Absorb LMS vs. Bridge Learning Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Absorb LMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.N/A
Bridge Learning Platform
Score 7.5 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Bridge is an integrated talent management platform that combines learning management, performance management, career development, and engagement measurement into one platform. Bridge enables companies to develop their people with live, virtual, on-demand and experience based training, manager/employees 1:1s, and career development plans. Used by more than 1000 companies worldwide, Bridge helps companies achieve their strategic people development goals by facilitating connection, alignment, and…
$4
per month per user
Pricing
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Learning
$4
per month per user
Learning & Performance
$10
per month per user
Learning, Performance & Engagement
$11
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredRequired
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Features
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
Ratings
9% above category average
Bridge Learning Platform
7.6
Ratings
7% below category average
Course authoring8.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Player/Portal9.10 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Learning content9.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.30 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Assignments9.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Compliance management9.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Learning administration9.60 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Social learning8.00 Ratings2.00 Ratings
Gamification6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Small Businesses
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.6 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.6 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Axonify
Axonify
Score 10.0 out of 10
Axonify
Axonify
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSBridge Learning Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
Absorb LMS answered a lot of questions we were facing as an organization in how we train and develop our employees. Absorb LMS is not only a fantastic repository for learning resources, the built in tools make creating new resources and experiences for our teammates so much easier and more streamlined. We use the Absorb Create authoring tool and have had great luck in course creation using many methods (AI, templates, etc.). We implemented the LMS in 4 weeks due to the guidance and willingness of our Implementation manager to move along at a quicker pace. We also love the Absorb library of content that helps fill in some of the soft skills and safety gaps without us having to create internal resources.
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Bridge is suited for scenarios where you need ppl to complete steps in order or test that they received the correct amount of knowledge after watching a video. I do think Bridge is less appropriate for companies that use it in external training scenarios as there is some key functionality missing. We gotten very good at brainstorming and finding solutions/ways to get Bridge to work the way that we need it to
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Pros
  • Customer Service - Our CSM, Kirsten Spak, provides friendly, timely and high quality help and has helps us to understand and efficiently use the system.
  • Course Creation - We have been able to create custom courses with a wide range of features, including branding, audio, video and assessments.
  • Reporting - Absorb LMS offers a robust reporting function which allows us to understand our users and meet the needs of our partners when user information is required for their projects.
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  • Superb Customer Support: Getting help from Bridge is so accessible; whether it's via our customer relations rep, the chat or email option. I know I can always get immediate help when I need it.
  • Events: The Bridge annual conference is a wonderful way to connect with Bridge and other companies who use it to get inspired and share ideas.
  • Constantly improving: Every Bridge comes out with additions and improvements to make the user experience better.
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Cons
  • The "And" and "Or" rules for self + automatic enrollment could be spelled out more to clarify who we're enrolling into courses
  • The thumbnail and poster "Upload photo" section is confusing. There should be a "Favorites" folder where we can easily find most commonly used posters and thumbnails
  • more education around Absorb analyze essentials
  • How the Featured courses section ranks courses is confusing on the back-end. I need to switch the primary one to second place to feature the new one first. But if the previous one now becomes second place, what happens to the old course that was in second place? I've noticed the order you select on the back-end for this isn't always reflected on user side
  • Same comment as Featured Courses but for appearance of billboards. Hard to position each in the right order
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  • There is a 'language' that is used by Bridge staff which takes some getting used to. So many terms are 'tech speak' and it does take some extra time to learn those terms.
  • The menus and links to reports, etc. are not as intuitive as they could be. I find myself frustrated at times trying to navigate. I don't automatically relate terms like 'insights' and 'instance' in the way they are used by Bridge.
  • I've asked for a notification via email when a user completes the program. I recognize that this has been a work in progress but it seems like it should be a relatively simple fix.
  • Initially, Bridge provided sessions which were designed to educate a new user on every aspect of everything Bridge has to offer. Much of this was a waste of time in our case. The training sessions should have asked first what we intended to do and provided only the information needed to get us going. We needed only a push in the right direction, not an overview of every possibility we may encounter.
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Likelihood to Renew
Absorb provides the platform and support for us to create a place for resources that is agile and simple to deploy. We are able to use across multiple countries and departments. Absorb is also constantly developing their platform to meet users needs, which is helpful for us as we grow.
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It has been very useful to our organization in getting compliance training complete. We have a 24/7/365 organization with some folks only working 2 days a week during the summer only, many work full-time jobs elsewhere and can't make weekday programs and facilities don't have to alter schedules to get mass numbers of people through training like you have to do with live training..
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Usability
It is very intuitive, not just from an admin perspective to manage courses and track completions, but also from a learners' perspective. It is very easy to find courses, search for courses, and track personal course progress. The interface is well designed, which makes it simpler for our audience to navigate the portal and find what they are looking for
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Even our folks who fought using it realized how easy it was once they took their first course.
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Reliability and Availability
We have never had any major issue with Absorb's availability. Any outages that have occurred have been planned an communicated. Any small issues that occur within the Absorb platform have been addressed efficiently and quickly by support and the development team
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Absorb LMS's performance is very reliable and consistent. Pages load quickly. Report are generated within a reasonable amount of time (even with significant amounts of data), etc. Nothing seems to slow it down.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
[...] is a ROCK star- having her as part of our support team has been a game changer. She is a true problem solver at heart and has an unique ability to retain who we are as a company and match that with what can help us most. She has been a game changer for our internal admin team and is supporting us through a business review to help guide us in the best direction on our constant growth.
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Always timely and knowledgeable assistance. Very patient explaining answers to novice users.
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Online Training
Absorb was able to provide an initial training of the platform, covering all our basic needs. Additionally, there are Absorb learning modules available for further learning that can be accessed at anytime. There is also the ability to review Absorb's extensive resource library to find the answers to questions/troubleshooting. Beyond that, we opted for the Premier Support so our organization has access to a dedicated Customer Success Manager.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
The implementation of Absorb went very seamlessly. We previously had the Oracle LMS and importing user data and getting the new system up to speed was painless. The smooth transition helped leaders and staff gain confidence early in the application/company and we have had a successful partnership with Absorb since.
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Our challenges were internal - nothing with Bridge. We had regular, productive meetings with our implementation representative.
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Alternatives Considered
Absorb LMS is feature packed with small but smart elements (can have a username that isnt an email, can change the core language used in the platform, can change the font and layout) that offer greater security and accessibility for learners.
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Our previous LMS was Symphony. Hands down, there is no comparison. Switching to Bridge was the best decision made by our management team. All we used Symphony for was for our monthly compliance training. Many times people would complain that they would need to retake their compliance course as Symphony would lose records. It became a hassle having to retake a course because you didn't save a copy of the completion certificate. Bridge allows for more than just compliance training AND we are able to see if learners didn't complete their courses via the reports.
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Scalability
We have already scaled our LMS from a couple hundred users to 1000 users and have plans to scale even larger. We use the LMS across multiple internal departments. countries and user types. Absorb has made it easy to integrate and scale and we will continue to scale in the near future.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Our ROI is yet to be determined as we haven't fully rolled it out yet. We hope that this will improve our customer loyalty and advocacy, set us apart from competitors, and appeal to prospects as something that is extremely valuable. ROI measurements will include customer participation, satisfaction from learners and their managers and any new customers who quote the platform as a reason they chose us.
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  • Bridge has allowed us to centralize our compliance training allowing for easy tracking. Bridge Learn has also made it easy for managers to track employee up-skilling from a learning perspective.
  • Bridge Learn's native authoring tool makes it easy for SMEs to enter content directly into Bridge.
  • One of the unexpected results of using Bridge Learn has been the high demand for professional development material. Employees want to use Bridge to learn more about the careers that they aspire to. This has increased learner engagement significantly on the platform.
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ScreenShots

Absorb LMS Screenshots

Screenshot of a company's unique identity with a training interface that is custom-designed for the brand.Screenshot of a company's image and values with a training interface that is tailored to the brand's specific needs.Screenshot of the course creation workflow, that offer a diverse set of formats, including instructional videos, quizzes, and assessments.Screenshot of Absorb's course details page, accessible from the course catalog dashboard, used to give learners an understanding of the course material.Screenshot of learners' progress insights, used to make data-driven decisions with the reporting capabilities of Absorb LMS.Screenshot of course creation with Create AI Beta.

Bridge Learning Platform Screenshots

Screenshot of Bridge's Employee Home Page: See courses, programs, 1:1s, Goals, learning tasks, all in one place.Screenshot of Bridge's Journeys: Journeys helps you build the courses you want and deliver an engaging training experience—every timeScreenshot of Bridge's Learning Page: Incredibly intuitive interface makes it easy to find, engage with, and complete assigned and optional learningScreenshot of Bridge's Career Vision Page: Identify career vision, core drivers, and needed skills and then map a plan with courses and activitiesScreenshot of Bridge's Analysis Overview: From custom reports, scheduled data delivery, to simply downloading the dashboard as a PDF, understanding your data is quick, easy and intuitiveScreenshot of Bridge Advanced Video: Video based LXP that provides users with an enhanced video learning experience that is easy to use, quick to deploy and critical for retaining top talent and providing meaningful engagement with employees