Absorb LMS vs. Moodle

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
Moodle
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Moodle is an open source learning management system with hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, used by organizations to support their education and training needs.N/A
Pricing
Absorb LMSMoodle
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSMoodle
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSMoodle
Features
Absorb LMSMoodle
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
Ratings
9% above category average
Moodle
8.0
Ratings
3% below category average
Course authoring8.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.40 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Player/Portal9.10 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Learning content8.90 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.40 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.90 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Assignments9.90 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Compliance management9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Learning administration9.70 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.70 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Social learning8.00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Gamification6.90 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.50 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSMoodle
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 LMSMoodle
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSMoodle
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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Moodle is a Learning Management System and is best suited for just that. We didn't like the assessment piece of our full scale Learning Management System (nor did we want to purchase the entire assessment module) so we chose to use Moodle for this, and it works well. Installing this application with the intention of only using a portion of its capabilities can be successful in environments where you have technical skills and a broad understanding of integration between your systems. For institutions that lack these, you're better suited to using a full scale of an LMS with assessment inside that same application.
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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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  • Moodle's grade book works well. Assignments are integrated so the grades are recorded automatically.
  • Moodle is customizable by administrators, so our version only gives us the options we need. NO Clutter.
  • The discussion board offers several options for instructors that help with grading. I use "sum of points", but there are other options as well.
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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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  • Rubric Management. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
  • Better tools for examining outcomes from exams and rubrics across a class, course, or organization. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
  • Improved content management within the default installation. While there are modules that support products such as Drupal, building into the default product would ease adoption.
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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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We use it because it is what have committed to back in 2011. Perhaps Moodle will evolve and advance in a positive way that will alleviate most of our user-based gripes? Perhaps it will not appear to be as cost effective given the need for a certain level of engineering and support staff to maintain it at a future level of sustainability? It's hard to say. As an enterprise scale critical application, we like it, but don't love it. Our instructors don't particularly like it at all.
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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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I've been able to figure out Moodle through my own experimentation and some help from the Moodle support pages. It's not always obvious where to make certain some changes and It can be a little confusing in determining which pages blocks will appear. If this is your first time using Moodle as an admin/course designer you should expect to spend a some time experimenting because knowing where to make certain changes isn't always intuitive. Additionally, plan to explore the course as a student vs. as admin because the UI is different based upon your settings
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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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I have worked in Moodle for over 10 years in two different organizations, and I have never experienced an outage. We have about 600 courses in our current account and the only outage we have had is FlashChat add-in we use for live chats, within Moodle, hence the reason for the nine (9). If you all know of Moodle vendors willing to help us upgrade from 1.9, Please wend me their info.
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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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Moodle is an excellent LMS in relationship to any other one that I have seen or used. The pages load quickly and the reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Moodle has taken on Respondus, StudyMate, BigBlueButton, Turning Tech, Turnitin2, Certificates, Attendance, Tegrity, Questionnaire, Virtual Programming Lab, and Badges. All of these programs work right in with Moodle and do not cause any issues. Instructors may also use Camtasia and Snagit software as well as using webcams, downloading videos from the Internet, adding into books, or any of the many other areas within Moodle. Our instructors use the grade books without many problems and really don't ask questions much anymore. We upgrade Moodle every semester and are currently on 2.9+. Our instructors have basically learned to use most of the resources and activities.
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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 can consider Moodle as one of the pioneer in providing online learning. Before the introduction of other Learning Management Software, Moodle has been in place already in the field of education and so I believe that Moodle is definitely one of a kind software that all teachers should try and utilize in making sure that the online learning is a good experience.
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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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I have used a few sites and they were adequate but my best learning experience was face to face and hands on.
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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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Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.
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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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Moodle, being open source, is the foundation a lot of other tools like it are based on. It provides almost all of the same functionality and feature set as Google Classtoom, Canvas, etc., although those products are a bit more polished. All can do content delivery, progress tracking, attendance, reporting, etc. with ease, but Moodle also does this as a completely open source product that can be code-reviewed, audited, modified, extended, etc. at will, provided the expertise is present.
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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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Well, I administer Moodle for a dozen of our divisions and there is a wide range of flexibility between offerings. I have course instructors who use every module i their course, chock full of videos, pictures, links to web tools for synchronous sessions within the asynchronous course. I also have others who are content with a syllabus, a few pdfs, links to podcast lectures and a few simple assignments. No matter if your organization is big or small, or if your requirements are strict for credentialing or non-existent (for internal know-how), Moodle can accommodate you.
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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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  • Moodle has allowed the business to track all training initiatives. Since, November 2014 we have loaded 54 courses, 339 users, 889 resources, issued 719 badges, and created over 100 course modules.
  • Our company just got a new applicant tracking system for the recruiters to use. In order to get all of the employees up to speed we created trainings that we loaded into Moodle. The participants and participation was tracked and we were able to find correlations between users engaged in training and their activity in the new applicant tracking system. This is a significant win for the training department, our learners, our company, and especially Moodle.
  • Moodle also provides great customer service for our internal employees. They now have one place to go to find all their resources, all their training, and all the help they need for any training questions. Instead of scattering information on the intranet. Training is more official when it has its own domain.
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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.

Moodle Screenshots

Screenshot of Moodle offers activities and resources to create courses.Screenshot of The course dashboard shows the courses which an student is enrolled in.Screenshot of Inside a course view shows the course complete index of activities and resources.
The course view can be customised to be cleaner allowing the student to focus on learning.Screenshot of Moodle Workplace includes all features in Moodle LMS and other exclusive features like multi-tenancy, dynamic rules, and report builder.Screenshot of Programs help users stay up-to-date with compliance, and help with designing learning paths for a teams so that they can develop the right competencies. Certificates can also be issued to validate learning and compliance.Screenshot of Dynamic Rules help to avoid the tedious tasks and create and manage automated rules for several groups of users. Learning experiences based on location, department, position, roles and other criteria are available.