Top 10 Elearning LMS

Take charge of your team’s training and onboarding programs with an elearning LMS. Through these tools, you can make sure that everything from your course authoring process to lesson deployment runs smoothly. In this article, we’ll help you compare different LMS so you can decide which one is the best fit for your team.

Best Elearning LMS – SC Training (formerly EdApp)

With their multi-award winning elearning LMS, SC Training (formerly EdApp) is setting new standards for companies all across the world by making training enjoyable, quick, regular, and convenient. It also offers tons of cool social learning features like leaderboards that motivate learners to engage with their training and interact with their team members. 

Thanks to SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s easy-to-use creator tool and powerful learning management features, organizations now have access to an elearning LMS that is adaptable enough to be used across many corporate functions like IT and human resources. The microlearning platform can also be used by organizations from different industries such as hospitality, construction, manufacturing, and healthcare. 

Great elearning content creation requires time but if you don’t have enough to spare to create your own training programs, that’s where SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s course creation service comes in.

Cost: Free (up to 10 users)

The Pros:

• Built-in gamification features
• Spaced repetition (by request only) feature helps embed concepts into long-term memory
• Leaderboards for a more engaged team
• Course creation services help teams create expertly designed, bespoke training

Start training your team with our elearning LMS. Sign Up for Free.

1. Employment Hero

Employment Hero is an LMS eLearning that helps small to medium-sized businesses to manage HR, payroll, performance, learning, recognition, and employee benefits from one integrated platform.

Employment Hero improves the employee experience by giving people the opportunity to:

• Self-serve by performing transactional tasks such as submitting leave requests and viewing payslips.
• Use a mobile app to access the discounts marketplace to buy things like cheap movie tickets while on the go.
• Access discounts and benefits to help boost mental, physical, and financial well-being.

Employment Hero’s employee dashboard

The Pros:

• Integrates with Xero, MYOB, and Keypay
• SCORM compliant
• Suitable for mobile and blended learning
• Pre-made learning courses available

The Cons:

• Australian-centric product, meaning not all features are available for international or global companies
• No gamification or video conference features
• HR centric so not suitable for a single-use LMS
• No editable courseware available
• Limited authoring capabilities

2. NextThought

NextThought was founded in 2011. This platform is committed to driving next-generation learning for teams. This other LMS example has done well in harnessing the digitally enabled social aspects of the learning experience. NextThought achieves social inclusion through real-time chat, online communities, and collaborative features (e.g., contextual conversations).

The Pros:

• Gamification, mobile and blended learning available
• Private and public learning communities
• Real-time chat during virtual classes (only)
• SCORM compliant
• Integrates with major third-party vendors

The Cons:

• Monthy and annual tiered subscriptions for different inclusions. For example, NextThoughts’ starter offers 24/5 email support, whereas their Growth offers higher access to support.
• Only a free trial is available but then the cost goes up (tiered)
• Discussion feature on videos is not real-time, limiting social learning capabilities
• Authoring tool can be challenging to use, especially around creating surveys

3. Acorn

Acorn is a cloud-based LMS software application that launched in 2014. This LMS eLearning platform is used by the Australian Federal Government and close to 100 non-profits and small to midsize businesses.

While Acorn does offer some gamification features, they are not as extensive as the SC Training (formerly EdApp) platform. For example, they do not have leader boards, levels, points, and rewards on offer to create a ‘fun’ and engaging learning experience.

The Pros:

• SCORM compliant
• Customer support
• Integrates with HR systems – useful for administration tasks
• Monetary option available to sell your courseware
• Customizable

The Cons:

• Expensive monthly subscription starting at 00 for less than 100 users and .50 per user for 101-500 users
• No free trial available
• Limited gamification features
• No leaderboards, levels, points, or rewards available

4. eFront

eFront is suitable for large companies that require advanced security measures and extensive training customizations to their training. This LMS eLearning platform is highly sophisticated and offers blended learning, gamification features (incl. badges, levels, and leaderboards), and notification alerts.

Unlike some of the top free learning management systems available online, eFront comes with an expensive price tag and does require some coding skills – especially when migrating data across from another LMS platform.

eFront badges (or “medals”) are visual stamps are unlocked on certain achievements. These get displayed on the employee’s header and profile info.

The Pros:

• Security (audit logs, SSO, authentication)
• Available in 11 langauges
• SCORM, TinCan, and H5P compliant
• Includes gamification and mobile learning
• Integration capabilities

The Cons:

• Costly. The business plan will cost ,000 per month and it’s capped at 1,000 users
• Challenges experienced with migrating data from other LMS applications to eFront
• Some coding and skills required
• Limited reporting capabilities
• Online support only available during business hours

5. Donesafe

Donesafe is a cloud-based eLearning online learning management system that was founded in 2013. This company offers scalable training ranging from five to 100,000+ learners. Donesafe consolidates all Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) software into a single source of truth. This LMS eLearning platform allows companies to launch their blended learning content and create their resources.

Since this eLearning LMS specializes in the HSE function, it offers mobile learning features but limited social features such as gamification, leader boards, and video conferencing.

The Pros:

• Online support available
• Translation capabilities in 19 languages
• Mobile learning features
• SSO available

The Cons:

• Expensive platform – costs starting at 00
• No free trial available
• No gamification
• Doesn’t fit easily into a blended learning solution
• No video conferencing functionality

6. Knowmax

Knowmax aims to do more than simply deliver an eLearning LMS. The objective of this tool is to increase knowledge management more holistically. This will help companies and brands improve the customer experience.

A better customer experience is achieved by creating and distributing consistent knowledge flow across all or targeted customer touchpoints. Touchpoints can include employees in contact centers and across the field and digital channels such as chatbots and websites. Structured knowledge and targeted dissemination improve productivity and process efficiencies.

Knowmax platform.

The Pros:

• Knowledge management tools like chatbots available
• Supports translation into 14 languages
• Integrates with third-party learning engagement platforms like SalesForce and Zendesk

The Cons:

• Costly – starting at 4.99 per user
• Does not offer complete support packages
• Lacking built-in tools to boost results
• No editable course library
• No gamification

7. Blackboard

Blackboard is a leading eLearning LMS serving higher education, K-12, businesses, and governments globally. This LMS eLearning platform has been in operation for 20 years and has supported over 100 million learners.

Blackboard pride itself on its deep understanding of education and its belief in leveraging technology to improve its offering continually.

While they have an exceptional reputation and have built solid learning communities by leveraging technology, they appear to lag in the gamification features of mobile learning.

Blackboard platform supports mobile and desktop.

The Pros:

• SCORM compliant
• Mobile-friendly
• Customization capabilities for teachers and formal education
• Bilingual training options

The Cons:

• Costly platform with no free trial available
• The interface is dating, resulting in a clunky user experience
• Users have reported that the mobile app needs work – not a seamless experience
• No gamification features

8. Edmodo

Edmodo brings everyone together in the education community to help learners succeed. Edmodo is one of the leading K-12 social learning networks.

It achieves this by delivering a solution that combines eLearning and social media features similar to Facebook (see image to the right). The aim is to create an inclusive learning experience that involves teachers, students, and parents.

Since launching in 2008, Edmodo has helped over 100 million learners from across the globe. While the user experience is overwhelmingly positive – particularly from a social perspective – some functionality limitations make Edmodo unsuitable as a complete LMS eLearning package.

Edmodo platform – user experience.

The Pros:

• Social learning aspects for learners like knowledge exchange forums
• Simple set up
• Engagement functionalities
• Free trial and free option (but with limited inclusions)

The Cons:

• Pricing for access to the full platform is ,500 USD per school
• Online support only
• Difficult to download, upload, and edit documents from the platform
• Can be overwhelming to navigate, especially for the teacher
• Only available in English

9. Tovuti

Tovuti was founded in 2018. This fairly new eLearning LMS website is an all-in-one cloud-based tool that lets companies create, deliver, and track their online learning effectiveness. Some of the ways Tovuti creates a social eLearning experience is through:

• Social profiles – this is where employees can showcase their personality and connect with others.
• Communities – online forums where learners can knowledge share, form discussions, and break into small groups.

The Pros:

• Features like targetted training, reminders, and quizzes
• Supports microlearning structure
• SCORM compliant
• Integrates with third-party platforms

The Cons:

• Expensive monthly outlay, starting at 50 at a tiered pricing model
• Content authors and course admins found it difficult to learn and build the software
• Implementation can take longer than expected – up to months (rather than weeks or days)

Final thoughts

These days, technology system upgrades don’t take hours upon hours. Instead, they happen in a matter of minutes and occur more frequently.

As technology changes and people become savvier with using it, our training approaches will change as well. Training will occur more frequently in shorter (micro) learnings. We rate SC Training (formerly EdApp) as the top LMS eLearning performer because they meet the needs of an ever-changing, agile workforce.

Their creator tool makes it easy for trainers to modify the content in real time, and their engaging “gamified” mobile-based training makes learning fun and convenient.