Here are five things the data taught us.
1. The numbers look smaller. The data is better.
The 2026 dataset identifies 1,537 active Open edX® sites, down from 2,250 in 2025. Before you read that as decline, consider this: the vast majority of that reduction has nothing to do with organizations leaving the platform.
Better filtering, stricter exclusion rules, tenant consolidation, and the removal of test environments account for most of the change. When you separate methodology cleanup from real adoption shifts, the ecosystem looks remarkably close to flat year over year.
The dataset shrank. The signal got cleaner. Those are very different things, and the full report breaks down exactly where the numbers went and why.
2. Open edX® is not just a higher education platform
Higher Education is still the largest segment. But Corporate, Government, Online Academy, and Non-profit organizations together represent the majority of the active footprint.
Some of the most active and fastest-growing deployments in the 2026 dataset are government-backed national initiatives — platforms serving hundreds of thousands of learners across entire countries. The report includes specific examples that will likely surprise you.
If you still think of Open edX® primarily as a university tool, the data says otherwise.
3. The center of gravity is shifting geographically
Western Europe and North America lead in site count, but the most dynamic growth stories in the 2026 report are happening elsewhere. MENA, East Asia, and parts of Africa are home to some of the largest and fastest-growing deployments in the entire dataset.
The language distribution data reinforces this — Arabic, Spanish, French, and Portuguese-language deployments are a significant and growing share of the ecosystem.
Where Open edX® is growing fastest might not be where you’d expect. The regional breakdown in the full report is worth a close read.
4. A small number of deployments generate most of the activity
The Open edX® ecosystem follows a familiar pattern: a relatively small group of highly active, well-resourced platforms accounts for a disproportionate share of total course volume, learner activity, and ecosystem growth.
The gap between the most active sites and the average site is larger than most people realize. The report quantifies this concentration — and what it means for how we should be measuring ecosystem health going forward.
5. The platform is technically healthy, and the ecosystem is converging on a new standard
Release migration data from 2026 tells a clear story about where the community is heading. One release in particular has emerged as the dominant upgrade target for major deployments, and the movement toward it is accelerating.
Combined with a record-breaking course volume year in 2025 and an excellent open source health score, the technical picture of Open edX® heading into 2026 is one of momentum, not stagnation.
The details — including which release is winning, and which sectors are driving the course volume surge — are in the report.
What the data is telling us
The Open edX® ecosystem is consolidating, not collapsing. Growth is concentrating in strategic, high-investment initiatives. And the platform is increasingly powering national-scale education infrastructure in ways the community doesn’t always talk about enough.
The full 2026 Global Footprint Report has the data, the regional breakdowns, the notable exits, the surprising additions, and the analysis behind all five of these findings.
Takeaways presented by Jorge Londoño at the Open edX® 2026 Conference in Salt Lake City. Report prepared by Juan Camilo Montoya, Open edX® Core Contributor, as a contribution to AXIM Collaborative and the Open edX® initiative.
