Absorb LMS vs. Seismic Learning

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
Seismic Learning
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly, acquired by Seismic in August 2021), is a learning management system (LMS). The vendor emphasizes eLearning for client-facing skills, as well as a drag-and-drop interface. Lessonly supports customizable learning paths and corporate onboarding processes.N/A
Pricing
Absorb LMSSeismic Learning
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Pro
Contact sales team
Pro + Coaching
Contact sales team
Enterprise Learning for Global Teams
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSSeismic Learning
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSSeismic Learning
Considered Both Products
Absorb LMS
Chose Absorb LMS
During our evaluation and research we really like LearnUpon and Lessonly but Absorb LMS came out on top with the ease of use and familiarity to our team and cost!
Chose Absorb LMS
Absorb [LMS] had [many] of the same features. Many of the vendors had a lower base price with additional pricing for the add-ons. From a cost perspective, the majority of software providers' costs were higher with all of the required addons. For the features required Absorb …
Seismic Learning
Chose Seismic Learning
Lessonly's tools allow me to natively create screen recordings with narration - this was something that I couldn't do with other LMS products that I reviewed. Other providers did not offer the ability to quickly pull up lessons and review them side-by-side in Chrome. Being able …
Chose Seismic Learning

We looked to bring on an LMS for a few reasons. First, to free up our bandwidth (with a small team of two training and developing 60+ revenue generating roles) - an LMS system allowed us to create well-built out, self-paced trainings that did not need to be delivered in person. …

Chose Seismic Learning
The builder that is built directly into Lessonly is what makes it so much better on the admin side. On the user side, it really easy to use and keep up with.
Chose Seismic Learning
I have not seen the need to look at other products since we have partnered with Lessonly.
Chose Seismic Learning
We selected Lesson.ly because the practice scenarios were key for our onboarding program. This was the only platform that offered that. It also has integrations with more of the products we already use, including Salesforce, Slack and Google Suite. This made it easy for us to …
Features
Absorb LMSSeismic Learning
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
90 Ratings
9% above category average
Seismic Learning
6.9
110 Ratings
16% below category average
Course authoring8.073 Ratings9.6108 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.678 Ratings9.3106 Ratings
Player/Portal9.182 Ratings5.785 Ratings
Learning content9.263 Ratings3.6104 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.167 Ratings9.058 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.985 Ratings9.896 Ratings
Assignments9.974 Ratings2.8107 Ratings
Compliance management9.969 Ratings9.663 Ratings
Learning administration9.687 Ratings7.2100 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.885 Ratings6.795 Ratings
Social learning8.044 Ratings2.672 Ratings
Gamification6.839 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.661 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSSeismic Learning
Small Businesses
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 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 LMSSeismic Learning
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(92 ratings)
6.4
(114 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(78 ratings)
9.7
(97 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSSeismic Learning
Likelihood to Recommend
Absorb Software Inc.
My (internal) project build team consisted of three people - one with experience setting up an LMS previously, and two with no experience. I have experienced 'out of the box' builds before and they are rarely intuitive and/or easy to navigate and set up. This was not the case with Absorb LMS. The eLearning modules and face-to-face support provided was thorough and there was a lack of unneccessary complexity to setting up the platform. My novices now know there way around every inch of the platform and love using it. This was not our first LMS, but it may well be our last. The functionality (from reporting for admins to ease of access for learners) far exceeds our previous experiences and we have a product that looks great, works seemlessly and that we are very proud of.
Read full review
Seismic
If you are onboarding new employees or consultants and you have a complex product, solution, or your business is layered and complex, this can help distill down the layers into basics so that new team or partners can build their knowledge base up the right way. This ensures they are learning what needs to be learned, and not what they surmise or assume, which can be incorrect and cause issues down the road - this is especially sensitive in our field. Training of all kinds can be done easily with this tool.
Read full review
Pros
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Customizing the user interface was fairly simple and our learners WANT to use the platform because it looks so nice.
  • Admins have so many tools at their fingertips to pull reports, create new users, author new courses, and more!
  • Absorb LMS has been the solution to so many problems we had experienced in our previous LMS: ease of use, course library, course authoring, tracking, reporting, etc.
Read full review
Seismic
  • Open to feedback and ideas and constantly innovating and iterating on their product to serve new needs that arise
  • Making me feel like more than just a customer: They aren't transactional and focus on building the relationship and making me feel heard.
  • Extremely easy to use product so building content takes little time, and I can leverage other subject matter experts to build content as well.
Read full review
Cons
Absorb Software Inc.
  • 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
Read full review
Seismic
  • Media import (audio, video) are still in infancy. Reliability of uploaded content isn't 100%.
  • The Events function lacks some features that are more built out in other platforms.
  • Reporting interface has a bit of a learning curve, but overall isn't bad.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Absorb Software Inc.
We love the ability to have a user-friendly system that integrates well with our different HR interfaces (we have 3 systems that feed data/employees into the system). It makes it easy to track course completions and report out on metrics enterprise-wide. In addition, the ability to provide consistent education to staff who are geographically dispersed is a huge incentive for us, and Absorb LMS does this seamlessly.
Read full review
Seismic
Worried about its acquisition by Seismic and hope that they don't change the product or the terms drastically.
Read full review
Usability
Absorb Software Inc.
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
Read full review
Seismic
It's completely simple and intuitive, anyone can pick it up. The hardest part is looking for a save button and finally figuring out you don't need one. We don't provide training for users and never have complaints. For creators, we provide best practices, but using Lessonly itself requires nothing .
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Absorb Software Inc.
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
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Performance
Absorb Software Inc.
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.
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
[...] 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.
Read full review
Seismic
The support team is very friendly and eager to help you learn the ins and outs of Lessonly. They can set up training for large groups or send links in a chat for individual help. They are quick to respond and if one person doesn't have the answer, they will collaborate with others to help find the answer.
Read full review
Online Training
Absorb Software Inc.
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.
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
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.
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Absorb Software Inc.
All sites provided at least a basic LMS platform, and Talent was probably the closest in terms of features and like-for-like comparison. Ultimately, none of the others had the same level of course creation and it would either have meant outsourcing or spending a significant amount of time building the courses which was not ideal as we would still be paying for the service during this time. Absorb had the best course creation software of all evaluated which is why we chose it, although it was also by far the most expensive of those evaluated.
Read full review
Seismic
I felt some of these products had more features than were necessary and needed for our team. Some of them were limited on the number of content creators that were allowed which to me forces you to use one or two people to create content where I would rather see it done by key members of each department.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Absorb Software Inc.
Seems very expensive for limitations we have experienced.
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Absorb Software Inc.
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.
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Absorb Software Inc.
I believe this question speaks to additional professional service hours that we had built into our contract to work with a set of staff members for purposes of changes or enhancements to our specific instance of Absorb. Again, I have nothing but positive things to say regarding our dealings with people at all levels of the organization. The PMs, the technical experts, the help desk staff are all friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and efficient
Read full review
Seismic
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Lighter administrative load, we went from 20-30 support tickets per month to 1 or 2.
  • Our course setup and configuration time now takes less than 5 minutes. In our previous system it took us close to 15 minutes to publish a course.
  • We have been able to push administrative responsibilities to department level administrators, because of the ability to have department level admins, who only have access and control of their department users and content.
Read full review
Seismic
  • We've had an increase in quality overall as a company, as we are able to continually train our employees outside of our New Hire Training program.
  • We've seen stronger communication as we are able to send out material to our stylists about products, policies, procedures, etc. and they are able to provide us with feedback. After all, it is their tool for learning and we want to know the best way to provide that information to our Team Members.
Read full review
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.