Using Sanity and Gatsby or Next.js in the Learning Management System Space

I haven't seen extensive community discussion about off-the-shelf LMS integrations with Sanity, but your use case is definitely achievable! Since you're already happy with your Sanity/Gatsby setup and want to keep content in Sanity, here's what I'd consider:

Hybrid Approach: Sanity + Open Source LMS

Given your nonprofit status and need for free/broad access, you might want a headless LMS approach where Sanity manages the content (videos, rich text, course materials) while an open source LMS handles the learning-specific features (progress tracking, authentication, completion certificates).

Open source options worth exploring:

• Open edX - Powers edX.org, robust video support, good nonprofit community. Can be self-hosted or use their hosted options (some have nonprofit pricing)
• Moodle - Very mature, MoodleCloud has free tiers for small deployments
• Canvas LMS - Open source core, excellent UX, self-hostable
• CourseLit - Newer, headless-friendly, might be easier to integrate with your existing stack

These could consume content from Sanity via API while handling the LMS-specific features you need.

Building with Sanity

If you do build it out in Sanity (which gives you full control and keeps everything unified), you'd need to add:

1. Authentication - Auth0 has a nonprofit program that might help with costs. Or consider Clerk, Supabase Auth, or NextAuth.js
2. Progress Tracking - Store user progress in a separate database (Supabase, Firebase, or even Sanity documents with user-specific data)
3. Email Engagement - Use Sanity Functions to trigger emails via SendGrid/Mailgun when content is published or users hit milestones
4. Video Delivery - Mux (which has great Sanity integration) or YouTube/Vimeo embeds

Sanity handles the content modeling beautifully - you'd create schemas for courses, lessons, modules, etc. The Sanity LMS use case page shows they understand this space well, with examples like Self-Evident Education delivering interactive video curriculum.

Standards & Interoperability

If you need compatibility with existing learning standards:

• xAPI (Experience API) - Modern standard for tracking learning experiences. Learning Locker is an open source LRS (Learning Record Store) that can work with this
• SCORM - Older but still common for course packages. There's community discussion about SCORM with Sanity

My Recommendation

For a nonprofit with capacity constraints, I'd start with Sanity for content + Open edX or Moodle for the LMS features. This gives you:

• Content authoring in Sanity (which your team already knows)
• Battle-tested progress tracking, certificates, and learner management
• Nonprofit-friendly pricing/free options
• You can embed or link to Sanity-hosted rich content from the LMS

The integration would be relatively straightforward - use Sanity's APIs to pull course content into the LMS, or even just deep-link from the LMS to Gatsby pages for the actual content consumption while the LMS tracks completion.

This avoids reinventing the wheel on the LMS-specific features while keeping your content advantage in Sanity. The Intellum-style experience you linked is definitely achievable this way!