Absorb LMS vs. NETLAB+

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
NETLAB+
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Network Development Group (NDG) offers NETLAB+ , supporting computer science and IT learning labs with remote access to IT infrastructure.N/A
Pricing
Absorb LMSNETLAB+
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSNETLAB+
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSNETLAB+
Features
Absorb LMSNETLAB+
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.6
162 Ratings
5% above category average
NETLAB+
7.7
2 Ratings
6% below category average
Course authoring9.0127 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.3141 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Player/Portal8.4146 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Learning content8.8119 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.7116 Ratings5.02 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.6154 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Assignments9.7133 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Compliance management9.8128 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Learning administration9.2158 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.8155 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Social learning6.286 Ratings5.02 Ratings
Gamification5.683 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.7120 Ratings00 Ratings
User Ratings
Absorb LMSNETLAB+
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(165 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(69 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.4
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.5
(151 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.5
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.1
(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
7.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 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
Absorb LMSNETLAB+
Likelihood to Recommend
Absorb Software Inc.
We use the system to automatically assign compliance courses to new hires. This varies by location and employee level. Absorb lets us dynamically enroll users in the required courses based on their geographic location and level. We use the system to build comprehensive leadership development programs for managers. This includes helping managers develop a coaching habit to build bench strength on their teams.
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Network Development Group (NDG)
For the classes throughout my degree program, this has been one of the most helpful tools that are available to us. The detailed explanations along with the screenshots of the tasks I am working on, have given me a comfortable learning environment where I am confident in a "real" network setting, the processes will come at ease
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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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Network Development Group (NDG)
  • Shared resources
  • Only requires a browser and Internet for access
  • Scheduling
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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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Network Development Group (NDG)
  • The inability to save progress! :-) As we go through the labs, time can be a very stressful aspect if I don't allow for enough in the beginning or underestimated the time it would take to complete.
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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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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
Usability
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb is a solid platform that is relatively easy to use for users and admins and provides basic features with minimal problems. Their support and sales staff are helpful and knowledgeable. There are some features that are less user friendly and more advanced features such as career pathing and advanced gamification are non-existent.
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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
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.
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Network Development Group (NDG)
I was not part of the decision & implementation process. But NETLAB as far as our other programs is at the top, because it is very easy to use, and I have very few reliability issues. I don't have crashing machines, and the detailed labs make it easy to follow.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Absorb Software Inc.
Seems very expensive for limitations we have experienced.
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Network Development Group (NDG)
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
No answers on this topic
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
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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Network Development Group (NDG)
  • The shared datacenter has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars that might have been spent by the 28 individual colleges it supports.
  • During the past year, and through the pandemic, over 130,000 hours of lab time were accrued.
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ScreenShots

Absorb LMS 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