Canvas vs. Skilljar by Gainsight

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Canvas
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Instructure is an educational software company based in Sandy, Utah. It is the developer of the Canvas learning management system, which is a comprehensive software package that competes with such systems as Blackboard Learning System, SumTotal and Saba.N/A
Skilljar by Gainsight
Score 9.0 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
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact vendor for pricing information.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Considered Both Products
Canvas

No answer on this topic

Skilljar by Gainsight
Chose Skilljar by 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 …
Features
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Canvas
9.8
41 Ratings
18% above category average
Skilljar by Gainsight
9.3
26 Ratings
8% above category average
Course authoring9.941 Ratings10.022 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.738 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Player/Portal9.832 Ratings9.021 Ratings
Learning content9.834 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly9.940 Ratings10.020 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.837 Ratings8.026 Ratings
Assignments9.941 Ratings10.019 Ratings
Compliance management9.732 Ratings8.517 Ratings
Learning administration9.836 Ratings10.024 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics9.838 Ratings9.526 Ratings
Social learning9.833 Ratings9.014 Ratings
Gamification9.42 Ratings8.53 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.72 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Customer Training Tools
Comparison of Customer Training Tools features of Product A and Product B
Canvas
-
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
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Small Businesses
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.6 out of 10
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Schoology Learning
Schoology Learning
Score 9.6 out of 10
Intellum
Intellum
Score 7.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(83 ratings)
9.5
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(5 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(9 ratings)
10.0
(53 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(11 ratings)
9.0
(52 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.5
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CanvasSkilljar by Gainsight
Likelihood to Recommend
Instructure
It is really well suited for school situations like knowing what [assignments] need to be done when, getting feedback, getting points, finding the slides that the teacher used for explaining an [assignment] or theory. I think It would be less suited in business situations because it's [primarily] made to be a [one-way] communication tool for schools. Businesses need more control on individual levels I think[.]
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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
Instructure
  • Creativity options for teachers to create a virtual space that still has fun graphics and accessibility options.
  • Canvas has versatility in viewing options for assignment due dates such as the calendar built in feature as well as the dashboard options to display upcoming and due assignments.
  • Allowing teachers to create community with each other and collaborate in each-other's space.
  • Discussion platforms within classrooms for students to communicate with each-other and with their teachers.
  • Easy messaging portal within each virtual classroom.
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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
Instructure
  • Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets.
  • Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers.
  • They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors.
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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
Instructure
The other LMS tools have fallen behind. One reason is they are not able to update their systems, features, toolsets in a timely manner. While other LMS providers release bug fixes and new features several times a year, schools struggle to install and implement them in a timely manner. It is not uncommon for a school to take 6 months to a year to fully install and implement new releases on other LMS platforms. With Canvas, those features are released every 3 weeks, and there is nothing for a school to do other than choose to turn them on once released. This has allowed Instructure to innovate faster, and get new features and tools to customers quicker. Other factors include great pricing, customer support, and the innovative way in which LTI is implemented in the tool.
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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
Read full review
Usability
Instructure
The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software
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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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Support Rating
Instructure
I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas
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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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In-Person Training
Instructure
The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user
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Gainsight
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Instructure
The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system.
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Gainsight
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Instructure
Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January
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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
Instructure
Canvas is more secure, has a cleaner design, and has more features. For the features, they have in common canvas still stacks up against [Smart school] by going for the extra mile. Besidfor e that, [the] canvas looks a lot more [professional] than [Smart school]. I didn't make the decision myself to get canvas instead of [Smart school] but I'm happy they did.
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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
Read full review
Return on Investment
Instructure
  • Canvas has helped us provide a more robust online component to our courses.
  • Canvas has helped us better adapt to a rapidly changing educational landscape.
  • Canvas has reduced the time that we have to spend training faculty on how to use our learning management system.
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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

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.