tiers in 2026. The announcement publishes no prices, so we treat pricing as quote-based.Source: Instructure press release: Canvas tiers | Flat plans by organization size, listed on our pricing page. Self-hosted licences are annual. Video and AI use are metered add-ons. Prices may change before release. |
| API and webhooks | A documented REST API with OAuth2 and JSON, request throttling, and an OpenAPI 3.0 spec that you generate from the source. Live Events send data to an AWS SQS queue or an HTTPS webhook in Canvas or IMS Caliper format.Source: Canvas LMS developer documentation | REST API with an OpenAPI 3.1 description, cursor pagination and idempotency keys. Outbound webhooks follow Standard Webhooks. Not every resource has write routes yet. |
| Standards | Canvas supports LTI 1.3 and is certified for LTI Advantage (Deep Linking, Names and Role Provisioning, Assignment and Grade Services). It imports Common Cartridge and QTI packages and has a Moodle importer.Source: Canvas receives LTI Advantage certification | LTI 1.3 Advantage as platform and tool, SCORM, xAPI, cmi5, OneRoster and a QTI 2.1 and 3.0 subset. The ADL SCORM suite passes in our tests. LTI Advantage certification and third-party QTI conformance testing are still open. Common Cartridge course import is not built yet. |
| AI features | IgniteAI covers rubric creation, discussion insights, translation and grading help. IgniteAI Agent can carry out multi-step Canvas tasks and is part of the Canvas Next tier. Instructure says customer data is not used to train external models and that institutions switch AI on at institution, department or course level.Source: Instructure press release: IgniteAI Agent | Built-in AI that each organization configures with its own provider and monthly budget. Prompts and actions are audited and content is not used for training. We have not yet tested live provider accounts. |
| Audit log | Canvas has query APIs for grade change, course change and authentication logs. The documentation says authentication logs are stored for one year. The pages we read do not mention tamper-evidence.Source: Canvas LMS REST API: Grade Change Log | Audit entries are hash-chained with signed checkpoints and a verification tool, and can stream to a SIEM. Testing with a production signing key is still an external check. |
| Security incident in 2026 | Instructure reported unauthorized access to Canvas on 29 April and 7 May 2026, both through a Free-for-Teacher account. It says the data involved was usernames, email addresses, course names, enrollment information and messages, and that course content, submissions and credentials were not compromised. It says it reached an agreement with the attacker, was told the data was destroyed, closed Free-for-Teacher and added endpoint monitoring. Its page does not say how many institutions were affected. Its update of 29 September 2026 says the forensic review is complete.Source: Instructure: Security Incident Update and FAQs | Quire is pre-release and has no production history, so there is no record to compare. What is built and tested: row-level security that separates each organization's data in the database, and a hash-chained audit log with a verification tool. Some module stores rely on row-level security alone, and a wider audit of them is not finished. |
Last checked 1 October 2026. Each claim about Canvas links to the page it came from.
Moving from Canvas
In Canvas, export the course from Settings as a Common Cartridge file (.imscc), then import that file into Quire. Quire reads Common Cartridge 1.0 to 1.3 and shows what will map before anything is written. Web links, files, discussion topics, assignments and LTI links map; QTI 1.2 question sets come across; items Quire cannot map are reported, not silently dropped. Grades, enrollments and user activity do not travel in a cartridge, so load people from a OneRoster or IMS Enterprise file. Try a few courses first, because conformance against real third-party exports is still being tested.
Join the waitlist
Quire is pre-release. Early supporters get 50% off the first 12 months of any hosted plan.