{"slug": "canvas-lms", "name": "Canvas LMS", "category": "browsers", "category_name": "Browsers and extensions", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 32, "warners": 16, "score": -8.105, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-07", "latest": "2026-09-14", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 12, "compare": 2, "warn": 15}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/instructure/canvas-lms", "official_url": "https://www.instructure.com/canvas", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Canvas LMS", "Canvas"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 768966432, "item_id": 48060402, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060402", "by": "jcgl", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can self-host Canvas", "excerpt": "You don\u2019t need to roll your own LMS\u2014you can self-host Canvas: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/Production-Start", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768962224, "item_id": 48060139, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060139", "by": "flexagoon", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Canvas is mostly FOSS", "excerpt": "> day where you can deploy your own software you can control and modify as you need. Canvas is mostly FOSS https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768946352, "item_id": 48059147, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059147", "by": "russfink", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it was hands down superior", "excerpt": "It depends on what vintage of Blackboard your IT team has installed. We moved from a circa 2011 BB instance to Canvas in 2022, and it was hands down superior. A different university is running the most recent BB and it\u2019s similar to Canvas.", "context": "", "use_case": "University course management", "switched_from": "Blackboard", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 769810416, "item_id": 48113151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113151", "by": "sheept", "date": "2026-05-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the hackers may have extracted session tokens using XSS in a support ticket", "excerpt": "This blog post[0] suggests that, based on their changelog after the incident, the hackers may have extracted session tokens using XSS in a support ticket. Then the ransom note was displayed using a custom theme. [0]: https://cyber.acmucsd.com/canvas (disclosure: I was involved with this org when I was a student)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Instructure Pays Ransom to Canvas Hackers"}, {"id": 769717296, "item_id": 48107331, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48107331", "by": "hgsgm", "date": "2026-05-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Canvas is effectively an monopoly", "excerpt": "Yet again, our government ignores the national security threat from foreign terrorists. The State serves only itself. \"Company pays\" means \"customers (taxpayers) pay\", since Canvas is effectively an monopoly Paying terrorists must be made illegal. Senior Managers must be held liable for damages to customers. 18 lawsuits filed already: https://www.pcmag.com/news/canvas-developer-apologizes-for-breach-as-class-action-l", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas hack: company pays criminals to delete students' stolen data"}, {"id": 769104672, "item_id": 48069042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48069042", "by": "owenpalmer", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I couldn't even get a development environment setup because of their storage space requirements.", "excerpt": "I tried to become a contributor to Canvas (it's open source), but I couldn't even get a development environment setup because of their storage space requirements. https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/Quick-Start > It is recommended that you have at least 150GB of available hard drive space, 8GB of RAM, and a quad-core CPU to use this script. As far as I can tell, this is not for running a production environ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 769026752, "item_id": 48064172, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48064172", "by": "waltbosz", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "One minute I was able to run my code, the next I couldn't.", "excerpt": "For a more technical write up https://www.dataminr.com/resources/intel-brief/shinyhunters-claims-instructure-canvas-breach/ I'm a software dev who was affected by the outage. I was working on an app that connects to the Canvas SAML endpoints. One minute I was able to run my code, the next I couldn't. This was a little after 17:00 EST.", "context": "software developer, affected by the outage", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}]}], "who": [{"by": "ExtremisAndy", "context": "teacher and hobbyist programmer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690383", "date": "2026-09-14"}, {"by": "acomjean", "context": "took Harvard extension classes", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058191", "date": "2026-05-07"}, {"by": "avs733", "context": "faculty member at a large university", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057038", "date": "2026-05-07"}, {"by": "javawizard", "context": "former Instructure engineer, left 2017", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48056816", "date": "2026-05-07"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["course management", "university course management", "teaching courses", "learning management system", "university classes", "university lms"], "compared": [{"slug": "moodle", "name": "Moodle", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48055913", "title": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack", "mentions": 17}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48054386", "title": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)", "mentions": 9}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48103668", "title": "Instructure Pays Ransom to Canvas Hackers", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686380", "title": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49351802", "title": "Hister \u2013 private, self hosted search engine", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48106901", "title": "Canvas hack: company pays criminals to delete students' stolen data", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"warn": 14, "neutral": 9, "compare": 2, "recommend": 3}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 795046128, "item_id": 49690383, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690383", "by": "ExtremisAndy", "date": "2026-09-14", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Canvas (the LMS) a LOT for the classes I teach", "excerpt": "I use Canvas (the LMS) a LOT for the classes I teach and, since I'm a hobbyist programmer, I enjoy writing little tools/scripts to help me create html code \"snippets\" that I can post into the html editor of my Canvas pages (e.g., striped tables, FAQs, flashcard-like study cards, an interactive story creator, and more). I've also written a plaintext to QTI quiz converter since creating quizzes on Canvas is so slow (I ", "context": "teacher and hobbyist programmer", "use_case": "teaching courses", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)"}, {"id": 790502721, "item_id": 49406420, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49406420", "by": "idontneedcoffee", "date": "2026-08-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "indexing URLs / browser tabs with[0]", "excerpt": "Singlefile based web pack+download is exactly the next feature I need besides indexing URLs / browser tabs with[0], have it on my to-research for a looong time. I do have a server-side script that can be triggered on doc ingestion as a hook \"if data/schema/tab is indexed and path is /ml/* then run script \"fetch-url.sh\" and file the result into {{doc.path}}\" but being able to do that in-browser is more user-friendly. ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hister \u2013 private, self hosted search engine"}, {"id": 769816624, "item_id": 48113539, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113539", "by": "skywhopper", "date": "2026-05-12", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Canvas itself is also open source", "excerpt": "Canvas itself is also open source (https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms), which was the big appeal of it originally in a world where Blackboard had a stranglehold on the LMS market.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Instructure Pays Ransom to Canvas Hackers"}, {"id": 769810416, "item_id": 48113151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113151", "by": "sheept", "date": "2026-05-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the hackers may have extracted session tokens using XSS in a support ticket", "excerpt": "This blog post[0] suggests that, based on their changelog after the incident, the hackers may have extracted session tokens using XSS in a support ticket. Then the ransom note was displayed using a custom theme. [0]: https://cyber.acmucsd.com/canvas (disclosure: I was involved with this org when I was a student)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Instructure Pays Ransom to Canvas Hackers"}, {"id": 769717296, "item_id": 48107331, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48107331", "by": "hgsgm", "date": "2026-05-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Canvas is effectively an monopoly", "excerpt": "Yet again, our government ignores the national security threat from foreign terrorists. The State serves only itself. \"Company pays\" means \"customers (taxpayers) pay\", since Canvas is effectively an monopoly Paying terrorists must be made illegal. Senior Managers must be held liable for damages to customers. 18 lawsuits filed already: https://www.pcmag.com/news/canvas-developer-apologizes-for-breach-as-class-action-l", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas hack: company pays criminals to delete students' stolen data"}, {"id": 769109296, "item_id": 48069331, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48069331", "by": "brikym", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I remember my university switched to Moodle around that time. I wonder if they're still popular.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 769104672, "item_id": 48069042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48069042", "by": "owenpalmer", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I couldn't even get a development environment setup because of their storage space requirements.", "excerpt": "I tried to become a contributor to Canvas (it's open source), but I couldn't even get a development environment setup because of their storage space requirements. https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/Quick-Start > It is recommended that you have at least 150GB of available hard drive space, 8GB of RAM, and a quad-core CPU to use this script. As far as I can tell, this is not for running a production environ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 769048193, "item_id": 48065512, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48065512", "by": "senkora", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Canvas is actually also open source and can be self-hosted", "excerpt": "Canvas is actually also open source and can be self-hosted: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms (I don't have experience in hosting either software so I can't really comment beyond that)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 769026752, "item_id": 48064172, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48064172", "by": "waltbosz", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "One minute I was able to run my code, the next I couldn't.", "excerpt": "For a more technical write up https://www.dataminr.com/resources/intel-brief/shinyhunters-claims-instructure-canvas-breach/ I'm a software dev who was affected by the outage. I was working on an app that connects to the Canvas SAML endpoints. One minute I was able to run my code, the next I couldn't. This was a little after 17:00 EST.", "context": "software developer, affected by the outage", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 769022960, "item_id": 48063935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063935", "by": "freedomben", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Here I saved you a google search: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms", "excerpt": "You are still wrong. Just look at the code. As mentioned before, it's open source. Here I saved you a google search: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 769018336, "item_id": 48063646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063646", "by": "tejohnso", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "The alternative could be to self host.", "excerpt": "The alternative could be to self host. https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/Production-Start Or maybe consider not following the herd, and use a much simpler but sufficient system that can be self hosted, if available.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 769011104, "item_id": 48063194, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063194", "by": "Meneth", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "A bunch of plugins running on canvas.instructure.com are proprietary", "excerpt": "A bunch of plugins running on canvas.instructure.com are proprietary, according to their FAQ: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/FAQ. I would guess these plugins are chosen so a majority of user won't want to live without them. It also seems these plugins \"link\" to canvas-lms, so keeping the proprietary would be a GPL violation if anyone except Instructure holds part of the copyright to Canvas.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768994352, "item_id": 48062147, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48062147", "by": "w4der", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the fact that it (back when I used to be a TA) would break if two TAs tried concurrently grading", "excerpt": "I don't care how good you think it is, the fact that it (back when I used to be a TA) would break if two TAs tried concurrently grading different parts of an assignment of a student is bonkers. The workaround for that was to use a Google Sheet document so TAs just looked at the submission in Canvas, then filed in their grades and feedback on the sheet. The issue is that Canvas, as far as I could tell, did not support", "context": "former TA", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768979856, "item_id": 48061241, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48061241", "by": "hackyhacky", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "it's some of the worst written software I've ever used", "excerpt": "I've been using Canvas for years and it's some of the worst written software I've ever used. It's slow, buggy, with an atrocious 2001-era UI. It's a CRUD app that has no excuse for being so cumbersome. I'm not surprised at all that their security is just as bad as the rest of the product. A bright undergrad could build a superior replacement in a few months, even without AI.", "context": "", "use_case": "course management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768966432, "item_id": 48060402, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060402", "by": "jcgl", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can self-host Canvas", "excerpt": "You don\u2019t need to roll your own LMS\u2014you can self-host Canvas: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/Production-Start", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768962976, "item_id": 48060186, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060186", "by": "yread", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Schools don't have competent IT teams. Here in the Netherlands a data center's power source (not even the machines) burnt down, data center is offline and University of Utrecht, one of the biggest universities here, is closed. Access passes don't work, work from home environment doesn't work, student information system is down, system for grading doesn't work. No failover for any of them (or maybe it was in the same ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768962224, "item_id": 48060139, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060139", "by": "flexagoon", "date": "2026-05-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Canvas is mostly FOSS", "excerpt": "> day where you can deploy your own software you can control and modify as you need. Canvas is mostly FOSS https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768946352, "item_id": 48059147, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48059147", "by": "russfink", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it was hands down superior", "excerpt": "It depends on what vintage of Blackboard your IT team has installed. We moved from a circa 2011 BB instance to Canvas in 2022, and it was hands down superior. A different university is running the most recent BB and it\u2019s similar to Canvas.", "context": "", "use_case": "University course management", "switched_from": "Blackboard", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768939648, "item_id": 48058728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058728", "by": "deathanatos", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I loved those far more than I loved \"Canvas\" or whatever the ugly LMS we used was", "excerpt": "\u2026 so? My highschool, for a while, had a website, which was eventually replaces by a large corporate CMS. Was the website as complicated or complex as the CMS? No, you would have needed to know HTML to publish to it. The CMS was no doubt \"more user friendly\", I suppose. But \u2026 the original site had a soul. It was unique to the school. There was a student directory! All lost, because the CMS meant utter standardization ", "context": "", "use_case": "learning management system", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768936640, "item_id": 48058540, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058540", "by": "scratchyone", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "they haven't merged a PR since 2017", "excerpt": "https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Amerged+ haha i went to go check and they haven't merged a PR since 2017", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768934240, "item_id": 48058390, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058390", "by": "JumpCrisscross", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "> they are likely using all the materials faculty upload to train their AI replacements Instructure (Canvas's developer) partnered with OpenAI last year [1], about a year after KKR and Dragoneer (PE firms) acquired it [2]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rayravaglia/2025/07/23/instructure-and-openai-harness-the-power-of-ai-to-transform-learning/ [2] https://www.pehub.com/kkr-and-dragoneer-complete-4-8bn-take-private", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768931056, "item_id": 48058191, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48058191", "by": "acomjean", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It worked Ok.", "excerpt": "I used canvas for some Harvard extension classes 10 to 5ish years ago. It worked Ok. Work distributed, grades posted. I didn't realized so many schools used it, or that it was all schools on one instance, which seems kind of nuts. I lost access when I left as it was tied to my work email. I downloaded a lot, but there was still some useful stuff on the boards. I wonder what the havkers found out about me. Perhaps the", "context": "took Harvard extension classes", "use_case": "university classes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768920656, "item_id": 48057541, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057541", "by": "corvad", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Once we hit 8h 45m SLA has been broken.", "excerpt": "Once we hit 8h 45m SLA has been broken. https://uptime.is/99.9 https://www.instructure.com/trust-center/availability", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768920512, "item_id": 48057532, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057532", "by": "swatson741", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I saw this happen to my Canvas account today.", "excerpt": "I saw this happen to my Canvas account today. At first I thought it was a prank from the school or Instructure. The message was sent to students which makes no sense. Second, the message that was sent basically implies that ShinyHunter is actively getting patched out, and no one is ever going to give into their demands. They're basically saying that they're done and desperate. It's a strange message for ShinyHunter t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768918624, "item_id": 48057414, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057414", "by": "kelnos", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "But it turns out that MIT used to have their own homegrown system, and recently switched to Canvas.  Bet they're regretting that now.", "excerpt": "A friend who teaches at MIT said they were hit by this. I found it ironic and a little sad that a place like MIT doesn't have an IT staff that can maintain their own on-prem solutions for things like this. But it turns out that MIT used to have their own homegrown system, and recently switched to Canvas. Bet they're regretting that now. The build vs. buy decision seems to have swung very hard toward buy in the last d", "context": "", "use_case": "course management", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768917937, "item_id": 48057371, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057371", "by": "corvad", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I believe Canvas was also sold to private equity pretty recently too. https://www.instructure.com/press-release/instructure-to-be-acquired-by-KKR", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768912608, "item_id": 48057038, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057038", "by": "avs733", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "When we switched to canvas we kept the home brew running for five years past its expiration date", "excerpt": "Because faculty didn\u2019t want to do it anymore. They want it handled by others but also they want oversight and veto power but also they don\u2019t want to be bothered. But it better always work, and if they make a mistake the software is broken because don\u2019t tell them it\u2019s a user error they used to write Fortran. As a faculty member at a large university\u2026I have a deep respect for the impossible job of university IT departm", "context": "faculty member at a large university", "use_case": "University course management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Canvas (Instructure) LMS Down in Ongoing Ransomware Attack"}, {"id": 768909056, "item_id": 48056816, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48056816", "by": "javawizard", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Back when I worked for Instructure ~10 years ago, Canvas was effectively", "excerpt": "Define \"as they're supposed to be\". Back when I worked for Instructure ~10 years ago, Canvas was effectively a single, giant, monolithic multitenant app with one instance backed by several thousand app servers and ~100 separate Postgres database clusters that any app server could talk to. Schools were grouped onto pools of app severs and Postgres database clusters more or less according to locality and cluster availa", "context": "former Instructure engineer, left 2017", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768885984, "item_id": 48055374, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48055374", "by": "incomplete", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "our canvas instance is down.  this is really, really bad.", "excerpt": "yep, i work for a major university and our canvas instance is down. this is really, really bad. edit: here's the list of impacted universities (unsure if they all have their canvas instances offline, but i'd be surprised if not): http://91.215.85.103/pay_or_leak/instructure_affected_schools_list.txt", "context": "works at a major university", "use_case": "university LMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768874800, "item_id": 48054675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48054675", "by": "bigfatkitten", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "We already bond over how awful the Canvas UX is", "excerpt": "I use Canvas for some postgraduate studies, and my teenage daughter uses it at her high school. We already bond over how awful the Canvas UX is (and she has a bunch of Chrome extensions to improve it.) Now we\u2019ve got something else to gripe over together.", "context": "postgraduate student and parent", "use_case": "postgraduate studies and high school", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 768874768, "item_id": 48054673, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48054673", "by": "exprez135", "date": "2026-05-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "The Canvas instance at the nearby university is now down", "excerpt": "The Canvas instance at the nearby university is now down (May 7, 4 PM Eastern), but was briefly displaying the message in this screenshot (1). The ransom message implies that today's problem is the second wave in an attack on Instructure after ignoring their first breach in recent days. 1: https://ibb.co/r29RjdnH", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShinyHunters claims data theft from 8,800 schools (Instructure/Canvas)"}, {"id": 753125952, "item_id": 47070372, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47070372", "by": "zkalykov", "date": "2026-02-18", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "despite having the Canvas app", "excerpt": "I\u2019m a student and I built this because I kept missing deadlines despite having the Canvas app. I wanted something more persistent that only nudges me if a task actually remains incomplete. Key Technical Details: Intelligent Notifications: The bot doesn\u2019t just spam deadlines; it syncs with the Canvas API to check your submission status and stops notifying you the moment you submit the assignment. Security First: I kno", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: A Telegram bot to get homework reminders from Canvas"}, {"id": 733599666, "item_id": 45849979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45849979", "by": "yomaru_1999", "date": "2025-11-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Canvas is expensive ($50K+/year)", "excerpt": "I was a software engineer from Hong Kong and currently a learning technology specialist at a Christian university in Canada. I've been working on Paideia LMS, a modern learning management system built as a single binary executable. I built this proof of concept in under 30 days, which is why it's far from production-ready, but I've reached v0.5 and would love to get feedback from the HN community. I've worked with Mo", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a single-binary university LMS that is actually easy to use"}]}