Absorb LMS vs. Canvas

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
Canvas
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Instructure is an educational software company based in Sandy, Utah. It is the developer of the Canvas learning management system, which is a comprehensive software package that competes with such systems as Blackboard Learning System, SumTotal and Saba.N/A
Pricing
Absorb LMSCanvas
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSCanvas
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact vendor for pricing information.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSCanvas
Features
Absorb LMSCanvas
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
Ratings
9% above category average
Canvas
9.8
Ratings
18% above category average
Course authoring8.00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.40 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Player/Portal9.10 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Learning content8.90 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.40 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.90 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Assignments9.90 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Compliance management9.90 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Learning administration9.70 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.70 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Social learning8.00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Gamification6.90 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.50 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSCanvas
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
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Axonify
Axonify
Score 10.0 out of 10
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Absorb LMSCanvas
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSCanvas
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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If you have a school you can let teachers easily create new deadlines which [automatically] get shown in the calendar. Teachers can also [temporarily] hide deadlines [until] they've given the explanation about the tasks. [Besides] that the teacher can also choose what should be uploaded, should it be a link, file, pdf, link,...
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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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  • Learning management - Even as the educational landscape rapidly shifts due to current events, Canvas is a great LMS for providing a consistent learning environment for students.
  • Mobile accessibility - Students can access their courses on Canvas from a variety of devices, including their smartphones.
  • Rich content - Instructors have the ability to create dynamic and engaging content for their courses.
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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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  • Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets.
  • Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers.
  • They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors.
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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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Several factors contribute to my "10" rating. First, our university just made an enormous switch to Canvas, after we were with Blackboard for almost a decade. So garnering buy-in was critical, and not something we took lightly. After nearly 18 months (start to finish) of training faculty, educating stakeholders, and migrating courses, I am not looking to make a change again anytime soon. But I am happy with the result and the product overall and that is also demonstrated in my rating.
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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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The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software
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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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I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user
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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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The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system.
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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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Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January
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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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Canvas is in the experience way better than Google Classroom. Canvas has a
more robust agenda system that also allows adding in new personal
deadlines. [Assignments] can be submitted past [the] deadline (if allowed),
this isn't allowed by Google [Classroom], If you're too late you can't
submit anything anymore. In Classroom [assignments], presentations/theory, and [announcements] are all put in 1 feed instead which gets confusing way
faster.
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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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  • Teachers have consolidated their content onto one platform which has decreased reliance of students on so much support staff assistance to access content.
  • Canvas has helped make technology transitions more seamless for the school community.
  • Once teachers have set up their page, Canvas really takes care of it all- they have much more time to focus on content creation and synthesis rather than the actual learning management system.
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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.