Absorb LMS vs. Skilljar by Gainsight

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
Skilljar by Gainsight
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Skilljar’s Customer Education LMS Platform is a solution to educate, engage, and retain everyone a business interacts with. An external LMS for customer and partner education, it is a Gainsight solution since the 2025 acquisition.N/A
Pricing
Absorb LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
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 LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
Considered Both Products
Absorb LMS
Chose Absorb LMS
At the time of selection, we went with Absorb as they were one of the few that could handle online transactions for courses.

We are in the process of migrating to Skilljar and will be discontinuing our subscription to Absorb in 2018.
Skilljar by Gainsight
Chose Skilljar by Gainsight
Skilljar support is unparalleled compared to the above LMS platforms. They also allow us for more customization options than the above. We migrated from Absorb LMS and recently moved from Docebo LMS to Workday Learning for internal training.
Chose Skilljar by Gainsight
Skilljar Customer Education Software has a solid reputation and has more integration possibilities tan Absorb LMS and Docebo Learning.
Chose Skilljar by Gainsight
Skilljar is the best LMS for Quorum’s training needs. While Skilljar is missing a few features offered by their also highly-rated competitors, Docebo and Absorb, they offer a cheaper and more simple pricing model. They also offer a better user experience and more features than W…
Chose Skilljar by Gainsight
Over the past 12 years I've had the opportunity to evaluate, implement, and administer a half dozen Learning Management Systems (LMS), including Intellum, Cornerstone, Absorb, Adobe Connect, Oracle Learning, and Workday, and without question, Skilljar has beat them all at …
Chose Skilljar by Gainsight
Skilljar is much easier to use but also could improve certain features, like the file types. But the interface is much easier than Absorb and the team is much easier to work with.
Features
Absorb LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
153 Ratings
9% above category average
Skilljar by Gainsight
9.3
26 Ratings
8% above category average
Course authoring8.5120 Ratings10.022 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.6133 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Player/Portal8.9137 Ratings9.021 Ratings
Learning content9.2111 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.6107 Ratings10.020 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.8145 Ratings8.026 Ratings
Assignments9.8124 Ratings10.019 Ratings
Compliance management9.8119 Ratings8.517 Ratings
Learning administration9.6149 Ratings10.024 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.8146 Ratings9.526 Ratings
Social learning7.578 Ratings9.014 Ratings
Gamification6.975 Ratings8.53 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.7112 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Customer Training Tools
Comparison of Customer Training Tools features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
-
Ratings
Skilljar by Gainsight
9.7
3 Ratings
0% above category average
Customer Feedback Collection00 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Customer Training Library Curation00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
User Permissioning00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
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
Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Absorb LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(156 ratings)
9.5
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(8 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(59 ratings)
10.0
(53 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(142 ratings)
9.0
(52 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(3 ratings)
9.0
(1 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)
-
(0 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 LMSSkilljar by Gainsight
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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Gainsight
Skilljar is fantastic for structured onboarding processes. If you're
looking to streamline and standardize the onboarding experience for your
customers, especially for software or complex products, this platform
is a gem. It allows you to create step-by-step courses guiding users
through functionalities, reducing confusion and accelerating their
learning curve.When you need versatility in content delivery, Skilljar is spot-on.
Whether it's video tutorials, interactive quizzes, downloadable
resources, or live webinars, the platform accommodates various formats.
It's perfect for accommodating different learning styles and ensuring
engagement.
For scenarios that demand highly complex simulations or immersive
learning experiences, Skilljar's capabilities might fall short. While it
supports interactive elements, extremely sophisticated simulations
might require additional specialized software or platforms.
Read full review
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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Gainsight
  • Unlimited courses, learning paths, quizzes, pages, plans, and certifications
  • Ease of use for students, administrators, and content creators
  • Customer Success and Service are top notch. The CSMs are genuinely committed to helping you achieve your metrics and goals
  • Asking for and listening to customer feedback for enhancements
  • Developer Center where people with little to no coding experience can learn how to use and apply HTML templates and code snippets to customize your site
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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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Gainsight
  • Would love to see parent/child courses so that when something is updated in the parent course that change is automatically reflected in the clones of that course.
  • Features that allow for the translation of content to allow access to content across languages.
  • Re-onboarding process when the usage of Skilljar changes hands within out company in order to address knowledge gaps.
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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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Gainsight
I like what you are using and how we are doing it. Also, changing systems is a lot of work
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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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Gainsight
The learning curve for Skilljar is not too steep, and I've renewed our contract twice now. I've been able to add additional administrators and get them up to speed on platform functionality within a day. Plus, Skilljar provides awesome resources to help you learn how to use is. The Help Center has articles for almost everything, and when in doubt, their amazing CSMs (like ours, ...) provide exemplary support/advice.
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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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Gainsight
No answers on this topic
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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Gainsight
No answers on this topic
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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Gainsight
I have opened several support cases in the past and at times felt like little was being done to resolve the issues I was having. For example, when searching the use against a training credit, Skilljar said the code was fully used, yet only 1 had been used. The support team seemed to not have interest in learning why this was happening and ensuring it does not happen again. The issue was resolved with this particular case, but I have no idea if it was the only training credit having this issue. At times I feel like the issues we encounter do not seem as important to the support team
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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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Gainsight
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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Gainsight
Do a good job of preparing your internal teams (IT, Salesforce, etc.) about the work they will have in the process
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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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Gainsight
Skilljar provides stronger customization features, more code snippet options, more styling tools, and more effective integrations. These include Credly, Salesforce, and SCORM. Additionally, the catalog is all part of the same system, making it easy to manage. The analytics tools are also more robust, and the customer service is much more helpful and responsive
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Absorb Software Inc.
Seems very expensive for limitations we have experienced.
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Gainsight
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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Gainsight
No answers on this topic
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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Gainsight
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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Gainsight
  • Our customers seem to be getting onboarded efficiently. Giving our customers a good experience helps us retain them longer.
  • So far, we are still not able to come up with solid metrics that it provides evidence of ROI. If Skilljar could somehow come up with clear, actionable metrics about customer success and how that relates to ROI then I think it would be vastly better. To be fair, we roll the cost of using Skilljar in the overall price, otherwise, we would charge customers and have a revenue stream to measure.
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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.

Skilljar by Gainsight Screenshots

Screenshot of the Skilljar Dashboard, where all needed tools are accessed through a single interface.Screenshot of The training portal, which is the URL where published courses will be located, and where trainees can register for, access and complete training.

This URL can be set up as a custom domain using a website, like training.yoursite.com. Or a Skilljar domain can be used, like yoursite.skilljar.com. The look of the training portal can be customized to match a company's brand and colors.Screenshot of some of the analytics to measure  and track learner progress, in the analytics suite where content success is analyzedScreenshot of content that can be offered with Skilljar’s authoring tools. Multiple learning pathways based on user role, skillset, or use case can be created, as well as native video and audio with embedding from external hostsScreenshot of the built-in assessment & certifications engine that enables users to showcase their expertise, along with built-in assessment tools and verifiable badges and certificates.