Absorb LMS vs. TalentLMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Absorb LMS
Score 9.1 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 8.5 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
Absorb LMSTalentLMS
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
Absorb LMSTalentLMS
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
Absorb LMSTalentLMS
Considered Both Products
Absorb LMS
Chose Absorb LMS
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 LMS
Absorb LMS had the richest feature set for relative cost and promised seamless integration with ADP Workforce Now (somewhat overpromised).
Chose Absorb LMS
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
Absorb LMSTalentLMS
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
153 Ratings
9% above category average
TalentLMS
8.3
50 Ratings
2% above category average
Course authoring8.5120 Ratings8.434 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.6133 Ratings8.034 Ratings
Player/Portal8.9137 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content9.2111 Ratings7.931 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.6107 Ratings8.544 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.8145 Ratings8.949 Ratings
Assignments9.8124 Ratings8.446 Ratings
Compliance management9.8119 Ratings8.742 Ratings
Learning administration9.6149 Ratings8.749 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.8146 Ratings8.647 Ratings
Social learning7.578 Ratings7.122 Ratings
Gamification6.975 Ratings7.524 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.7112 Ratings8.726 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSTalentLMS
Small Businesses
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 8.9 out of 10
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 8.9 out of 10
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 8.9 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 LMSTalentLMS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(156 ratings)
8.9
(51 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(8 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(59 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(142 ratings)
8.9
(44 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(3 ratings)
9.2
(28 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
4.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.2
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSTalentLMS
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.
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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.
  • 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.
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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.
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
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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.
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.
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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.
[...] 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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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
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Epignosis
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.
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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 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.

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