Gesso — Erase Your Canvas

Gesso

Erase Your Canvas

A clean, minimal course management platform for writing instructors. Built to replace Canvas LMS.

View on GitHub Installation Manual User Manual

What it does

Assignment workflows

Multi-stage draft submission with per-stage due dates, late and overdue indicators, and one-click file return.

File distribution

Upload course materials as ZIP archives. Students and tutors access files by permission level.

Announcements

Post dated announcements to the course. Students see them in an accordion view sorted by date.

Syllabus editor

Write and publish your syllabus in Markdown. Students get a clean rendered view.

Roster management

Add students, tutors, and admins by email. Registration is limited by a whitelist you control.

Multi-course support

Professors manage multiple courses independently. Students switch between courses from a single account.

Right to be forgotten

When a course is over, delete it. Submissions, files, records — all of it. Your students' work belongs to them, not to the platform.

Roles

Teacher

Create and manage assignments

View all submissions

Return marked work

Manage course files

Edit syllabus and announcements

Tutor

View student submissions

Download student submissions

Post announcements

Student

Submit drafts by stage

Download returned work

View syllabus and announcements

Built with

Next.js 16

App Router

Supabase

Postgres + Auth + Storage

Tailwind CSS v4

Utility-first styling

Vercel

Deployment

JSZip

Bulk file handling

Marked

Markdown rendering

Why we built this

Gesso was built on a simple premise: the tools we use to teach should serve teaching, not surveil it.

No behavioral tracking. No data brokering. No third-party monetization. Just a clean surface for the work of learning.