Absorb vs. TalentLMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Absorb
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
TalentLMS
Score 8.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
TalentLMS is an LMS built for training success, presented as fully customizable and easy to manage, so that teams embrace training while feeling right at home. It is used to provide the right training to any team and every use, while giving expert guidance and support every step of the way.
$149
per month 1-40 users
Pricing
AbsorbTalentLMS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Core
$149
per month 1-40 users
Grow
$299
per month 1-70 users
Pro
$579
per month 1-100 users
Enterprise (Custom plan)
Custom
annual plan Starts at 1000 users
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AbsorbTalentLMS
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsUsers can stay on the Forever Free plan and upgrade, or downgrade or cancel at any time. Higher volume plans available at additional cost. Discount available for annual billing, and for nonprofits.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AbsorbTalentLMS
Considered Both Products
Absorb
Chose Absorb
I previously tested three more but cant remember what they are as it was a while ago, but Absorb was the only one that answered the 58 questions/ tasks i needed it to achieve.
Chose Absorb
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.
Chose Absorb
Absorb LMS had the richest feature set for relative cost and promised seamless integration with ADP Workforce Now (somewhat overpromised).
Chose Absorb
Absorb LMS had far more white labelling and customisation which is essential for our business use. Talent LMS does not allow downloading of content authoring files, effectively locking you into their platform. Articulate has great content authoring functionality but it staggers …
TalentLMS
Chose TalentLMS
TalentLMS is way easier to use than Absorb and less expensive.
Features
AbsorbTalentLMS
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
8.7
163 Ratings
5% above category average
TalentLMS
8.4
50 Ratings
2% above category average
Course authoring9.2128 Ratings8.634 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.3142 Ratings8.234 Ratings
Player/Portal8.4147 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content8.9120 Ratings8.231 Ratings
Mobile friendly8.0117 Ratings8.644 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.6155 Ratings9.049 Ratings
Assignments9.7134 Ratings8.546 Ratings
Compliance management9.8129 Ratings8.842 Ratings
Learning administration9.3159 Ratings8.849 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.9156 Ratings8.847 Ratings
Social learning6.186 Ratings7.322 Ratings
Gamification6.184 Ratings7.624 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.8121 Ratings8.826 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AbsorbTalentLMS
Small Businesses
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.6 out of 10
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.6 out of 10
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
AITalent LMS
AITalent LMS
Score 9.3 out of 10
AITalent LMS
AITalent LMS
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AbsorbTalentLMS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(166 ratings)
8.9
(51 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(9 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(70 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(5 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(5 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(152 ratings)
8.8
(44 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.5
(4 ratings)
9.3
(28 ratings)
Configurability
7.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
4.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(5 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AbsorbTalentLMS
Likelihood to Recommend
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb LMS has been incredibly well suited to our business needs. It is a robust platform with a wide ranges of tools, which make it easy to implement whatever training is desired. While there are many tools and options, the system itself is not overwhelming. The team we have worked with at Absorb (Jordan Wolf and Steve Ernstes) made onboarding, implementation, and continued customer support a breeze. The amount of support we received when we did encounter small issues was amazing.
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Epignosis
TalentLMS is user-friendly enough for someone new to LMS management can get a site up and running in a relatively quick manner. It is rather intuitive to operate. My needs have been a rather small scale of 400 learners and TalentLMS more than meets the need to produce a professional-looking and operational website to send customers and staff. The point here is that although I do not know how well it can be up-scaled, it certainly delivers for small to medium organizations to need to get content online
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Pros
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Overall, Absorb LMS is pretty easy to use for learners and especially for admins. It's practical to create and manage course content - it provides the most crucial options and yet is lean enough not to overcomplicate the admin's life. The consistent and customizable "table-view" in most of the admin-areas is very helpful and easy to follow.
  • Using Enrollment Rules, Absorb LMS let you define who a course applies to and how they get enrolled. You can build rules based on learner attributes, such as department, location job role, group, to include or exclude specific audiences. The way Absorb LMS is using enrollment attributes, no other LMS actually can fulfill our requirements easier. Enrollment rules are mainly embedded in individual course options (you can also create scheduled enrollments outside of the courses).
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Epignosis
  • Report creation and distribution
  • Course creation, launch, and individual assignments
  • End user friendly for people with little computer skills
  • API integration with such platforms as ADP, Microsoft.
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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
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Epignosis
  • Email notifications have arbitrary limits on what information can be included. For example, you cannot include the user password in any notification email regarding course enrollment, group enrollment, etc.
  • Notification emails are not sent out in a reasonable time frame. Sometimes, it takes over 20 minutes for a new user to get their registration email.
  • It would be nice to get reports in the base domain containing customer user fields from various branches.
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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.
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Epignosis
The ease of use, the robustness of the offering, and familiarity. It does everything we need and probably more. We likley don't utilize all the functionality it has as it does what we want it to without having to dig that deep into its tools. Their course library also has saved us some time in terms of saving time from creating some basic courses.
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Usability
Absorb Software Inc.
The system is very flexible, allowing admins to build dashboards that offer different UX and UI for different roles. The increase in usability is great for engagement and one-click actions. In addition to the dashboards, the admin interface is intuitive and allows managers to easily access reports for their teams.
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Epignosis
The system is intuitive. It does not have a lot of features that are hidden behind secret menus or elsewhere. There are often multiple ways to get to the same place through different menus without having to go back to the home or root menu. It makes things pretty easy. Additionally, if there is something I can't figure out, there is documentation available to help with that.
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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
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Epignosis
I have never run into an issue with downtime in 5 plus years.
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Performance
Absorb Software Inc.
We have experienced infrequent issues with things like load times on reporting, or pages timing out, but for the large majority of our time within the system things have worked as they should
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Epignosis
It loads fast. Screen transitions are quick. Nothing seems to ever lag.
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Support Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
My client success manager had to reach out once for our company once. Although it was not an Absorb issue (it was an issue on the course vendor side), Absorb offered a resolution while the vendor was fixing the issue. We were very happy with the resolution and feel like Absorb went above and beyond for us.
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Epignosis
Quick answer, comprehensive, and customized. I sent an email with multiple questions and feedback about their new UI, and the agent addressed all of them directly and honestly no sugar-coating and no call center lingo. Most questions can also be addressed directly in their UI with a really good help center widget.
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Online Training
Absorb Software Inc.
The training was comprehensive - there were existing modules to learn functionality but working with Absorb staff, and receiving recordings of those walk-throughs, made a rapid understanding of the LMS achievable and covered the necessary material that was needed and allowed for specific questions to be addressed.
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Epignosis
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.
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Epignosis
Implementation was relatively easy. When we set up a second branch, we needed a little help. But the support area is well-detailed. My clients had no experience with an LMS and their digital skills were limited. We had a long way to go. Nevertheless, it was relatively easy. It was rather quick!
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Alternatives Considered
Absorb Software Inc.
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.
Read full review
Epignosis
Both are good, but the pricing and general value proposition of Talent LMS are better than Trainual in my opinion. Trainual is a bit more modern and cleaner looking from a user interface perspective, but it comes at a higher cost. Both platforms provide very similar features in the way of general functionality and user experience, but Talent LMS wins because of its better pricing model.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Absorb Software Inc.
Seems very expensive for limitations we have experienced.
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Epignosis
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.
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Epignosis
The product can create as similar or unique experiences for different branches as you want for training purposes
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Professional Services
Absorb Software Inc.
We work directly with Kirsten Spak, who has continuously
provided timely and quality help for myself as the lead and our organization.
Kirsten has helped us ensure that we are going about things as efficiently and
is always willing to walk through things to demonstrate suggestions and
functions. As we look to expand our offerings further, Kirsten has helped
strategize for the best approach, which has helped our workflow and the
end-user experience. As we are still relatively new users, but using the LMS
every day, Kirsten has been very patient and provided clear instruction on
processes when we were unsure of what to do and has been able to troubleshoot,
with her team, functions that were desired but not availability at the time, to
provide us with solutions.
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Epignosis
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Absorb Software Inc.
  • We used Absorb LMS to track Annual Safety Training to ensure compliance with inspectors and ensure our teammates understand the risks and how to mitigate them safely. We were never able to track this before and thus, we simply didn't have mandatory annual training.
  • A huge drawback prior to implementation of Absorb LMS was our inability to offer more than our 40 purchased e-courses to our employees. These were mostly safety and equipment based courses, so we didn't have any soft skill development happening. Now we have hundreds of courses available from the Absorb library that cover the safety aspects, but we also have dozens of leadership courses, communication and influence courses, etc. It has been a huge gamechanger for our employees and their development opportunities! When I look at our course library, there are 400 courses, which over 300 being available through Absorb library (the other 80+ were made using Absorb Create).
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Epignosis
  • Managers have used this internally to get new employees up to speed and trained faster. It's a great onboarding tool.
  • Externally, we help our customers better self-serve when they understand the software they are using. This reduces calls to Customer Support.
  • We've used training as an added incentive for our customers to maintain a higher level of service, resulting in increased ARR.
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ScreenShots

Absorb Screenshots

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 course creation with Create AI Beta.Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

TalentLMS Screenshots

Screenshot of TalentLMS' learner view of a courseScreenshot of TalentLMS' training reportsScreenshot of TalentLMS's AI-powered Content CreatorScreenshot of the TalentLMS dashboardScreenshot of where to customize the TalentLMS portal