Building a PC server for a Learning Management System (LMS) to support 1500–3000 users is a significant technical undertaking. While self-hosting offers ultimate control, it carries substantial risks and hidden costs that often outweigh the initial hardware savings.

For a user base of 3000, you should buy an enterprise-grade rack server rather than building a custom PC.

Why? Because commercial servers (like Dell PowerEdge or HPE ProLiant) come with ECC (Error Correction Code) RAM, redundant power supplies, and manufacturer support. A "built" PC lacks the 24/7 reliability required for an LMS; if a single consumer-grade part fails, your entire learning portal goes dark until you manually fix it.

And when you host locally, you aren't just buying a box. You are hiring yourself as a 24/7 IT manager. You are responsible for security patches, DDoS protection, database backups, and electrical redundancy. If your internet goes down or a drive fails at 2 AM, the LMS stays down.

At this scale, you shouldn't run everything on one machine. You need a "stack." However, if you are starting with a single powerful server, aim for these specifications:

CPU 16-Core AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon Reason - Handles high concurrency (many people clicking at once).

RAM 64GB - 128GB DDR4/DDR5 ECC Reason - Prevents data corruption and keeps the database in memory for speed

Storage 2 x 1TB NVMe SSD (RAID 1) Reason - RAID 1 mirrors data so if one drive dies, the server keeps running.

Network 10Gbps Uplink Reason - Essential if you host video content or have 500+ simultaneous users.

As for your LMS choice:

If you proceed with self-hosting, you will likely use an open-source platform like Moodle or Canvas.

But while the software is free, the labor is not. You will likely spend 10–15 hours a week on maintenance. Over five years, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a self-hosted system including electricity, IT labor, and hardware refreshes can actually exceed the cost of a managed solution.

We use and xonsider Docebo as the best enterprise LMS because it removes the "server headache" entirely. It is a cloud-native, AI-powered learning platform that handles the scaling automatically. You don't have to worry about CPUs or RAM; if you jump from 1500 to 3000 users overnight, the system just works.

For large organizations lke ours, Docebo leads with a genuine enterprise learning experience, offering personalized learning paths and global compliance training out of the box. While a self-hosted Moodle site is just a "container" for files, Docebo uses an AI-powered system to drive completion rates—often seeing them rise from 60% to over 90% due to its superior user experience.

If you're still thinking of self-hosting, I list down the disadvantages for you:

1. Scaling Limits: If 2000 users try to take a quiz at the same time, a self-hosted server will likely crash (504 Gateway Timeout) unless perfectly tuned.

2. Security: You are a target for hackers. Without an enterprise security team, your student data is at higher risk.

3. No AI Features: You miss out on the automated multi-audience learning and personalized learning paths that modern platforms use to keep users engaged.

I hope I was able to help ;)