GrassBlade LRS vs Ralph

GrassBlade LRS is a Learning Record Store for retaining eLearning data and reporting on xAPI ecosystems. It is offered as a cloud-hosted service or an on-premise installation; the self-hosted edition uses PHP/MySQL servers and can keep data on the customer’s server. Reports can be filtered and customized, downloaded as PDF or CSV, and sent by automated email. Quiz reports cover multiple attempts and learner-performance comparisons for tools including Storyline, Rise, Captivate, and iSpring. Video reporting includes activity data, completion and gradebook reports, and progress heatmaps. GrassBlade Cloud LRS supports xAPI, SCORM, and cmi5 content from listed authoring tools. An app is included with all plans for Android, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook with Apple silicon. Listed integrations include learning platforms, Vimeo, Zapier, Dropbox, and H5P.org. Pricing starts at $12/mo (annual); there is no free plan or free trial. Plans are billed yearly, with listed prices including $66 a year for Essential and $144 a year for Lite.

Ralph is an open-source learning analytics toolbox delivered as an LRS HTTP API server, command-line interface, and library. It runs through an API, on Linux, or as a self-hosted deployment. Ralph follows xAPI specification 1.0.3, but xAPI 2.0 is not supported. Its LRS stores data in Elasticsearch, MongoDB, or ClickHouse. The library documents connections to OVH Log Data Platform, OpenStack Swift, Amazon S3, filesystems, other LRS systems, and WebSockets. The API server supports HTTP Basic authentication and OpenID Connect over OAuth 2.0, either separately or together. Statement access can be restricted by authority, and user scopes can limit endpoints or functions; both controls are off by default. Received xAPI statements can be forwarded to other LRS servers with configurable retries and timeouts. Sentry monitors the LRS server and CLI. The CLI converts selected OpenEdX events to xAPI statements. Ralph is distributed as a Python package and Docker image under the MIT License.