Posted by In the last two years (it may have started last year, the brain is a fog), I announced the Top 10 LMSs for that year, right before the Top 50 LMS Report was on the market for purchase.
With everything that has been going in the last week or so (it seems longer I know), I felt a good cheer was needed.
Something to brighten one’s day. Something that isn’t going to get scrubbed any time soon.
And to really push up the thrill, the Top 10 listing will be covered in two parts. Part 1, rankings #10 to #6.
Next week on Feb. 3rd, #5 to #1.
Why?
Hey, best to have one gift now, then another next week, in ranking terms. After all, the report will zoom into availability starting on Feb. 7th.
Speaking of which,
The Report is available. Buy it today!
General fun stuff.. or, why are they not in the report stuff when others say they rock.
For 2017, I really wanted to mix things up. Expansion of information and latest details and insight were a must.
The design has tweaked with graphs, “Craig’s Take“, “Let’s go to the Scorecard“, “screenshots showing what the learner sees as their home page, what the admin sees as their home page and a screen of an analytics/report page”, along with a few other goodies.
Criteria
I’ve covered the criteria approach in a previous post and will note that for 2017, I analyzed 1,000 vendors from around the world. These included LMSs and the various subsets that exist out there, plus any LCMS too.
If someone is only a mobile learning platform, they were examined as well. In other words, if you are a knowledge engagement platform, congrats you were assessed.
I wanted to really change the way we look at the market today. And as the market evolves it is imperative that any analyst firm or person(s) changes too.
Rather than just focusing on similarities, better to look at various niches and use the criteria that it set forth, but modifying it for that specific sub-genre.
It isn’t fair to look at a courseware LMS (where the LMS is a toss in and thus will be more streamlined and not as robust as some might want) and compare it to an LMS that is robust and not in that sub-genre.
Nor is it fair to look at a social learning platform with base LMS criteria and compare that to a video learning platform. Two completly different entities.
It is like looking at an Avocado and comparing it to a Banana.
Both tasty, but one is great for making dip, the other for sticking in chocolate (and freezing it).
A chocolate covered Avocado does not taste the same, regardless if you freeze it or not.
Thus there are systems in this year’s Top 50, that you may say “how did they get there when blah blah didn’t?”, and well, after you review all the criteria and now understand the comparison (i.e category to category, sub-genre to sub-genre, vertical to vertical), I think you will agree.
Or maybe not. In that case, try out a chocolate covered avocado (post peeling).
One last thing, because people always inquire
- These rankings and everything contained within them and the report itself, is 100% independent, fair and honest.
- I NEVER accept pay for play, kickbacks, affiliate things ( I never and will never be anyone’s affiliate), and NEVER accept money of any sort for putting A or B into the rankings. If you like places that are in the “grey” area then their report(s) will, sure to satisfy you.
- This is a global report, which means systems from all over the world were looked at. Today, I track 1,287 systems around the world. That’s a lot of systems.
- In this year’s Top 50 vendors are from: United States, United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Ireland), Italy, Germany, France, Brazil, Netherlands, India and Canada
- In the Top 10 alone: United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Canada.
- There are a few newbies in this year’s top 10 – including one that is really a newbie as in debuting in 2016.
- Finally, I never include a vendor’s retention rate or support rate, number of users or clients they have – as factors in my rankings.
Top 10 (Rank, Vendor (with link), brief couple of sentences). The profiles are much, much more extensive in the report.
#10 to #6
#10 Grovo – It is a courseware LMS that meets a need in the industry, specifically the courseware LMS market, where folks are seeking a learning platform as a component to the purchase of the content/courses contained within (as the primary).
The UI/UX is well done. The admin side works as a streamlined serving. If you want the best courseware LMS on the market here it is.
#9 LearnUpon – One of my favorite systems on the market and one that constantly delivers a very good feature set, with easy to use UI on the learner and admin side.
Fresh in it’s appearance, but make no mistake it can be a workhorse. Offers multi-tenant, for those wondering and xAPI.
#8 Litmos – Years ago, when Litmos was launched is was a cutting edge, user friendly system. Some where along the way, it lost touch. Now, it returns with full force.
From the newest feature of video assessment to extensive list of apps (including Shopify), to well, a lot under the sun and around the universe, it is time to once again, welcome them back. With vengeance. BTW, you could use the system for B2B/B2C without going to the training ops version, in case you are wondering.
#7 Create LMS – A vendor to definitely watch in the coming year, who understands where the market needs to go and how to get there.
Some juicy tidbits – UI/UX nice – the streamlined analytics for now (they are eyeing advanced with data visualization by end of 17 – SWEET), nice feature set and coming in March an updated version of their social including social playlists. Mobile already has on/off synch with iOS and Android apps and by end of 17, voice recognition and AI too.
#6 Axonify
One of the next breed of vendors in our space, who call themselves by one name, but deep down IMO they are an LMS with some very groovy feature sets (in a good way).
Game based learning as micro courses is in play (golf anyone?), along with gamification and everything from mobile to Learnerzone, oh and a toss in of multi-tenant to boot.
A feature that is sure to delight? Behavior observations and measurements – for those folks who are wanting the day to day knowledge retention angle (aka day to day task list).
Bottom Line
There they are, #10 to #6. Gaze upon them. Click and explore.
Then when it comes time to buy the Report, do so, to learn more.
For those wondering who is in the Top Five, see below
- eLogic Learning
- ExpertusOne
- Growth Engineering
- Unicorn LMS (note the name is changing, from SkillsServe to Unicorn LMS)
- Docebo
– but be aware that they are just a list without their specific ranking to be shown.
That will come next week.
Treats, galore!
E-Learning 24/7
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