The very first time I saw the new Grav Premium Helios theme, the potential as a modern and more capable successor to my original Grav Open Course Hub project was crystal clear!
LMS platforms like Canvas and Moodle can handle course management well, but publishing a range of content in a modern, open format that lives outside your institution's ecosystem is simply not what they're built for.
The Helios Course Hub is a ready-to-run skeleton for Grav CMS, built to work with a **Grav Premium Helios theme** license, which directly supports ongoing development of the open-source Grav CMS. It gives educators – and teams – a modern, companion site for one or more courses, without requiring a database, hosting expertise, or starting from a blank page. The goal, as always: reduce friction at every step while delivering a great user experience for students and course facilitators.
The skeleton package is the recommended starting point – download, unzip, enter your Helios theme license + install, and it's ready to go with demo content included. No custom development needed to get up and running.
A note on licensing: The Grav Premium Helios theme requires one license per site (Standard or Team options are available). If you're running more than one course site – for example, a shared site used by several instructors – each site would need its own license.
Content is just Markdown files in folders – no database, runs on almost any web server with PHP 7.3.6+, and you control everything.
A live demo is available at demo.hibbittsdesign.org/grav-helios-course-hub – set up as a multi-course site so you can see the course list homepage and course navigation in action. The project can also support a single course setup, as shown at **demo.hibbittsdesign.org/grav-helios-single-course-hub**.
The project itself is, of course, open-source at github.com/hibbitts-design/grav-skeleton-helios-course-hub.
This is an initial preview, and I am still looking to gather early feedback from educators and teams. Worth noting: unlike the original Grav Open Course Hub, this version does not include a 'chromeless' mode for embedding pages directly within an LMS like Canvas – if that's central to your workflow, the original Grav Open Course Hub remains the better fit. If you're already using Grav CMS for course content, or looking for an open companion to your LMS, I'd love to hear what resonates – and what doesn't.