Best Learning Management Systems (LMS) in 2024

Learning Management System (LMS) is the broad term used for applications that enable managing online courses to train, educate, or orient a group of learners. Technically, LMS does not involve the creation of content. The software only focuses on providing training materials, allowing you to manage your students’ progress and keep an eye on their performance. However, a lot of vendors include collaborative functionalities in their LMS services, making it possible for teachers and coaches in various locations to collaborate on expanding the course itself. It’s one of the important distinctions to look for when subscribing to plans offered by many learning management tools. Here are a few more aspects to help you do informed comparisons to choose the best learning management software solution. 

It’s definitely a good idea to research the best among various learning management tools by trying out at least a couple of free trial plans from well-known vendors. It can save you time and money as you will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience with crucial features you will most likely find the significant issues. It will also help you understand what is learning management software. The best thing to do is to try the list of tools that currently have the highest results in our SmartScore and Custmer Satisfaction Rating in the customer support software category: Litmos LMS,  Talent LMS reviews, Docebo reviews, and MyOwnConference. You can also read the detailed reviews we have prepared on the top 10 LMS software.

Beyond that, you’ll need to think about how you can get the most out of the LMS free trial or demo. It’s highly likely you’ll be trying the free trial to make an astute decision. For this reason, make sure you involve the right people from across departments during the trial process. 

Evaluate how a product solves your most pressing needs or how it suits the selection criteria you had prepared beforehand. This could mean trying as many features and tools as possible to unearth the strengths and weaknesses of a product.

Training and learning are critical for every business, be it a small, medium, or large one. Now that technology has taken over corporate training, the shift is becoming global and it doesn’t exclude any company:

• Small Businesses. Best LMS software systems are also designed to meet small businesses’ requirements for flexibility, namely to ensure employees 24/7 access to training and materials without spending a fortune to do it. Most generally, small businesses require SaaS solutions because they are more affordable, easier to implement, and less requiring to maintain.
• Medium Businesses. In the case of medium businesses, LMSs are recommended even if they have a healthy budget and streamlined workforce to train. What these programs can do for them is to save their time, and let them focus on more productive aspects of their work line. Besides, being in the mid-sized category usually indicates that the business is growing, and that’s where facilitating the hiring process is most necessary.
• Large Businesses. Finally, LMSs are very welcome on enterprise level too, because they lower large companies’ bottom lines. What this means is that large companies have a lot of employees to train, and a highly controlled budget to divide, and they can benefit from every solution that cuts their long-term costs.

Learning management system tools are a catch for heavy-equipped teams, and that’s mostly because of their ability to retain control of their training processes, regardless of the number of trainees involved. To start with, they make it incredibly easy to draft a variety of complex courses, in particular, those with sub-courses and individual modules for each student. The systems’ interface usually allows for branding and customization, providing unique login pages and benefits to students involved. At the same time, solid LMSs can be used for faster turnarounds, improved employee satisfaction rates, prosperous marketing strategies, or even payment and ecommerce control.

• TalentLMS: One of the best LMS software tools for delivering information and enhancing participation with a myriad of advanced capabilities such as web-conferencing, statistics, e-commerce, etc.
• Litmos LMS: Litmos LMS is one of the leading corporate learning systems on the market, and a traditional Salesforce partner for sales and service training and secure data exchange.
• Schoology: A revolutionary tool for learning and social networking that streamlines sharing and content management. It also offers a systematic approach to content creation.
• Docebo: One of the leading SaaS solutions (cloud solutions are also available) for small business and big companies that attend global customers and operate in 30 languages. It is also mobile-optimized and easy to integrate.
• Canvas LMS: A customizable solution that streamlines the relationship between learners and teachers, famous for a variety of unique and creative learning gadgets.
• Edmodo: Another reputable social learning system empowered with group learning and online classrooms, evaluation statistics, and gamification.
• SkyPrep: A highly intuitive and scalable LMS software solution designed to automate and streamline virtually all aspects of employee training. In addition to its simple interface, the solution delivers a plethora of features that enable organizations to train, examine, and manage learners.
• TalentCards: A robust corporate LMS platform built primarily to support microlearning initiatives. Boasting a suite of innovative features, the app enables organizations to train employees with easily-digestible course content.

Get info on the other leading apps in this category by reading our detailed article on the top 15 LMS solutions.

Depending on deployment, there are three different types of Learning Management Systems:

• On-Premise Learning Management Systems. Most of the time, learning management systems are sold to customers on premise, meaning that they are enterprise products hosted on a company’s own server. They are traditionally more expensive, but their price can be justified by the fact that they offer more customization and individualization than any other type, and they tackle scalability issues. Most of them can be integrated with other locally hosted products.
• SaaS Learning Management Systems. SaaS, or Software-as-a-Service systems are those hosted on the vendor’s server for you to access  from any location. They are known for being very flexible, and that’s because the vendor is in charge of upgrading them and providing IT support, while the user doesn’t need to care about scalability. Scaling them up or down is easy even without experience, and they are considerably less expensive than the on-premise ones.
• Cloud-Hosted Learning Management Systems. Cloud-hosted LMSs are probably the most popular option among companies looking for streamlined and cost-effective training. They are hosted on the Internet and accessed by logging on the vendors’ site, which is exactly where all communication and training is taking place. Due to the fact that there are no implementation and maintenance costs, they rank as the least expensive solutions for online training.

LMS solutions vary as oranges are to lemons, but they do belong to the same family and share common features and purposes. A good LMS solution should help you do the following basic processes:

• Create Self-Registration – if you’re targeting a large pool of learners an automated self-registration feature is a must. Otherwise, registering a small class can be done manually.
• Create a Portal for Course Materials – If you’re into LMS for a long time, having a single location of past and current course materials makes it easier to retrieve data, reuse materials, or organize courses.
• Create a Knowledge Base or Self-Service Portal – learners and educators will need assistance to use the LMS, but you won’t have the time to answer all questions. A self-service section should address FAQs or collate best practices and case studies.
• Assemble Course Materials by Categories – you should be able to arrange the courses by topics, subjects, authors, or curriculum order to help learners and educators sort through the materials
• Create Groups or Teams – this feature lets you conduct group classes, which is useful for group orientations or team workshops
• Customize Course Delivery – the ability to customize the delivery of materials based on the student’s learning curve can increase completion and competency rates
• Create a Course Funnel – lets you offer programs where learners can level up or down across curricula or courses
• Create Quizzes and Tests – lets you assess students’ performance or competency before, during, or after the course program
• Export/Import – you should be able to migrate, among others, course materials, reports, and registries to popular document files like PDF, TXT, JPEG, CVS, and DOC in case you need to use other business systems 

In addition, the features below make an LMS solution more robust, but they usually cost more, so skip them if the budget is tight:

• Custom Branding – lets you dress up the user interface with your corporate logo and colors
• Robust Calendar – lets you create events, invite participants, perform self-registration, and track attendance in one module
• Robust Analytics – allows you to get real-time view on training or generate team-based reports on top of basic reporting
• Mobile Platform – allows learners to access your courses via their smartphone or tablet
• Video Library – lets you create video courses
• Shopping Cart – lets you sell your courses off the LMS infrastructure
• API – lets you integrate the LMS to your other business solutions, such as, finance, CRM, helpdesk, and ecommerce
• Surveys – to get feedback and insights from learners and educators

Learning Management Systems are invaluable tools for individual and corporate training. They streamline the relationship between teachers and learners and store all useful information in centralized databases from where it can be easily accessed. That means that they turn learning into a centralized process because all training, performance, and development happen at the very same location. Delivery of materials is easy due to their social networking properties, and modules are flexible enough to be personalized to meet every need and style.

What is really precious about LMSs is that they offer accurate and simple evaluation mechanisms, and keep records, which can determine the overall success of the team and lead to smarter decisions. The cost and time loss of traditional learning are eliminated, because attendance is made easy, and materials are accessible anywhere, at any time.

Additionally, upgrades can be made fairly easy, especially when the system is hosted on the cloud and doesn’t require individual version control. Requirements are automatically met, and users are instantly informed upon them. Overall, LMSs are made to simplify learning. They are rich with tools and gadgets that help both learners to understand content and teachers to administer the process.

These are exciting features you might come across in newer or more established  LMS solutions. Many of these trends will likely be the standard in future LMS solutions, so pay close attention to them.

• Content Creation – advanced LMS solutions now incorporate authoring tools to create courses inside the system. Furthermore, these courses can be linked to the LMS ecommerce platform so you have a seamless process of developing, selling and delivering content.  Look for a SCORM-certified authoring platform. SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model, a set of standards that lets course developers share materials across LMS solutions. In short, creating a course in a SCORM-certified environment allows you to reuse content in other SCORM-certified software.
• Performance Management System – robust LMS solutions include this module, which allows educators and course administrators to appraise students’ performance or identify skills gap to fine-tune individual curriculum. Some LMS also offer a 360-degree review, where both students and educators exchange feedback about each other.
• Recruitment and Reward – some LMS solutions provide this feature to help you market the courses to a wider territory by giving incentives to re-sellers or referrals

• Talent Management Integration – as LMS solutions become more robust, functions like employee appraisal and training are integrated; hence, expect tighter integration between LMS and talent management solutions n the future.

Here are a few aspects to consider to avoid escalating a minor issue today into a major problem tomorrow:

• Export/Import is limited – at the least, you should be able to export to PDF or TXT, but preferably, you should be allowed to export to CSV or XLS for database, JPEG/PNG for images, and MP3 or SWF for videos. As you build up course materials, you’ll need more flexibility to migrate files to and from the LMS system. Furthermore, an important client in the future may request a specific file format and you’ll be glad you can.
• No SCORM certification – SCORM lets you use/reuse course content in other SCORM-certified LMS solutions. Anticipate that you may need a feature in another LMS solution that is not present in your current LMS. Having SCORM-certified content gives you flexibility and convenience.
• Hidden fees – read beyond the published rate and check the terms no matter how cumbersome. Make sure the pricing term is clear (is it per user or per course? annual or monthly); otherwise, ask the vendor. The vendor’s response will also give you a hint on the kind of support to expect once you’ve subscribed to the LMS.

LMS is a fast-growing industry, so expect newer features sooner than later. The key is to keep tabs on the latest trends, issues, vendors, and applications (we’ll help you) or, to put it squarely, keep learning about LMS.

SCORM. It allows you to create content within the LMS and format it in a way that’s shareable across the whole platform.

Tin Can/xAPI. This elearning specification allows the learning systems and learning content to remain in sync and to speak to each other. Ultimately, Tin Can ensures that all types of learning experiences are recorded in your Learning Record Store (LRS).

LMS LTI. The Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) is a popular specification type introduced by the IMS Global Learning Consortium. It’s aimed at web-based elearning content and apps that are hosted remotely. Many of the LMS software of today adhere to this specification and help you import LTI content as learning objects into the Central Learning Repository and courses.

AICC. This was the first elearning standard that was introduced to ensure content adheres to CMI-5 specifications. It facilitated the communication between elearning content and the LMS platform via the HAC protocols.

There are three basic LMS pricing models, namely:

Freemium. These are LMS platforms that offer basic features at no cost. However, they charge a fee for more advanced functionalities like advanced reporting, add-ons, and upgrades.

Subscription. Generally, subscription-based pricing models grant you unfettered access to all the product features. It’s arguably the most popular pricing model that involves a fee based on the number of users or active users. The pricing model works best for small organizations and startups that want to cut the cost of administering online training and scale up with ease as they expand.

Licensing. Instead of charging a fee based on the number of users, some vendors offer pricing plans that involve a licensing fee. Typically with the licensing model, you pay an outright upfront lifetime fee or an annual fee to get unlimited access to the product’s features.