Learning Management Systems

I’ve personally used, demo-ed, and/or met with the team working on each Learning Management System below. My personal favorites are marked with a ✨.

✨Arist

Arist’s fun, addictive exercises are great for almost any use case. The platform offers mobile-based learning with the same powerful analytics as a traditional LMS. Based on their research, you can achieve an engagement rate of over 90%. If you have a training course or program experiencing low engagement, the Arist team will work with you to design or adapt your existing training to an SMS course. Arist recently launched Arist Sidekick—an AI course builder for corporate learning.

Absorb

Absorb's well-designed LMS is ideal for corporate learning platforms, where learners don’t pay for classes, and the focus is on completing training related to your company or role. One of the cool features I liked about Absorb is the company store, a feature that allows learners to earn points from completing learning activities and spend those points to earn free gear.

Axonify

The Axonify platform's gamified and community-oriented approach to corporate learning is perfect for sales or other teams that must maintain up-to-date product knowledge to perform well on the job. You can log in for quick micro-learning and quiz sessions, and the system encourages you to tag or challenge a fellow team member to beat your daily score. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Axonify games!

Blackboard

As one of the oldest learning management systems on the market, Blackboard offers a comprehensive learning experience. Their state-of-the-art learning suite includes built-in video and eliminates the need for integrations with Zoom, whiteboarding tools, and other LMS integrations. After a few years of falling behind, they completely revamped their system, and their UX/UI is the best among the top four LMS systems.

BrightSpace (D2L - Desire2Learn)

Brightspace offers impressive detail and structure for large districts or networks of schools that need to maintain separate classes but connect their data. They have unique customizations, including the best I have come across for PreK learners. The LMS includes a parent portal to view their learner's assignments and feedback.

Canvas

Canvas may be the most popular LMS on the market. It covers all the bases while remaining affordable and easy to use. It plays nicely and integrates with various tools, from Zoom to proctoring software. Its most common application and use case is education. Canvas is always my top recommendation for universities, colleges, and any program serving that population.

Cards Microlearning

Cards micro-learning offers a unique and fun approach to mLearning. Upload videos, text, images, and quizzes to your cards. You can also segment learners by team or group. While the app is only available in French, the team told me an English interface is on the way. However, if you white-label the app, the team can create an English version just for you.

Cornerstone OnDemand

Cornerstone on Demand is the most corporate of the corporate LMS systems. I’ve used it several times, always when working with large corporations. The platform is heavy on security and compliance. Some unique features include the ability to request a signature from the learner upon completion of training.

Docebo

Docebo’s primary audience is corporations training employees or customers. They offer a wide range of solutions, from an authoring tool to a learning management system to AI-curated content that eliminates the need to create your own. If integrating with your existing tools is of primary importance, check out Docebo. It integrates with over 400 other tools and software programs.

Elucidat

Elucidat's integrated online learning authoring tool and learning management software are one-of-a-kind. It’s also home to my favorite interactive eLearning activity, which you can find here. If you don’t want to spend money on Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise, or Adobe Captivate AND an LMS, investing in Elucidate to create and deliver your online learning program may be your best option.

Intellum

Intellum remains the only learning management system I’ve encountered that allows you to build a diagnostic within the LMS without an authoring tool! The diagnostic allows you to test learners in separate, but related subject areas and assign training based on their performance. A recently released app allows for mobile learning.

Kajabi

Kajabi is a learning management system for marketing professionals by marketing professionals. Its primary selling point is the automated marketing features that can use to recruit, engage, and upsell students from their first visit to your site until after the program has ended. I want to fix it and forget it, Kajabi may be the perfect tool.

KREDO

KREDO offers every feature of a standard learning management system and more in a mobile format. From uploading SCORM interactive eLearning activities to segmenting learner groups, auto-assigning review activities, and more—KREDO does it all and is very affordable. I have not found a mobile LMS that can do much more. Their team is eager to build a successful product and is open to feedback and input about features.

LearnUpon

LearnUpon is one of the few corporate LMS systems that has a sales interface to sell courses. The platform allows you to maintain different portals for subsets of learners, such as employees, customers, and the general public. Another unique feature is the built-in integration for webinar content. While the pre-recorded video is common, not many LMS providers have a built-in feature for hosting webinars.

Moodle

Remember when eLearning started in 2000? You were probably on Moodle. The platform is open-source and free, so no one buys Moodle*. Rather you download and host it on your server. But don’t expect it to be cheap—most Moodle developers charge comparable to other popular platforms, such. For security, it’s essential to hire a Moodle developer to customize your platform for you. Moodle maintains a list of trusted partners.

*Moodle recently built a cloud-based online LMS with limited features that don’t require you to host on your server.

Podia

Do you want to sell it all—books, templates, courses, coaching, consulting, webinars, and more? Podia is the best place to sell anything and everything that monetizes your knowledge. It’s a relatively newer platform with some unique features, such as a chatbox on every Podia site (As of this writing, even free plans), where you can chat with any learner who visits your site.

SumTotal

SumTotal was acquired by Cornerstone on Demand. Their homepage links to Cornerstone, so I imagine it will eventually be rolled in. I used SumTotal while working at a university. It was a corporate system that allowed for segmentation by groups, SCORM content, and all the other content you can expect in an LMS. Although this was pre-acquisition, their functionality reminded me a lot of Cornerstone.

Talent LMS

Talent LMS is a free no-frills LMS by the team behind TalentCards. The LMS system offers a free version with all the functionality of a more popular corporate LMS system, but limited visual customization. Their paid plans offer more flexibility to custom the look and feel of your LMS with logos and colors. For a free platform, the management and analytics features are above par.

TalentCards

TalentCards was among the first to offer mobile-based micro-learning. Training is in the form of swipe-able flashcards that allow you to upload images, text, audio, video, and even weblink to a card. There are also quizzes (note: quizzes must include right/wrong answers; no surveys). The spaced repetition feature will automatically assign topics for your learners to review based on their performance.

Teachable

Teachable recently rebranded itself as a platform for solo creators. It’s one of the oldest platforms created to help individuals sell online courses, and hosts a variety of professionals from teachers to seamstresses to musicians. The platform also has some nifty marketing tools not available on similar platforms, such as the ability to pay affiliates automatically.

✨Teamie

Collaborative learning leads the way at Teamie. It was designed with collaboration and community in mind. The platform has very robust learning features but makes it so easy to comment, share, and work together that it reminds me a bit of a social network, like Facebook. You can also do collaborative writing and brainstorming in documents, which makes Teamie the perfect LMS for high school students and companies that want to focus on learning together.

Thinkific*

Thinkific is the platform where I began my learning journey when I first got off of Udemy. It’s the perfect place to start if you are starting small, but have big dreams to grow your audience because moving LMS systems is a pain! The platform can grow and scale with you at any price point. You can start making money immediately on their free plan, and when you need something that is completely customizable, they have a plan for that, too! It offers the most flexibility for individual platforms, including SCORM content (although it doesn’t record data) and Zoom integration.

*affiliate link

Udemy

Udemy will always hold a special place in my heart because it’s the place where sold my courses. If you want to sell your knowledge to the whole wide world, Udemy is the place! To date, my courses have enrolled 3,000 learners from over 100 countries, and many online teachers have achieved much larger audiences. If you want to test your idea and find out if it’s useful, offer a course for free to see what the public thinks—they are opinionated–love it or hate it!

Workademy

If you’re a growing company that would like to create and host employee training content without hiring a team of instructional designers or purchasing expensive eLearning tools, Workademy is perfect for you. Created by veteran eLearning professionals and developers, it’s one of the most accessible Learning Management Systems I’ve discovered. With the click of a button, you can change image contrast or remove images altogether. The system integrates with the Personio HR system and is SCORM-compliant. Even better, the small team of eLearning experts is very eager and available to answer questions about everything from learning design to course builds and has some introductory training content on how to set learning outcomes and design your course.