Manages course enrollment and tracks learners' progress.
Consolidates learning resources into one location.
Supports an anywhere, anytime approach to learning.
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Learning Management Systems
LMS software, or computer based training software, helps educational institutions and businesses better manage their online learning programs—which can be an incredibly effective way to improve employee engagement and retention while increasing employee skill levels. Rather than having to manually manage and track all of the workflows that are involved with ensuring employees have access to and complete learning programs, LMS systems help automate the entire process, from start to finish.
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Learn more in our Buyers Guide
Competitive advantages of Learning Management Systems
Compare All Learning Management Systems
Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS is a powerful cloud-based learning management system (LMS) designed to boost engagement and learning outcomes, while still being incredibly scalable and usable. Clients marvel at how quickly they can get up and running,...Read more
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a cloud-based platform designed to help businesses create online courses and learning experiences. It is suitable for entrepreneurs, e-learning companies, corporate trainers, educational organizations, plus others. ...Read more
Learningbank
Learningbank
Learningbank enables companies to onboard employees faster, supercharge productivity, and cultivate company culture. The platform equips HR & Leaders to transform training into engaging, relevant and effective learning with real o...Read more
TalentCards
TalentCards
Meet TalentCards, the mobile learning app that puts training in the palm of your people’s hands, no matter where they are in the world. Unlike traditional LMSs and training software, TalentCards is designed for mobile, frontline, ...Read more
Software pricing tips
Read our Learning Management Buyers GuideSubscription models
- Per employee/per month: This model allows you to pay a monthly fee for each of your employees.
- Per user/per month: Users pay a monthly fee for users—normally administrative users—rather than all employees.
Perpetual license
- This involves paying an upfront sum for the license to own the software and use it indefinitely.
- This is the more traditional model and is most common with on-premise applications and with larger businesses.
Rated best value for money
Lanteria HR
Lanteria HR
Lanteria Learning is a Microsoft SharePoint-based learning management platform offered standalone or as an application in the Lanteria HR suite. The system is suited for midsize and large enterprises. Within the platform, adm...Read more
Creatrix Campus
Creatrix Campus
Creatix Campus is a cloud-native higher education software for higher education institutions that helps academic administrators, student support staff, and others in the education industry manage the student’s journey from admissi...Read more
MOS Chorus
MOS Chorus
Throught its Learning Management System, MOS Chorus, MOS is developing innovative and customized learning solutions. Its core mission is to provide digital, seamless and unified learning user experiences for offline and online mod...Read more
Popular Learning Management Comparisons
Buyers Guide
Last Updated: March 18, 2022Learning management systems (LMS) automate the administration, testing, tracking, and reporting of learner progress through online courses. This guide will help you navigate the LMS software market so you're armed with everything you need to know in order to make an informed buying decision for your organization.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
What is a learning management system?
Common features of learning management systems
What type of buyer are you?
Learning management system pricing
Market trends to understand
What is a learning management system?
LMS software, or computer based training software, helps educational institutions and businesses better manage their online learning programs—which can be an incredibly effective way to improve employee engagement and retention while increasing employee skill levels. Rather than having to manually manage and track all of the workflows that are involved with ensuring employees have access to and complete learning programs, LMS systems help automate the entire process, from start to finish. Functionality includes:
- Creating curricula and learning programs to educate students and/or employees in specific areas of knowledge or to teach them certain skills.
- Tracking the completion of such programs to ensure students and/or employees are staying on schedule.
- Allowing students and/or employees to demonstrate competencies or gain certification in areas relevant to their role.
- Providing analytics and reporting functionality to give organizations more insight into the success of their training or learning program(s).
Common features of learning management systems
| Certification and compliance management | Includes setting up, tracking and managing certification programs for industries that require employee certification to perform a specific job duty. This also manages compliance training, which could be a need for any industry. |
| Learning management | Helps users organize and simplify training or learning administration, which includes processes such as distributing content, managing user information, scheduling and overseeing course enrollment. |
| Virtual classroom | Many LMS platforms include video conferencing functionality, enabling instructors to lead live, remote classes and trainings through the platform. |
| Course library | Some vendors partner with course content creators to provide a pre-made library of training courses for generic training needs, such as those on sexual harassment policies or management techniques. |
| Extended enterprise | Allows organizations to train or teach external users, such as channel partners or customers. E-commerce functionality may be included here, as well, to allow training courses to be sold externally. |
| Proficiency testing and reporting | Allows users to administer tests to gauge employee/student knowledge or skill. Analytics and reporting functionality helps determine proficiency and identify learning gaps. |
| Content authoring | Gives users the ability to author their own learning material and design and deliver courses within a LMS. E-learning authoring tools are often part of an LMS; learning content management systems (LCMSs) that facilitate the creation and storage of course content can be integrated into an LMS platform as well. |
| Mobile learning | Allows learners to access and complete courses on a phone or tablet. |
| Social learning | A set of features, including course ratings, course sharing and commenting, course discussions or individual learner blogs, that promote collaborative learning by allowing learners to interact with one another in the LMS. |
What type of buyer are you?
Before purchasing a system, you should assess what kind of buyer you are. The majority of buyers fall into one of these categories:
Education-industry professionals. Perhaps the most obvious buyers of learning management software are those from schools and higher education: organizations where the entire purpose is facilitating the spread of knowledge. Many courses at university levels—and, increasingly, even at the K-12 levels—offer students access to syllabi, assignments and testing information via Web-based LMSs created specifically for the education industry. Education LMS products can be purchased on their own or as a core component of many K-12 software solutions, along with other applications such as school accounting and student information systems (SISs).
Corporate training professionals. LMSs also have a strong presence in the corporate training sphere. This is especially true in highly regulated industries where employees need to maintain specific certifications or licenses to comply with industry or government standards, such as aviation or food preparation. Just as there are LMSs designed specifically for use in schools and universities, there is also LMS software specific to the needs of corporate trainers, which might include functionality for performance reviews or ecommerce. Some LMSs for corporations even include a course library for continuing education. Corporate LMS products can also be purchased on their own, or as part of a more comprehensive human resources (HR) suite.
Learning management system pricing
LMS software is usually priced based on two factors: the number of users and the functionality included. The more people you have using the system and the greater the depth and breadth of functionality, the higher the price.
As an example, many vendors offer tiered pricing plans. With the first, most basic tier, buyers might pay a monthly fee so a small pool of users would have access to basic functionality and services, such as content creation, course enrollment and limited email support from the vendor.
As the price scales up, buyers can add more users to the system, while receiving more advanced functionality or services on top of what is provided at the lower tiers. These additional capabilities might include reporting and analytics or live phone support from the vendor.
In some cases, users can buy a license to own the LMS system in perpetuity. More commonly, though, users can expect to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee for the software.
Subscription pricing is more common with cloud-based LMS systems (where the LMS is accessed via Web browser), whereas perpetual licenses are more common with on-premise solutions (those installed by users on local servers). Most modern LMS products fall into the cloud-based, subscription-priced category.