Absorb LMS vs. Articulate 360

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Absorb LMS
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
Articulate 360
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Articulate 360 is an e-learning platform for creating workplace training. Users can build engaging courses with AI-enhanced authoring, simplify collaboration, and quickly share content. A subscription includes robust onboarding resources and access to a community of 1.5M pros.
$1,124
per year
Pricing
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Articulate 360 Standard - Academic - Teams Plan
$1,124
per year
Articulate 360 Standard - Personal Plan
$1,199
per year
Articulate 360 AI - Personal Plan
$1,449
per year
Articulate 360 Standard - Teams Plan
$1,499
per year
Articulate 360 AI - Teams Plan
$1,749
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
Additional DetailsIf you’re new to Articulate 360, you can try it out free of charge for 30 days. After the trial period is over, you can subscribe to one of our packages. Articulate 360 is available on the Articulate website and through Articulate Authorized Resellers.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
Considered Both Products
Absorb LMS
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 …
Chose Absorb LMS
I think Absorb LMS is, by far, the most clean and visually appealing platform, while being easy to use and still providing powerful functionality.
Chose Absorb LMS
Two of the other platforms that we tested and evaluated are not available in your list. We looked at systems from EMS1.com delivered by Praetorian, Inc., and we looked at a product called WebAnywhere, with whom we actually contracted for a year before abandoning the platform …
Chose Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS has all the functionality that is now expected from a premier LMS. But it also has superb customer support. At a fair price point
Chose Absorb LMS
Implementation of a new product was intimidating.
Chose Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS was a lot more intuitive and user friendly, it also provided a much better user experience. The analtyics were a vast improvement as well.
Chose Absorb LMS
Our organization previously used LMS365, which did not support eCommerce and had difficulties supporting external users. (My understanding is the issues with external users may have been directly related to our Microsoft implementation and not directly LMS365's fault, but it …
Chose Absorb LMS
We felt Absorb LMS best fit our needs.
Chose Absorb LMS
We vetted several web-based systems, but I don't recall all of the names.
Chose Absorb LMS
We were very disappointed with D2L and Workday's ability to customize what or how content is shown to users. The platforms can be robust but the onboarding time for new administrators is much longer than Absorb. Workday's current offering (2023) for external learners is …
Articulate 360
Chose Articulate 360
Docebo is a superior LMS for scale, but I prefer the features and functionality of Rise and Storyline to that of Absorb and Captivate.

However, I find the Absorb content dev tool to be a great middle ground between Rise and Storyline, and would love to see a similar …
Chose Articulate 360
I think they are all comparable, however articulate is easier to onboard. It also seems that Articulate is innovating in the way business need.
Chose Articulate 360
Captivate worked much like photoshop with the layering.
Features
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.9
90 Ratings
9% above category average
Articulate 360
-
Ratings
Course authoring8.073 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.678 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal9.182 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content9.263 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.167 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.985 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments9.974 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management9.969 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration9.687 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.885 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning8.044 Ratings00 Ratings
Gamification6.839 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.661 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
Small Businesses
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Axonify
Axonify
Score 10.0 out of 10
Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(92 ratings)
9.3
(432 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(6 ratings)
10.0
(21 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.8
(286 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(78 ratings)
8.7
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSArticulate 360
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.
Read full review
Articulate Global, Inc.
I've been using Articulate for about 13 years and it has continually improved over the years. I appreciate all of the updates/changes that have occurred. For me, Articulate products are super easy to learn and use. The more you use them the better you become. When I began my current job the training modules were in Lectora, which I found to be extremely archaic and cumbersome. I was able to get Articulate and transferred all 56 modules over to Storyline because it is so much easier to use. I recently moved all of my modules over to Rise and use Storyline to create the module scenarios. It works like a charm. I cannot imagine using a different application to do what I do.
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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.
Read full review
Articulate Global, Inc.
  • So Articulate does very well with usability, so it's a very easy product to use. I've had to onboard an employee who was able to learn the program within a month, I think was amazing, and they were able to create the first course within five months of working at the company. So if that's not a testament to how easy it is to use, I don't know what is.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Articulate Global, Inc.
  • I'd love to have Rise have a little more engaging interactivity blocks available. It'd be nice to have more of those just ready to choose from with them rather than us having to create them. Yeah, that's always the challenge with Rise is just making the course more engaging to the learner and more, whereas Storyline does that easily, but with Rise it takes a little more thinking on our end.
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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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Articulate Global, Inc.
I haven't seen any other platform for developing learning materials that is as comprehensive or as reliable as Articulate has proven to be for our use. Because our group has a number of PowerPoint power users, the PowerPoint integration with Articulate is particularly beneficial.
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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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Articulate Global, Inc.
I rate Articulate 360's usability at a 10 because. First, the UI is easy to understand. I don't spend precious time searching for the right tool. The UI is laid out beautifully and simple. If there is hidden features, I have not needed them or looked for them. In my opinion, anyone used to working with software will have no trouble using Articulate.
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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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Articulate Global, Inc.
I love how when there is any downtime that the user can still access the tool
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Articulate Global, Inc.
Pages load fast, the videos play normally, and I haven't seen any delays in the system
Read full review
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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Articulate Global, Inc.
I rate the overall support for Articulate 360 ​​with a 9. On the one hand because of the smooth and accurate support from Articulate's support team (usually within 24 hours) and on the other because of the commitment / use of a community (e-learning Heroes) where I have all kinds of insights from other helpful users.
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In-Person Training
Absorb Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
Articulate Global, Inc.
The instructors don't know how to use it.
Read full review
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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Articulate Global, Inc.
The online training options given by the online tutorials, forums, and "E-Learning Heroes" community are simply awesome. Examples galore, easy to understand descriptions including step-by-step guides, images, occasionally videos, and the "Articulate Insiders" sub-community give you more materials to learn about Storyline than you are likely to be able to read.
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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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Articulate Global, Inc.
Outside of having to dedicate a powerful enough PC for the installation and having to update Flash in our browsers there really isn't much pain involved in using Articulate. For the most part this is an easy to implement and roll-out product. The installation occurs quickly and smoothly with no additional steps needed.
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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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Articulate Global, Inc.
Articulate is vastly superior to Microsoft Powerpoint in many ways. Obviously, for computer-based training, Articulate is in a category of its own, but even for facilitated training, the different features like variables, layers, and states give it an edge over PowerPoint. The recent addition of the morph function to articulate really eliminated the last function in which PowerPoint was superior.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Absorb Software Inc.
Seems very expensive for limitations we have experienced.
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Articulate Global, Inc.
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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Articulate Global, Inc.
Easy to use. Cheap. It has a lot of features.
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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
Read full review
Articulate Global, Inc.
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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Articulate Global, Inc.
  • More accessible course creation. We actually built our business strategy training, which is kind of unique for our line of business that we even have this arm. The strategy is to essentially maximize Rise, maximize Storyline, and its ability to quickly customize slide by slide and voiceover to build a base library of content that kind of goes along within 80 20, what most of our users use as a process. Then approach new customers and be able to turn around content relatively quickly because we can go side by side and make updates as needed, whether that's quickly to screenshots, adding their policy points, just altering a couple of layers and we can create custom content. So I guess risk mitigation, but really it's our primary strategy.
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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.

Articulate 360 Screenshots

Screenshot of Creating a course in RiseScreenshot of Articulate 360Screenshot of Storyline 360Screenshot of Rise 360Screenshot of Content Library 360Screenshot of Review 360