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There are so many different learning management systems so making a shortlist of the best can be tricky. You want to deliver, track, and manage training and educational courses - and need the right tool for your team. I've got you covered! In this post I share from my personal experience training and upskilling a variety of teams, using many different learning platforms, and share my picks of the best learning management systems.

What Is A Learning Management System (LMS)?

Learning management systems are online platforms for delivering, tracking, and managing educational courses or training programs. They enable instructors to create and organize content, assess student performance, and provide resources in a centralized digital environment. For learners, an LMS offers access to educational material anytime and anywhere, facilitating a flexible learning experience. These systems are widely used in schools, universities, and businesses for e-learning purposes, helping streamline the education process and track learner progress efficiently.

Overviews Of The 10 Best LMS

Here’s a brief description of each of the digital learning process tools on my list, showing what it does best and providing screenshots to showcase some of the features.

Best for employee learning feedback & follow-up

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.3/5

Trakstar is a cloud-based software platform that aids in the tracking, reporting, and evaluation of employee performance. It helps organizations create meaningful performance reviews while providing insight into key performance indicators such as skills development progress and compliance trends. The platform includes goal-setting and tracking tools, customizable forms, 360° feedback surveys, and automated notifications. Trakstar has reporting capabilities that allow administrators to track progress over time, helping them identify areas where employees are excelling or struggling so they can provide targeted support when necessary. Additionally, it has integrated analytics tools that provide data on employee performance and engagement levels with the system itself.

Trakstar stands out for its user-friendly interface and robust feature set compared to other learning management systems. It offers wide customization options, better reporting capabilities, and integrated analytics tools that allow administrators to monitor employee performance over time easily. Users can tailor the LMS solution to fit their needs without sacrificing features or functionality. Trakstar also offers collaboration tools such as discussion forums where learners can interact with each other and exchange ideas. One of the major advantages of Trakstar is its ease of use. It makes it easy for users to set up courses and assessments quickly without worrying about complicated technical details.

The real strength of Trakstar lies in its ability to provide detailed feedback on learner performance. It allows instructors to create customized surveys with questions tailored to individual needs or group dynamics, which can be used to measure progress over time and inform future training decisions. This data can also generate reports that make it easy for instructors and administrators alike to see how students are doing in their courses. Another advantage of using Trakstar is its scalability; it can be used by both small businesses with limited budgets as well as large companies with hundreds of employees spread across multiple locations.

Trakstar offers pricing upon request.

Best LMS for for smart training management and analytics

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $2.87/user/month (billed annually)
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Rating: 4.6/5

iSpring Learn is a cloud-based LMS that helps onboard, upskill, and certify diverse teams online, including employees, customers, and partners. You can immediately upload your existing content to the platform or, if you don't have any materials, quickly create online courses and assessments directly on the platform using the built-in course creation tool.

iSpringLearn supports a wide range of file types, including PPT, SCORM, FLV, MP4, SWF, MP3, WAV, PDF, DOC, and XLS. Once online, all the training materials can be arranged into comprehensive learning tracks and automatically assigned to individual employees or selected positions, departments, and groups. Learners can access training from all devices: desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Additionally, iSpring Learn automatically assigns the necessary courses to learners and keeps everyone on track by sending notifications and reminders. 

Moreover, trainers can host virtual live events or Q&A sessions with the tool's webinar capabilities. Webinars, as well as online training programs and offline events, can be scheduled and managed with ease in a built-in calendar.

A selection of in-depth reports are also available in the LMS to track employee results. Trainers can set the system up to automatically generate reports when desired to receive regular updates on training effectiveness and allow them to inform management. A supervisor dashboard also provides access to learner progress at any time.

You can integrate iSpring Learn with several third-party analytics tools, such as PowerBI or any other tool in your toolbox, including HRIS, CRM software, and more.

Pricing for iSpring Learn starts from $2.87/user/month (billed annually). A 30-day free trial is also available.

Best for upskilling and reskilling your team

  • Free trial + free demo
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.7/5

Absorb LMS is an award-winning learning management system with smart administrative features, high quality learner engagement tools, and even ecommerce options to sell your custom built courses online.

Absorb LMS empowers organizations to deliver engaging employee training that meets the needs and standards of every learner, giving them the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. Its modern design includes an intuitive dashboard with multi-language support and is in full accordance with WCAG 2.0 standards, making your online employee development program as inclusive as it is effective.

Absorb LMS brings new hires up to speed faster, then uses powerful AI to customize the learner experience for each employee—anticipating their needs and connecting them to relevant training.

Absorb LMS integrates with industry leading business solutions like ADP, Salesforce, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and provides access to thousands of ready-to-use courses through content library partners such as BizLibrary, Skillsoft, LinkedIn Learning and more.

Absorb LMS offers pricing upon request, as well as a free trial or a free demo.

Best for an intuitive user experience + quality customer support

  • 14-day free trial
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

SkyPrep is a powerful and intuitive learning management system (LMS) that helps organizations train their employees, customers, and partners with ease. SkyPrep provides an easy-to-use and intuitive platform that was developed to make the learning experience engaging and effortless for both admins and learners alike.

Project managers will love the modern design, simplified navigation, and efficient user flows. They make everything uncomplicated, from viewing information, accessing different features in the platform, to completing tasks.

SkyPrep is not just known for providing an easy-to-use LMS, they are also known for their best-in-class customer support. Every client on a paid plan is paired with a single dedicated and knowledgeable Customer Success Manager and a personalized action plan is created to help them get the most out of the solution.

Whether businesses are looking to onboard employees, train customers on their products, or keep up with compliance requirements, SkyPrep makes the training experience easy and seamless.

SkyPrep integrates with ADP, Zoom, Salesforce, Paypal, Office365, Google, and more, including other third-party tools through a paid plan with Zapier.

SkyPrep offers customized pricing upon request and comes with a 14-day free trial.

Best LMS for rich multimedia course content

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $39/user/month
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Rating: 4.7/5

Thinkific is an all-in-one learning management platform that has been designed to create, market, and sell your own online courses or membership sites. Independent creators and businesses from across the globe use Thinkific for their rich multimedia course content options, including video, text, downloadable documents, quizzes, surveys, discussions, typeform, Google Docs items, and even articulative exercises.

As a creator, you can quickly upload and drag-and-drop content to create the perfect curriculum, without needing to be tech savvy. You can easily customize the way your course system runs with the click of a button; for example, by adding hidden courses or prerequisite lessons. With the Thinkific Site Builder, you can build and design a website to host and sell your course packages.

Thinkific is free to use for limited courses but unlimited students. Paid plans cost from $39/month and will unlock features like unlimited course creation, coupons, drip (scheduled) content, and email integration. Paid plans offer a 30-day free trial.

Best for customer training

  • Free trial available
  • From $8.32/user/month
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Rating: 4.6/5

LearnUpon is a LMS system for employee onboarding, employee development, customer training, partner training, product training, and compliance training. With LearnUpon, you can create courses, deliver training programs, track learner engagement, launch webinars, customize learner portals, and access out-of-the-box reports to track user progression.

LearnUpon connects to the tools you already use, from CRM to automation tools to payment systems. You can integrate this platform with the likes of Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, GoToWebinar, Adobe Connect, Degreed, Stripe, Paypal, Shopify, and additional apps using either a paid plan through Zapier or a free DIY approach using their API.

LearnUpon costs from $699/month for up to 50 users + 1 portal (billed annually). It comes with a free trial.

Best LMS with an easy to use interface

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Kallidus Learn is a personalized LMS designed for digital learning with a number of key features. It is a scalable learning solution that can fit a variety of workforce sizes, locations, and languages. The tool is backed by a content development team that is committed to quality customer service.

Kallidus Learn can function as both an online classroom or mobile classroom, and it also features social learning. More features include course cards, 2-click training, team leaderboards, and customized branding.

Kallidus Learn lets you personalize achievements and course content for each user. You will also be able to see who hasn't completed training so you can send personalized reminders. Kallidus Learn comes with features for analytics and reporting as well as compliance rates and the ability to measure course engagement.

Kallidus Learn integrates with Microsoft Outlook.

Kallidus Learn costs from $10,000/year.

Best LMS for larger enterprises and organizations

  • Upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Mindflash is an easy-to-use, online training platform that is ideal for customer, partner, reseller, or employee training. The tool facilitates training for remote and mobile teams, as well as for hundreds or thousands of employees in an organization.

Mindflash allows users to create courses, add quizzes, and track results for individual trainees, and create personalized learning paths for team members. Users can also create online courses from existing materials and upload PowerPoint, Word, PDF, SCORM, or video files.

Mindflash includes robust reporting features, as well as auto-enrollment capabilities and custom course learning paths.

Pricing is available upon request.

Best survey tools for course feedback

  • 45-day free trial
  • From $110/month (5 users)
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Rating: 4/5

Moodle is a customisable and trusted open source learning management system that is ideally suited to the delivery of massive open online courses (MOOCs). They are based in West Perth, Australia, but boast an international community of hundreds of millions of learners, teachers, and developers. Course content can include forms, chat & feedback, readings, workshops, quizzes, a wiki, and surveys.

Moodle has a mobile-optimized app that supports touch screen activity on smart devices. They also boast integration opportunities with third-party platforms like plagiarism detection and content repositories. You can build a course from scratch or enroll in the content that is already there. Users can check course completion status from a clean and simple dashboard.

Moodle is free to use if you are willing to download the tool, install it, host the material, and customise your own site. Paid plans start from $110/month for up to 5 users and come with a 45-day free trial.

Best LMS for its interactive learning approach

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 5/5

Constructor is an all-in-one digital ecosystem for education and research that implements active learning to have high-engagement knowledge discovery. Businesses that use Constructor as a learning management system switch from passive information consumption to active learning through interactive content instead of screenshots with step-by-step guides. Companies can create and repurpose quizzes and personalize them according to their needs.

Constructor's LMS allows employees to learn through interactive content and learn at their own pace. This exposes controls to enable trainees to experiment with the system and engage interactively with content.

Users can also use advanced data collection and reporting functionalities that provide visibility into the trainees’ performance through different data tools. Real-time data collection effectively supports custom learning and enables instructors to review the program's effectiveness and make any adjustments if the program is ineffective.

Constructor's LMS also has collaboration tools to encourage and promote knowledge sharing and help develop employee skills. Employees can chat and share knowledge, and trainees can communicate with instructors.

Constructor allows you to create personalized training programs and custom quizzes. This ensures that the program is tailored according to your requirements and aids in onboarding people to use specific software according to specific use cases. Constructor encourages active learning, adapts to a trainee’s journey, and allows collaboration and knowledge sharing between peers and instructors. Using this platform allows users to create custom online courses, boost completion rates through a user-friendly environment, and study software or systems interactively with other people, making it an ideal solution for corporate learning management.

The Best Learning Management System Comparison Chart

Here is a table where you can compare the tools we just covered in the overviews.

Tools Price
Trakstar Pricing upon request
iSpring Learn From $2.87/user/month (billed annually)
Absorb LMS Pricing upon request
SkyPrep Pricing upon request
Thinkific From $39/user/month
LearnUpon From $8.32/user/month
Kallidus Sapling Pricing upon request
Mindflash Upon request
Moodle From $110/month (5 users)
Constructor Pricing upon request
Preview Image - <h2 class="c-block__title b-summary-table__title c-listicle__title h3" > Compare Software Specs Side by Side</h2>

Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.

Compare Software

Other LMS Options

Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list but are worth your consideration.

  1. Graphy by Unacademy

    Best for creating custom courses, building no-code websites, or launching your own app

  2. Google Classroom

    Best simple LMS course authoring tools

  3. Blackboard for Business

    Best learning content reporting/analytics

  4. Chamilo LMS

    Best open source digital learning management system

  5. Eduflow

    Best for corporate training and higher education

  6. D2L Brightspace

    Best for video assignments and game-based learning

  7. Guru

    Best for AI-driven enterprise knowledge management

  8. Kallidus Learn

    Best for its integrated HR solutions

  9. WeSchool

    Best Learning Management System to simplify corporate training

  10. Qooper

    Best for social learning, coaching and mentoring

How I Picked The Best Learning Management Systems

What do I look for when I select the best learning management system for eLearning? The process I followed to get to this list was first to research all the popular LMS systems in the market. Then, I used my knowledge of the industry to weigh them against key factors that make an LMS a good platform. Finally, I evaluated the top tools based on the criteria below:

User Interface (UI)

Is it clean and attractive? Can every course builder and learner quickly adapt to their designated interfaces? Are grades, to dos, and analytics easy to find and interpret on this eLearning platform?

Usability

Is it easy to build and consume course content? Does the company offer good customer support, user support, tutorials, and training? Do they offer ready-to-go courses to get you up and running quickly? Does the LMS system work on all mobile devices?

Integrations

Is it easy to connect with other tools for media creation, video conferencing, CMS, and other relevant eLearning content creation tools?

Pricing

Learning management software will usually come with a cost but does the tool “pay for itself” by the amount of virtual training material you have access to? Does the cost of the learning platform include pre-made courses as well as the tools needed to build your own online course from scratch?

Learning Management System FAQs

Find answers to common questions other people ask about this topic.

What are LMS tools designed for?

Learning management systems (LMS) are derived from the eLearning trend popular in online grade school and post-secondary courses as well as in other training and certificate programs. LMS programs are designed to handle the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational and professional learning material.

LMS examples include tools for building educational courses, sharing and distributing courses, tracking user progress in courses, and providing feedback on popular topics and learning gaps for longtime users. LMS tools generally don’t include platforms intended for sharing notes and information about courses, such as Studocu.

What are the key features in LMS tools?

  1. Gamification & social learning features
  2. Personalized learning paths
  3. Mobile learning support
  4. Skills & certification tracking
  5. Test-out options for advanced learners

What are the benefits of a learning management system?

A cloud-based learning management system is fully online, meaning that courses can be completed remotely, which is great for modern technological work environments. Additionally, cloud-based LMS offers each student complex analytics and reporting that in-person learning can’t provide. You can track course completion, engagement, knowledge retention, knowledge gaps, and more. This makes the professional online learning experience more personal and adaptive.

learning management system logos list

What's Next?

The best employees should be lifelong learners, and we as project managers can do a lot to foster a workplace that emphasizes itself as a learning environment. From onboarding to continuous training solutions and learning programs, your team looks to you for guidance when it comes to career development.

Luckily, on-demand learning materials (cloud-based and on-premise) can help you personalize training content in your organization using an eLearning platform.

What learning platform have you used while taking an online learning program, and what did you think of it?

What is your preferred SaaS for online training and blended learning, and why? Is there a corporate LMS that you think should be added to this list? Let me know in the comments.

Related tool lists:

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By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut!