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How innovative companies train their employees (Google, Amazon, Uber & more)

Author:
Gary
PUBLISHED ON:
September 11, 2020
June 26, 2023
PUBLISHED IN:
Employee Onboarding

Have you ever wondered how Google share knowledge and create their own learning culture? Where the likes of Amazon and Microsoft are investing their training budgets to upskill and develop people? Or what the ethos is at companies that keep their training strategies under cloak and dagger?

Whether you’re planning a wedding, holiday or your dream home, a little inspiration can go a long way. Looking at what others have done is the window shopping that helps you understand what might work for you. And the same should apply to your training and development strategy, whether you’re the one leading it or hoping to share some tips with those higher up. So, where better to glance enviably through the glass than with a look at some of the most innovative companies?

Google
Apple
Amazon
Airbnb
Uber
Microsoft
Netflix
Booking.com

How do big companies train and develop employees?

You’re going to see some interesting themes across our eight examples. Marrying the skills you need tomorrow with the talents people want to develop today being one, while the sharing of knowledge between colleagues is something else you’ll notice as you read through. For others, it’s about shaping a culture where people can thrive whether they’re learning or just trying to be productive on the job. And you’ll also see that tackling potential skill shortages is something the big guns seem to have nailed.

The thing to remember as you read through is to think about what can be applied on a smaller scale. We’re not going to upskill thousands and thousands as they might at Amazon, but the same principles can help our businesses move forward at similar speeds.

Google

Whispering sweet nudges into Googler’s ears

Proving that you don’t need to shout to get people to buy into your development ethos, Google began using Whisper Courses to drive microlearning in 2017. Recognising that the majority of information learnt in courses was lost within days, their idea was to provide managers with a series of weekly nudges in the right direction. In their soothing wisdom, Google opted for the term Whisper.

“A whisper course is a series of emails, each with a simple suggestion, or ‘whisper’ for a manager to try in their one-on-ones or team meetings.”

Their trial run – which you can discover in greater detail here – was the concept of managers creating a psychologically safe team culture, by being given a 10-week Whisper Course.

A sample nudge email from Google's Whisper Courses to develop leaders

Source: Google – A sample nudge email

Googler-to-Googler learning leads the training way

This is just one half of the tale, but we bet you’re wondering what Google does to encourage peer learning and train employees socially? The answer is another simple one: give them the platform to become both student and teacher.

“A strong learning culture can better position your organization for future needed skill shifts and primes employees to think and act more like owners when it comes to their own development needs.”

80% of Google’s tracked learnings happen through their employee-to-employee (Googler-to-Googler) network, where over 6,000 employees across the business have become volunteer teachers. They share their knowledge and skills in workshops, one-to-one sessions, job aids and beyond. Notice the word volunteers, there is no obligation to get involved.

Instead, Google encourages passionate teaches who are experts in that content to deliver training to employees, they’re interviewed for the position and given feedback/recognition throughout. Not only does this engage people, it cuts the costs associated with training and ensures the budget is only used for specialised training programs or sessions and niche content that’s needed.

Google is not only a training innovator, they’re completely transparent about their learning and development strategy! That means you can learn from the best in the business via re:Work. It also made our job a little easier in writing this. Thanks, Google, for sharing how you’re training and developing your employees so openly!

Apple

From Google’s transparency to a training enigma. Have you ever Googled ‘How Apple train their employees’? Being honest, we hadn’t either until it came to writing this. But what’s interesting is that little is known for certain, and the search results paint an interesting picture of how Apple has evolved over time…

A short history of Apple training, according to Google search results

How Apple train their employees

Google search results for ‘How Apple train their employees’

In 2012, Gizmodo published ‘How To Be a Genius: This Is Apple’s Secret Employee Training Manual’, a pretty negative take on how they were training employees to get inside your head through language. Gizmodo claimed that Geniuses were trained to “become strong while appearing compassionate; persuade while seeming passive, and empathize your way to a sale.”.

Fast forward four years and Shopify’s 2016 article on the tech giants indicated that the culture was instead about finding people already passionate about the brand and products. They also pipped us to the pun of ‘picking the right apples’. Although it referenced Gizmodo’s take, Shopify gave the impression that the focus had shifted (or was possibly all along) to creating value over prioritising sales. By 2018, A Guardian article focussing on the physical stores and Ron Johnson (who developed the concept) revealed that Apple had been able to “foster a sense of commitment to a higher calling while flattering employees that they were the chosen few to represent it.”.

What’s the training reality at Apple’s core?

When it comes to ways to train employees outside their organisation, their ethos is that “designing world-class technology is only part of our job. Teaching you how to master it is the other.” But trying to discover their approach to employee development is like the iPhone X files! The truth is out there, kind of..

According to the New York Times, employees are discouraged from sharing their experiences. However, they were able to interview three former Apple employees that remained anonymous in 2014.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Apple’s employee training programs take place in-house and year-round. They have full-time academic staff that design and deliver their courses, with employees able to sign up for courses tailored to their position and background on an exclusive internal website. They’re also assigned courses related to the product or part of the business they work in. All pretty standard so far, right?

Well, there is something interesting in the article, at least in terms of how Apple encourages people to think and develop. A course on ‘Communicating at Apple’ used Picasso’s drawings of ‘The Bull’—which demonstrate how something complex can be broken down into its essential, core components. If you look at how Apple’s products have become increasingly more slick with a decreasing number of buttons, you get the impression that this ethos goes from training employees through to product launch.

While a Steve-Jobs-inspired course named ‘The Best Things’ encourages “employees to surround themselves with the best things, like talented peers and high-quality materials.” Despite their cards being kept close to their chests, this gives the impression that social learning is happening behind the scenes.

Amazon

What’s Amazon’s current training strategy and rationale?

When you stop to think about it, Amazon’s current employee training program and approach seem so obvious. And yet, it’s quite rare that companies apply these ideas on a large scale. Amazon analysed data on their workforce and US hiring to determine their fastest-growing highly-skilled jobs over the past five years.

These were data mapping specialist (832% growth), data scientist (505%), solutions architect (454%), security engineer (229%) and business analyst (160%).  In customer fulfillment, meanwhile, highly skilled roles increased by over 400%. Next, they put their money where their mouth was in 2019 and announced they would spend $700 million to upskill 100,000 of their US employees by 2025.

This would enable people across the business to access platforms and resources that develop and move them into these higher-skilled positions. You can read the full list of new training opportunities and what they’re doing to build upon existing courses here, but here are some of the important takeaways: knowledge sharing, learning in the flow of work and microlearning.

How Amazon plans to upskill its people

Amazon's Upskilling 2025 initiative to develop employees

Source: Amazon Upskilling 2025

Amazon Technical Academy equips people with the skill to transition into software engineering. Another proponent of peer-to-peer training sessions, this was created by Amazon’s software engineers and uses project-based learning to ensure trainees understand how they’ll apply these skills in practice via tuition-free learning.

Associate2Tech program is a 90-day course for IT support technician roles, in which they receive on-the-job training and Amazon pays for their A+ Certification test. With no degree required, there are little barriers to entry.  

The Machine Learning University, on the other hand, is open to those with a background in tech and coding. These six-week modules only require a half or full day of participation each week, during which Amazon Machine Learning scientists help them develop the skills needed to progress.

The idea that Amazon are taking control of the supply for their in-demand positions is an interesting one, but it could be what primes them for success. With the company and machine learning/tech growing at such rapid speeds, there’s no guarantee that the talent will be available to plug those gaps in the coming years. And, if better engagement, morale and retention is a by-product of upskilling their people, that $700 million could turn out to be a shrewd investment.

Isn’t there a risk that upskilled employees will seek other opportunities?

Perhaps, but looking a little further back shows that Amazon’s investment in people is selfless to an extent. Amazon Career Choice was designed to give hourly associates that had been with the company for more than a year the skills to move into four in-demand industries and occupations: Healthcare, IT and computer science, transportation, and mechanical and skilled trades.

Jeff Bezos stated that “we pre-pay 95 percent of tuition, fees, and textbooks (up to $12,000) for certificates and associate degrees in high-demand occupations”. Inc. summed it up excellently in their coverage of the announcement: “Amazon has a lot of lower-wage, warehouse-type jobs that have higher turnover rates than much higher paying tech roles. Amazon effectively embraces this reality and figures: Why not make these important laborers as happy as they can be in the time they are going to give to Amazon?”

Free Guide! Training Lessona From 6 Innovative Companies

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Airbnb

Becoming a superhost and driving employee staycations

Airbnb might have been founded in 2008, but by 2015 they’d already had an epiphany: it wasn’t just their customers that deserved a good host, their employees deserved a five-star experience too. Mark Levy, Global Head of Employee Experience, had only joined the company a couple years earlier, but he realised that:

“If Airbnb had a Customer Experience Group, why not create an Employee Experience Group?”

That’s exactly what he did, putting employee experience at the core of what they do. If the headlines are anything to go by, it was a move that paid off. ‘Airbnb, spearheading the employee experience’, ‘How Airbnb Became The World’s Best Place To Work’, ‘How Airbnb is building its culture through belonging” – these are just some of the articles you’ll find if you search for their approach to the employee training program.

Glowing reviews from Airbnb employees

With such praise and glowing recommendations about their culture, it’s no wonder employees are willing to share their experience at Airbnb. Which gives excellent insights into how they develop people. It’s certainly a case of learning from each other and being encouraged to have the initiative to self-learn.

Let’s take the first point. Chip Conley wrote about his experience of joining the company aged 52 and with 20-plus years in hospitality, giving a pretty funny account of how he relied on listening to his younger colleagues to settle in. In fact, the article does an excellent job of summarising Airbnb’s philosophy at the time: Create, Learn, Play. The middle part of that sandwich involved looking “inside and outside for inspiration and learning”

Another employee, Mark Curtis, wrote about his experiences in 2014—the year between Levy’s arrival and the creation of the Employee Experience Group. It seems that the culture of learning in the flow of work already existed to an extent, and Curtis stated that: “Our culture, tools, and processes all revolve around giving individual contributors accurate and timely information that they can use to make great decisions”. He also added that “we default to information sharing” in order to provide engineers with as much information as possible so that they can find it and work autonomously.

Forget the culture trip, tell us about their training!

Ready for the training-heavy, juicy part of the Airbnb rundown? If they think a course or platform isn’t up to delivering what they need, they’ll simply create their own. Which makes sense, given that it has to work in the culture as well achieve the goals. In 2016, they created Data University to improve data literacy among their staff, because existing courses just weren’t tailored to their data and tools. This comprised of multiple courses tailored to different roles, technical literacy and departments across the business. For example, “more intensive courses on Python and machine learning have helped engineers brush up on necessary skills for projects.”

In the months that followed, a total of 500 employees took one class and use of Airbnb data science tools rose from 30 to 45 percent. Interestingly, it wasn’t their first attempt at a project like this but it seemed to be their most successful. Product Manager, Jeff Feng, gave three reasons why he believed it worked this time around: Designing an accessible curriculum for everyone, working with leadership across the company to set data literacy expectations and finding ways to measure success.

Uber

When you start to unpick what training must look like at Uber, there are no pangs of jealousy, we’ll be honest. First, there’s the issue of training their 22,000 core staff but there’s also the slight issue of 3.9 million drivers across 60-plus countries.

Those drivers are all over the world, speaking different languages and they’re often without access to a computer. When was the last time you hailed a ride and hopped into a car with a laptop on the passenger seat? Exactly. Bring all those drivers together physically and you’re probably looking at more air miles than most cover over the ground in a month!

The answer? Using a platform that enables mobile learning, in bite-sized chunks that drivers can find between fares. In South Africa, Uber used the Workforce Success platform EduMe to provide short and interactive sessions using an app. This resulted in time to first trip being 13% faster than face-to-face training sessions, and it also reduced pressure, time spent and costs for the support centre.

In Mexico, Uber turned to Mindflash in order to deliver web-based courses to drivers. The content from live sessions was converted into PDFs, which were uploaded as courses alongside quizzes to improve and measure knowledge retention. As was the case in South Africa, mobile learning was also made available—giving the option to study between fares. Since, they’ve managed to deliver up to 30,000 courses in a single week, and record 13,000 mobile course completions in three months.

Microsoft

Some of the companies on this list really took some digging, Microsoft is an open book! In fact, there’s probably too much information out there, that’s how open they are. Below is a screenshot from Microsoft’s Empowering Our Employees page. And it certainly implies a culture of continuous learning, knowledge sharing and upskilling towards career development.

Screenshot of Microsoft's training and development approach

Tapping into AI for a better learning outlook

Let’s tackle the top point, that learning should be personalised and relevant. When discussing the topic of cybersecurity at the company, Ken Sexsmith, Director of Security Training and Awareness at Microsoft, revealed how they had tapped into the power of AI to empower knowledge retention and create a personalised experience.

Using a tool from Elephants Don’t Forget, users began to receive emails with questions about training sessions they’d taken and were given explanations for any incorrect answers. As Sexsmith put it, “On a given day, following a training you take, we will send you an email that says, ‘Hey, you came to training and we want you to answer a couple questions about the content.”

Sharing skills and creating a learning culture through Hackathon

Have you heard of Hackathon? Launched in 2014 to help drive a culture change where employees would take risks to improve the world for better, by participating in projects.

“One place for everyone to come together, experience creative and fast-paced collaboration, make a difference, and drive the culture forward.”

Don’t let the name fool you, this is not just for techies or coders, it’s a platform for everyone and their skill set. The projects range from assessing broadband availability, to helping the visually impaired get around more easily and even something as weird as ‘Designing for the Zombie Apocalypse’. These act as platforms for sharing knowledge and ideas, while giving people a different scenario to practice their skills in. 2017 welcomed 18,000 people across 400 cities and 75 countries.

Using gamification to engage employees and collect their feedback

Microsoft were using gamification before it was cool! Although you’ll find plenty of mentions and examples that they use it, the most common example is Communicate Hope. Created by Ross Smith to gather feedback on Microsoft Lync in 2010, “thousands of employees got on board and ‘gamers’ contributed at 16 times the rate of non-gamers.” – this was part of  Smith’s ethos that you need to get people excited about participation.

Just a few years later, they used the Language Quality Game to tap into 4,500 users who assessed the quality of translations. They even included some poor translations on purpose. You might not think of these as training exercises, but their employees would become more familiar with the products, learn their faults and be given a platform to share their feedback, which would make them more engaged.

What’s next? Upskilling for the future

Microsoft recently announced that they will partner with education provider General Assembly “to close skills gaps in the rapidly growing fields of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and data engineering, machine learning, data science, and more.”

They’re aiming to upskill and reskill 15,000 employees for AI-based roles by 2022. Microsoft will therefore be a founding member of the GA’s Standards Board and help “define skills standards, develop assessments, design a career framework, and build an industry-recognized credential for AI skills”. The pair will also work together to create an AI Talent Network that sources candidates for project-based work and for hire.

Netflix

You’ll hardly find anything about Netflix’s training strategy or culture from the last decade, and yet they’ve been credited with reinventing and revolutionising HR. So, while we can’t tell you exactly how they train their employees, we’re sure you’ll agree that this deserves further investigation.

In 2009, Netflix shared a 126-slide presentation titled Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility, sharing some ideas that were pretty revolutionary at the time. Ideas like employees deciding the vacation time they thought was appropriate are still seen as madcap by some. The argument in those 126 slides has convinced many more people their approach is the right one.

Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility 

Source: Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility

The learning takeaways from Netflix’s iconic presentation

  • “You demonstrate consistently strong performance so colleagues can rely upon you.”
  • “You learn rapidly and eagerly.”
  • “Avoid top-down decision making.”
  • “We support self-improvement.”
  • Scepticism of independent silos because “work that requires coordination suffers.”

What do we actually know about training at Netflix?

Well, the fact that a Quora reply has become such a commonly-used resource highlights that Netflix’s approach to outward transparency has evolved over the past 10 years. Today, finding information on exactly how Netflix train their people is a well-kept secret. But, let’s look at what we can learn from that infamous Quora question.

Netflix weren’t kidding when they said people get their opportunity and a big challenge to sink their teeth into! The engineer who shared his onboarding experience revealed that his first product was Netflix on Apple TV. Also, the idea of collaborative learning seems to carry through the company, with new starters meeting senior management, CEO Reed Hastings and a dedicated mentor as they settle in.

Booking.com

The first lesson you can learn from Booking.com is that knowing your internal audience is crucial. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but you should consider your employees with the same attentiveness that you’d give to your customers. Recognising the number of millennials in their workforce, Booking.com turned to Udemy for Business as they searched for an “online learning platform that could help its younger employees develop their technical and leadership skills to grow individually and push the company forward.”

The goal was to encourage them to develop new skills and use those to seek out new opportunities in the company, as opposed to new opportunities somewhere else. They were steered in the direction of management and leadership development, public speaking, data science and web development. Having access to the variety of courses and flexibility to learn on the move through the app appealed to the younger generation at Booking.com.

As you can learn from Udemy’s case study, this signalled a move away from just providing a learning budget to employees and the low adoption rate associated with this. Instead, the average learner spent five-plus hours on the platform, and a particularly enthused employee summed up why:

“Using Udemy’s iPhone app, I managed to download an amazing course just moments before boarding London Underground and ended my 45 minute train journey (quite boring usually) feeling so empowered.”

Sometimes, upskilling is the only option. Adapt like Booking.com!

Upskilling seems to be a theme here, and it was an approach they also employed when finding developers who could operate with Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL), Booking.com’s coding language. The issue was finding the finished pearl, and they realised they’d need to crack a few training oysters in order to build their collection. Plus, they’d need to do it on a large scale.

The solution, find developers familiar with other coding languages and use Geekuni to train them during their onboarding process, something they’ve done for over 350 employees. Because their existing teams don’t need to provide this training, it ensures their productivity isn’t affected and enables them to onboard developers on a greater scale. Using the same company for this process ensures consistency. Communication between Geekuni and the onboarding team leads at Booking.com means the company are up-to-date with progress and how ready that person is to move into their role.

How to train employees: What did we learn from these training innovators?

You probably noticed, but we mentioned the word upskill(ing) a lot in this piece, 11 times in fact! But as our Amazon and Microsoft examples showed, it’s important to understand which skills are in-demand before you develop them. Otherwise, how do you know if you’re closing the right skill gap?

Social learning, knowledge sharing, peer-to-peer, however, we dressed it up in this piece, popped up time and time again. That’s because the best resources are sometimes your employees, especially for providing contextual and business-relevant learning. Besides, if Google are happy enough to shout about it on their blog, it’s probably worth a go.

Our last two lessons go hand-in-hand, use microlearning to make the experience manageable and deliver it on mobile to allow learning flexibility. The Uber example was the perfect one, because if drivers had time to kill, they could learn through short lessons, videos and quizzes. But how is that any different to commuting time for your employees? It’s not, and that Booking.com employee was so enthused by the experience that he felt empowered leaving the London underground. If that doesn’t tell you about the power of mobile learning, nothing will.

One last thing, learning this way isn’t some sort of exclusive VIP club for the biggest, global companies, it’s something you can experience for yourself. There’s no waiting line to trial HowNow, you’ve just got to fill in a short form and your journey to learning innovation begins.

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Quick summary

The best learning experience platform is the one your people actually open, because it shows them learning that fits their role. HowNow leads this list for mid-to-large organisations that want LMS, LXP, skills and content in one AI-native platform, with skills read from real work. 360Learning is the pick if you want subject-matter experts building your courses. Degreed suits large enterprises with a mature skills strategy and the budget to match.

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The 10 best learning experience platforms

No. Platform Best for Pricing G2 rating
1 HowNow Mid-to-large enterprises wanting learning tied to real skills Demo-led, ROI calculator on pricing page 4.5/5
2 360Learning SME-led, collaborative course creation From $8/user/month 4.6/5
3 Degreed Enterprise skills strategy and assessment Custom quoted 4.3/5
4 Docebo Large, multi-audience enterprise training Custom quoted 4.3/5
5 Cornerstone OnDemand Global enterprises wanting learning and talent in one suite Custom quoted 4.1/5
6 Thrive Learning UK organisations wanting built-in AI, mentoring and communities $34,000 for 100 learners 4.5/5
7 Absorb LMS Structured training with AI grounded in your own content Custom quoted 4.6/5
8 LearnUpon Training employees, customers and partners from one login Quoted, from 100 users 4.5/5
9 Kallidus UK organisations with heavy compliance needs Custom quoted 4.4/5
10 TalentLMS Small teams that want to launch quickly Free plan, paid from $119/month 4.6/5

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1. HowNow

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HowNow is an AI-native learning platform that brings courses, coaching, communities and career paths into one place. We built it for organisations of 250 to 5,000 people that have outgrown a traditional LMS.

The difference starts with skills. Our skills graph reads skills from real work, not from a form nobody fills in, so content stays relevant as roles change. Guru, our AI coach, runs through the whole platform, answering questions, running role-plays and building dashboards when you ask.

HowNow Plus adds a curated, skills-mapped content library that your people and your AI tools can both draw on. And because onboarding, compliance, leadership development and careers all run on one platform, your reporting stays joined up.

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Key Features

  • AI pathway builder: Personalised learning paths built from skills gaps, role context, and business goals. Automatically.
  • Adaptive learning: Every learner gets a personalised path based on their role, skills, and progress. 1:1 learning at scale.
  • AI curation: The right content found, tagged, and organised from your internal sources and external libraries. Surfaced automatically.
  • Learning communities: Peer expertise made visible, structured, and searchable. Your best knowledge captured and available to everyone.
  • Skills graph: Every skill and every gap visible. The intelligence that connects performance gaps to the learning that will close them.
  • Career paths: Every employee sees their skills, their gaps, and where they can grow. Real paths that drive engagement without mandating it.
  • AI Performance coaching: Answers, practice, feedback, and proactive coaching, delivered where your people already work. Connected to real work signals.
  • Trusted content: Expert knowledge your AI can actually use. Every recommendation grounded in real expertise, not generic results.
  • Unified Search: Pulls any course, document or expert answer from one search box across your tools.
  • In-flow delivery: Serves learning inside Slack, Teams and the browser, where people already work.

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Pricing

  • Essentials - £60/user/year, Centralised learning with built-in compliance
  • Pro - £80/user/year, Personalised learning for every role, powered by AI, with zero admin
  • Plus - +£45/user/year, Curated learning from top providers, ready to use, skills-mapped, included in one subscription 

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Rating

G2: 4.5/5.

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2. 360Learning

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360Learning is a collaborative learning platform built on one idea: the people who know the subject should create the training. Its AI Content Builder helps subject-matter experts turn what they know into courses, while L&D keeps final approval.

More than 2,500 customers use it, including Cisco, Duolingo and Michelin. If you're weighing it up, our guide to 360Learning alternatives compares it with the wider market.

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Key Features

  • AI Content Builder: Helps subject-matter experts build courses quickly, with L&D oversight before anything goes live
  • Learning Needs: Lets employees request training topics and upvote each other's requests, so content follows real demand
  • Skills library: Starts you with 20,000 standard skills, plus a free SkillsGPT to help shape your own framework
  • Academies: Runs dedicated learning spaces for different teams and communities

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Pricing

Team: $8 per user per month. Business and Enterprise plans are custom-quoted.

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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3. Degreed

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Degreed is one of the original learning experience platforms, built for large enterprises that want to connect learning to a skills strategy. It pulls content from internal and external sources into one searchable home.

The company reports 10 million activated users across 160+ countries, and Capgemini used it to train 150,000 employees in ten weeks. 

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Key Features

  • Skill Review: Assesses skill levels through an adaptive questionnaire of behavioural questions, developed with psychometricians
  • Four rating sources: Combines Skill Review, manager, peer and self-ratings into one skill profile
  • Maestro: Coaches people by text and voice, with AI role-plays scored against custom rubrics
  • Academies: Builds structured programmes for specific teams or capabilities

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Pricing

Degreed doesn't publish prices. 

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Rating

G2: 4.3/5.

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4. Docebo

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Docebo is an enterprise learning platform that now describes itself as an AI workforce readiness platform. It suits large organisations training employees, customers and partners from one system.

More than 3,900 customers use it, with over 30 million users across 70+ countries. 

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Key Features

  • AI assistant: Helps learners find answers and helps admins create course content faster
  • Content Marketplace: Gives access to over 30,000 courses and professional certifications
  • MCP server: Lets admins run Docebo tasks from Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini, generally available since July 2026
  • Extended enterprise: Runs separate, branded learning for customers and partners alongside employee training

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Pricing

Docebo's pricing page lists two tiers, Elevate and Enterprise, both quoted by sales. 

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Rating

G2: 4.3/5.

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5. Cornerstone OnDemand

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Cornerstone is a legacy giant in enterprise learning and talent, and it relaunched its platform as Cornerstone Workforce AI in May 2026. Its learning experience platform, formerly EdCast, is one part of a much wider talent suite.

About 7,000 organisations use Cornerstone across 180+ countries. The suite has grown through acquisitions, including Saba, SumTotal, EdCast and SkyHive, which brings breadth but also complexity. 

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Key Features

  • Skills Engine: Draws on a taxonomy of 55,000+ skills, powered by labour-market data from SkyHive
  • Content Subscriptions: Offers Silver, Gold and , Gold and Platinum in 10+ languages
  • Readiness agents: Uses AI agents to map roles, skills and future workforce needs
  • Compliance management: Tracks certifications and audit evidence across global teams

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Pricing

Cornerstone doesn't publish pricing.

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Rating

G2: 4.1/5.

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6. Thrive Learning

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Thrive is a UK-built platform that brings learning, communities, mentoring and internal knowledge together. It now positions itself as an AI-powered LMS, but its social feed and mentoring give it a strong LXP feel.

More than 500 organisations use Thrive across 60+ countries, including Specsavers, Volvo and British Airways. 

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Key Features

  • Kiki AI: Works in five modes, including Coach, Analyst and Content Creator, at no extra cost
  • Skill pathways: Maps skills to roles and builds pathways that close each person's gaps
  • Mentoring: Matches mentors and mentees, included at no extra cost
  • Content library: Includes 1,000+ ready-made resources, with 2,500+ more in the separate Thrive Content product

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Pricing

Price starts at $34000 per 1-100 learners, $48263 from 501-600 learners onwards

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Rating

G2: 4.5/5.

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7. Absorb LMS

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Absorb is an LMS with strong LXP features, used by 3,500+ organisations including Sony, Samsung and Toyota. In May 2026 it launched Aura, a set of AI agents grounded in each customer's own approved content.

Forrester named Absorb a Leader in its Q4 2025 Wave for learning management systems and experience platforms. 

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Key Features

  • Absorb Aura: Runs AI agents for learners, course creation and admin tasks, grounded in your own content
  • Absorb Skills: Maps learning to 200+ competencies and 12,000+ skills
  • Absorb Amplify: Adds a library of 20,000+ pre-built courses
  • Absorb Infuse: Embeds learning inside the other tools your people use

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Pricing

Absorb doesn't publish pricing. Its pricing form asks for your learner count.

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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8. LearnUpon

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LearnUpon relaunched in July 2026 as an agentic learning platform. Its biggest strength is running separate, branded portals for employees, customers and partners from one admin login.

More than 1,700 organisations use it, and its support team is available around the clock. It's a strong pick when external training matters as much as internal learning.

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Key Features

  • Portals: Creates unique, branded learning environments for each audience from one place
  • LearnUpon IQ: Acts as an AI coordinator that connects every part of the platform
  • Create+: Builds courses with AI, which LearnUpon says is up to 90% faster
  • Learning Journeys: Sequences courses with prerequisites, timed release and certifications

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Pricing

LearnUpon doesn't publish prices. 

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Rating

G2: 4.5/5.

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9. Kallidus

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Kallidus is a UK-based learning and performance provider with more than 1,000 customers and 2 million users. Its Learn LMS is built for compliance-heavy organisations, with AI recommendations and skills tools in the higher tiers.

It's more LMS than pure LXP, but it earns a place here for UK teams that need strong compliance alongside a modern learner experience.

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Key Features

  • Learn LMS: Manages courses, compliance and instructor-led training in one system
  • Power BI reporting: Embeds Power BI natively for detailed reporting
  • Off-the-shelf content: Includes 250+ ready-made courses
  • Kallidus Intelligence: Adds AI to help L&D teams focus on impact rather than activity

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Pricing

Kallidus doesn't publish prices.

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Rating

G2: 4.4/5.

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10. TalentLMS

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TalentLMS is a cloud LMS for small and mid-sized teams that want training live quickly. More than 70,000 teams use it.

It's one of the few platforms here with a free plan and fully published pricing. If budget is tight, it's an easy place to start.

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Key Features

  • TalentCraft: Generates courses with AI, with credits that vary by plan
  • Gamification: Adds points, badges and leaderboards on every plan
  • Learning Playground: Gives your team a space to practise and build confidence
  • TalentLibrary: Offers 1,000+ ready-made courses as a paid add-on

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Pricing

  • Free for up to 5 users
  • Core: $119/month (up to 40 users)
  • Grow: $229/month (up to 70)
  • Pro: $449/month (up to 100)

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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Why teams are looking for a new learning experience platform

Your three-year LMS contract is up for renewal. The engagement survey put development in the bottom three. And logins still only spike in compliance week.

If any of that sounds familiar, you're probably not short of content. You're short of a platform that knows your people well enough to show them what matters.

A learning experience platform is built to solve exactly this. It personalises learning around each person's role and skills, and it reaches them in the tools they already use. We compared 10 LXPs on skills, AI, pricing and verified G2 ratings, so you can build your shortlist faster.

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Why listen to us?

We build HowNow, an AI-native learning platform, and we spend every day helping L&D teams at 250 to 5,000-person companies fix engagement. We've seen what gets people logging in, and what only looks good in a demo.

The proof comes from our customers. TomTom reached 90% learner activation and 100% onboarding completion after launching its TomTom Academy on HowNow. Hotelplan mapped more than 300 job roles to skills in a single month, and 78% of its people now feel confident in their role skills.

Trainline cut compliance training time by 50% with in-house content. Infinity Works passed 97% activation within four months. At AND Digital, 75% of employees use HowNow every working day.

We also know this market because we compete in it every week. We've written breakdowns of 360Learning alternatives and Docebo vs Cornerstone, and we've used the same lens here. 

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What is a learning experience platform?

A learning experience platform (LXP) is software that personalises learning for each employee. It pulls courses, internal knowledge and third-party content into one place, then recommends what fits each person's role, skills and goals.

A traditional learning management system (LMS) works the other way round. L&D assigns courses, tracks completions and reports on compliance. It's built for administrators first.

Today the line between the two is blurry. Most leading platforms now combine LMS control with LXP personalisation, so the better question is how well a platform understands your people. Our LXP vs LMS guide goes deeper on the difference.

Aspect LMS LXP
Built for Administrators Learners
Content Courses assigned by L&D Courses, internal knowledge and third-party content
Personalisation The same training for everyone in a group Recommendations by role, skills and goals
Success measure Completions Skills built and ongoing engagement

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Why a learning experience platform matters

  • People come back: Generic content gets ignored. When learning maps to each person's role and skill gaps, what shows up in their feed is worth opening.
  • You can see your skills: Instead of guessing what your workforce can do, you get a live view of where skills are strong and where the gaps are.
  • Admin shrinks: Automated pathways, smart recommendations and built-in reporting let a small L&D team run learning for thousands of people.
  • Compliance stops being a chase: You can assign, track and prove compliance training in one place, without stitching audit trails together from spreadsheets.
  • Impact becomes provable: When learning, skills and performance data live together, you can show the board what changed, not just what got completed.

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How to choose the right learning experience platform

Start with the problem you're trying to fix. If people aren't engaging, you need personalisation built on real skills data, and HowNow is built for that. If your experts hold knowledge that never gets written down, 360Learning's collaborative model fits.

For large enterprises with mature skills programmes, Degreed and Cornerstone cover the most ground. Docebo, Absorb and LearnUpon suit teams that train customers and partners alongside employees.

If you're a UK organisation focused on compliance, Kallidus and Thrive know that market well. And for small teams on a budget, TalentLMS is the quickest way to get started.

Whichever platforms make your shortlist, ask each vendor the same question: how does your platform know what skills my people have? The answer tells you how good every recommendation will be.

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Find the learning experience platform your people will actually use

Most learning experience platforms promise personalisation. Far fewer can explain where their skills data comes from, or prove that people keep coming back after launch.

HowNow reads skills from real work and puts AI coaching into the tools your people already use. It also gives you one view of learning, skills and performance. TomTom, Hotelplan and Trainline chose it for those reasons, and their results show their people keep using it.

If you're heading into a renewal or rethinking your learning stack, book a demo and see HowNow in action.

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FAQs

What is the difference between an LMS and an LXP?

An LMS is built for administrators to assign courses, track completions and report on compliance. An LXP is built for learners, recommending content based on each person's role, skills and goals. Most modern platforms, including HowNow, now combine both.

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What is the best learning experience platform?

It depends on your size and goals. HowNow is the strongest pick for organisations of 250 to 5,000 people that want skills-based personalisation and AI coaching in one platform. 360Learning suits SME-led content creation, and Degreed suits large enterprise skills programmes.

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How much does a learning experience platform cost?

HowNow quotes per organisation after a demo, based on your headcount and needs. Degreed, Docebo and Cornerstone also price by quote, 360Learning starts at $8 per user per month, and TalentLMS has a free plan. 

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Can an LXP replace an LMS?

Yes, if it includes LMS essentials like course assignment, compliance tracking and reporting. Platforms like HowNow combine LXP personalisation with those admin tools, so you can run onboarding, compliance and upskilling in one place instead of two.

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What features should a learning experience platform have?

Look for skills mapping, personalised pathways, AI search and coaching, content curation, social learning and integrations with Slack, Teams and your HRIS. Most importantly, check how the platform builds its skills data.

The 10 Best Learning Experience Platforms For 2026

The best learning experience platform is the one your people actually open, because it shows them learning that fits their role. HowNow leads this list for mid-to-large organisations that want LMS, LXP, skills and content in one AI-native platform, with skills read from real work. 360Learning is the pick if you want subject-matter experts building your courses. Degreed suits large enterprises with a mature skills strategy and the budget to match.
Blog
Oct 12
.
5 min read

Quick summary

Most online training software for employees promises personalisation and delivers a catalogue nobody opens. We compared 10 platforms on AI depth, skills relevance, engagement, reporting, pricing and G2 ratings. Below you'll find a quick comparison, honest reviews with pros and cons, and a simple way to choose. HowNow comes out on top for skills-based, personalised learning that people actually come back to.

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‍

Quick summary

Most online training software for employees promises personalisation and delivers a catalogue nobody opens. We compared 10 platforms on AI depth, skills relevance, engagement, reporting, pricing and G2 ratings. Below you'll find a quick comparison, honest reviews with pros and cons, and a simple way to choose. HowNow comes out on top for skills-based, personalised learning that people actually come back to.

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10 best online training software for employees

Platform Best for Starting price G2 rating
HowNow Mid-to-large enterprises with knowledge workers and high-skilled teams Begins at £60/user/year 4.5/5
360Learning Collaborative course creation by subject-matter experts $8/user/month (Team plan) 4.6/5
Docebo Training employees, customers and partners in one platform Custom (demo-led, typically 250+ learners) 4.3/5
LearnUpon Training employees and external audiences with strong support Custom (employee plans from 100 users) 4.5/5
TalentLMS Small teams that want to start free Free; paid from $119/month (billed yearly) 4.6/5
iSpring LMS Paying only for active learners $6.91/active user/month (100 users) 4.6/5
Absorb Compliance and partner training with strong reporting Custom 4.6/5
Thrive Social, engaging learning with published pricing $34,000 for 100 learners 4.5/5
Kallidus UK organisations with heavy compliance needs Custom 4.4/5
Cornerstone OnDemand Global enterprises wanting a full talent suite Custom 4.1/5

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1. HowNow

HowNow is an AI-native learning platform that brings learning, coaching, communities and careers into one place. It works out what each person needs to learn, then builds a path around those gaps.

Most training platforms start with content and hope people find what's relevant. Our AI Skill Graph reads real work activity and infers the skills people actually demonstrate. It draws on a skills framework covering more than 30,000 job roles, so you won't spend months building a taxonomy before launch.

Our AI coach, Guru, answers questions from your own content and runs role-play practice with instant feedback. And because the platform covers everything from onboarding and compliance to upskilling and leadership development, you're not stitching four tools together. L&D teams can also ask Guru about their data and turn the answer into a dashboard to share with leadership.

The results show up in activation, not just completion. When Infinity Works rolled out HowNow, 97% of their team was using it within four months. 

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Key Features

  • AI pathway builder: Personalised learning paths built from skills gaps, role context, and business goals. Automatically.
  • Adaptive learning: Every learner gets a personalised path based on their role, skills, and progress. 1:1 learning at scale.
  • AI curation: The right content found, tagged, and organised from your internal sources and external libraries. Surfaced automatically.
  • Learning communities: Peer expertise made visible, structured, and searchable. Your best knowledge captured and available to everyone.
  • Skills graph: Every skill and every gap visible. The intelligence that connects performance gaps to the learning that will close them.
  • Career paths: Every employee sees their skills, their gaps, and where they can grow. Real paths that drive engagement without mandating it.
  • AI Performance coaching: Answers, practice, feedback, and proactive coaching — delivered where your people already work. Connected to real work signals.
  • Trusted content: Expert knowledge your AI can actually use. Every recommendation grounded in real expertise, not generic results. 
  • Unified Search: Pulls any course, document or expert answer from one search box across your tools.
  • In-flow delivery: Serves learning inside Slack, Teams and the browser, where people already work.

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Pricing

  • Essentials - £60/user/year, Centralised learning with built-in compliance
  • Pro - £80/user/year, Personalised learning for every role, powered by AI, with zero admin
  • Plus - +£45/user/year, Curated learning from top providers, ready to use, skills-mapped, included in one subscription 

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Rating

G2: 4.5/5.

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2. 360Learning

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360Learning is built around collaborative learning. Subject-matter experts write and update courses themselves, and L&D reviews and approves them before they go live.

Its AI Content Builder turns existing documents into structured courses and generates quizzes in more than 10 question formats. It suits companies that want to turn internal know-how into training quickly. Our 360Learning alternatives guide compares it with similar tools.

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Key features

  • Collaborative authoring: Experts co-author courses, with comments and L&D approval workflows
  • AI Content Builder: Turns documents or prompts into courses and quizzes
  • AI translation and grading: Translates courses and scores open-text answers automatically
  • 80+ integrations: It includes Workday, Slack, BambooHR, and HRIS tools.

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Pricing

The Team plan runs $8/user/month for up to 100 users. Business and Enterprise plans are custom-quoted.

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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3. Docebo

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Docebo is an enterprise learning platform that trains employees, customers and partners from one system. Its extended enterprise setup gives each audience a separately branded portal with its own admin rights.

Docebo's AI turns prompts, PDFs, and documents into structured courses with knowledge checks, and tags content automatically. You can also add third-party libraries such as Go1 and OpenSesame. It's powerful, but reviewers regularly mention a steep setup curve. Our Docebo alternatives guide covers lighter options.

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Key features

  • AI course creation: Builds courses from prompts and documents, with translation into 46 languages
  • Content marketplace: Access to third-party libraries including Go1 and OpenSesame
  • Extended enterprise: Separately branded portals for customers, partners, and resellers
  • Skills Intelligence: It infers employee skills from roles and projects.

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Pricing

Docebo doesn't publish prices. 

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Rating

G2: 4.3/5.

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4. LearnUpon

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LearnUpon is a cloud LMS that trains employees, customers and association members from one account. More than 1,700 organisations use it, and its Portals feature gives each audience its own branded learning space.

It now calls itself an agentic learning platform. AI agents help build and update content, surface capability gaps and take routine admin off your plate. Every plan includes an implementation consultant and 24/7 support. Our LearnUpon alternatives guide compares it with similar tools.

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Key features

  • Learning Journeys: Role-based training paths that personalise learning at scale
  • Create+: AI course authoring that builds modules up to 90% faster
  • Portals: Separate branded learning spaces for employees, customers and partners
  • LearnUpon IQ: AI agents that automate content updates and flag skills gaps

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Pricing

LearnUpon doesn't publish prices. Employee training plans start at 100 users.

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Rating

G2: 4.5/5.

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5. TalentLMS

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TalentLMS is a cloud LMS known for being quick to set up and simple to use. It's a popular choice for small and mid-sized businesses running onboarding, compliance or partner training.

Its TalentCraft AI generates course pages, quizzes and flashcards from a prompt, and translates content into 15 languages. The free plan lets you test it properly before spending anything. The trade-off is depth, as reporting and customisation are lighter than enterprise tools.

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Key features

  • Free plan: Train up to 5 users across 10 courses at no cost
  • TalentCraft AI: Generates course content, quizzes and translations from prompts
  • Learning paths: Structured training sequences for guided progression
  • Certification tracking: Automates assignment, completion, and renewal reminders.

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Pricing

  • Free for up to 5 users
  • Core: $119/month (up to 40 users)
  • Grow: $229/month (up to 70)
  • Pro: $449/month (up to 100)

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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6. iSpring LMS

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iSpring LMS, formerly iSpring Learn, is a simple corporate LMS with pay-per-active-user pricing. You can register as many people as you like and only pay for those who log in during the month.

It pairs closely with iSpring Suite, a PowerPoint-based authoring tool, so teams can turn existing slides into interactive courses. The mobile app supports offline learning and syncs progress once people reconnect. This helps field and frontline teams with patchy signal.

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Key Features

  • Pay-per-active-user: Only pay for learners who actually log in
  • Offline mobile learning: Download courses and complete them without internet
  • iSpring Suite integration: Turn PowerPoint slides into interactive courses and simulations
  • Personalized learning tracks and development plans: Admins combine courses and assessments into chaptered tracks, with optional locked completion order. 

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Pricing

  • Business, 100 users: $6.91 per user/month, billed at $8,286 per year
  • Business, 300 users: $4.46 per user/month, billed at $16,050 per year
  • Business, 500 users: $3.97 per user/month, billed at $23,790 per year
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing through sales

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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7. Absorb

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Absorb, formerly Absorb LMS, is a corporate learning platform used by more than 3,500 companies. It's strong on compliance, onboarding and training for customers and partners.

In 2026 it launched Absorb Aura, a set of AI agents. They help learners find answers, build courses from documents and take routine work off admins. Reporting is a real strength, with scheduled reports and an optional analytics add-on. 

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Key Features

  • Absorb Aura: AI agents for learner questions, course creation and admin support
  • Multi-portal branding: Separately branded portals for different audiences
  • Advanced reporting: Configurable, scheduled reports plus the Absorb Analyze add-on
  • Scalable architecture: Handles growing learner populations without performance drops

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Pricing

Absorb doesn't publish pricing. 

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Rating

G2: 4.6/5.

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8. Thrive

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Thrive is a UK-based learning platform used by more than 500 organisations, including British Airways, Burger King and Specsavers. Its social, feed-style interface feels closer to a consumer app than a traditional LMS.

Its AI agent, Kiki, creates courses, quizzes and interactive modules from a prompt or an uploaded file. Mentoring with automatic matching comes as standard. 

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Key Features

  • Kiki AI agent: Creates courses, quizzes and interactive content from prompts or files
  • Mentoring: Built-in mentoring with automatic mentor and mentee matching
  • Off-the-shelf content: A 2,500+ resource library, plus six separate sector suites
  • Spaces: Provide community learning areas for collaboration and peer discussion.

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Pricing

Price starts at $34000 per 1-100 learners, $48263 from 501-600 learners onwards

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Rating

G2: 4.5/5.

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9. Kallidus

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Kallidus is a UK learning and performance company whose Learn LMS is popular in regulated sectors. It suits organisations that need compliance training to stay audit-ready without much fuss.

Its AI layer, Kallidus Intelligence, generates skills frameworks, tags content with skills and helps people set objectives. Kallidus also sells performance management and 250+ off-the-shelf courses, so learning and performance can be managed together.

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Key features

  • Compliance tracking: Automated reminders, certifications and audit-ready records
  • Kallidus Intelligence: AI-generated skills frameworks and skills tagging for content
  • Performance management: Objectives and reviews connected to learning
  • Automated admin: Training is auto-assigned by group and category, with scheduled reminders and role-based permissions.

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Pricing

Kallidus doesn't publish prices. 

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Rating

G2: 4.4/5.

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10. Cornerstone OnDemand

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Cornerstone OnDemand goes well past training. Learning, performance, succession, recruiting and skills all come in one suite, assembled largely through acquisitions such as Saba, EdCast and SumTotal.

In May 2026 it relaunched the platform as Cornerstone Workforce AI, with a skills engine and AI agents. It's sized for large, global organisations with dedicated admin teams. 

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Key Features

  • Full talent suite: Learning, performance, succession, recruiting and core HR
  • Skills engine: A skills library of 55,000+ skills, powered by its SkyHive acquisition
  • Global compliance: Compliance and certification management across multiple regions
  • Talent suite integration: Connects learning to performance, recruiting, and workforce planning

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Pricing

Cornerstone doesn't publish pricing.

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Rating

G2: 4.1/5.

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Most training software promises personalisation but delivers a course catalogue

Most L&D teams know the pattern. You launch a new platform, logins spike in compliance week, and then everything goes quiet. According to LinkedIn's 2025 Workplace Learning Report, 88% of organisations worry about retention, and learning is their top retention strategy. 

So a platform nobody opens is a business problem, not just an awkward dashboard. Completion rates look fine, but ask a manager whether the training changed anything and you'll get a shrug. 

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Why listen to us?

We built HowNow because we kept seeing the same thing at organisation after organisation. They'd buy a learning platform, load it up, and watch engagement drop off. So we built a platform around skills instead of catalogues, and our customers' results show the difference.

TomTom reached 90% activation across 3,500 people and 100% onboarding completion. Orbus cut a two-day training process down to 2.5 hours. At AND Digital, 75% of employees use HowNow every working day.

We also talk to L&D leaders every week who are replacing a platform that didn't work out. So we know the questions worth asking.

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What is online training software for employees?

Online training software lets you deliver learning content digitally, and at its simplest it's just a course library with a login. The more advanced platforms map training to skills, so each person sees content that's relevant to their role.

You'll see it sold under a few labels. A learning management system (LMS) focuses on assigning and tracking courses. A learning experience platform (LXP) focuses on discovery and personalisation. 

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Why is online training software important?

Skills needs are changing faster than most organisations can keep up. In a 2025 Gartner survey, 48% of HR leaders said demand for new skills is evolving faster than their talent structures can support. Good training software helps you respond without doubling the size of your L&D team.

  • Onboarding is faster and more consistent. Every new starter gets the same baseline, wherever they join.
  • You can track compliance properly. Assign mandatory training, set deadlines, and pull an audit trail in seconds.
  • You can see where the skills gaps are. Good software shows you where the gaps are across your organisation, not just who finished a course.
  • You can train more people without growing your L&D team. The platform assigns courses, sends reminders, and pulls reports for you, so your L&D team doesn't have to do it manually.
  • Learning reaches people where they work. The best platforms deliver training inside Slack, Teams or the browser, so nobody has to remember another login.

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Selection criteria: how we evaluated

We scored each platform on six things that matter most to L&D teams at organisations of 250 to 5,000 people.

  • AI depth: Does AI adapt learning to each person, or just recommend popular courses?
  • Skills relevance: Can the platform connect training to the skills each role needs?
  • Engagement: Will people use it, including inside the tools they already work in?
  • Admin and reporting: How much manual work does it remove, and can you prove impact?
  • Pricing transparency: Is pricing published, and how does it scale as you grow?
  • User ratings: We checked G2 ratings and common review themes in September 2026.

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How to choose

Start with the problem you most need to solve. If it's making training relevant to each person's role, HowNow and Sana Learn both personalise learning around skills rather than just delivering courses.

If you need to train employees, customers, and partners from one system, Docebo and Absorb both offer separately branded portals. Cornerstone makes sense if you want learning, performance and recruiting in one enterprise suite.

For smaller teams watching their budget, TalentLMS has a free plan and iSpring LMS only charges for people who log in. If compliance is the main driver, Kallidus keeps it simple.

Whatever you shortlist, run a trial with real employees, not just the L&D team. Features and pricing matter, but your team won't use a platform that doesn't feel relevant to them. 

If you want one that maps learning to skills from day one, book a HowNow demo and bring that manager who shrugged.

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FAQs

How much does online training software cost?

Costs vary widely. Tools with published pricing, like iSpring, run roughly $4 to $7 per user per month, while most enterprise platforms use custom quotes. HowNow prices through a demo based on your team's size and needs.

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Do i need an LMS or an LXP?

An LMS is where you store and assign courses. An LXP puts learners in control and recommends content based on their role and skills. Most modern platforms, including HowNow and Sana Learn, now do both. 

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Can online training software replace in-person training?

It covers most needs, including onboarding, compliance, product knowledge and skills development. It's less effective for hands-on skills or sensitive conversations that need a facilitator in the room. So most organisations end up using a blended approach.

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How long does online training software take to implement?

It depends on the platform, your integrations and how much content you're moving. Simpler tools can be running within weeks, while enterprise suites often take months. Hotelplan mapped 300+ job roles on HowNow in one month.

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Can online training software integrate with our existing tools?

Most platforms connect with HRIS, single sign-on and communication tools. HowNow syncs with your HRIS to enrol people automatically and delivers learning in Slack, Teams and Chrome. 

We Reviewed The 10 Best Online Training Software For Employees

Blog
October 5, 2026
.
5 min read

Quick summary

IT skills have a short shelf life. The right LMS maps technical skills automatically, plugs into the tools your engineers already use, and makes compliance straightforward to prove. 

We compared 10 platforms on what matters most to IT companies: skills tracking, AI capabilities, integrations, compliance, and pricing transparency. HowNow came out on top for AI-driven skills mapping, followed by 360Learning, Docebo and others.

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10 best learning management systems for IT companies

No. Tool G2 Rating Best For Pricing
1 HowNow 4.5/5 AI-driven skills mapping and personalised learning Begins at £60/user/year
2 360Learning 4.6/5 Peer-led collaborative technical training From $8/user/mo
3 Docebo 4.3/5 Enterprise IT with large content needs Custom
4 LearnUpon 4.5/5 Multi-portal training for employees and customers Custom
5 Thrive 4.5/5 Engagement-driven learning with published pricing $34000 per 1-100 learners
6 Cornerstone 4.1/5 Large enterprise compliance and content Custom
7 TalentLMS 4.6/5 Small IT teams, fast and affordable From $119/mo
8 Absorb LMS 4.6/5 Scalable platform for growing teams Custom
9 Degreed 4.3/5 Enterprise-scale skills intelligence Custom
10 Litmos 4.3/5 Global teams, fast deployment Custom

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1. HowNow

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HowNow is an AI-native learning platform that connects what your people learn to the skills they need. For IT companies, that matters because the skills your team needs change with every framework update, cloud migration, or security patch.

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The Skills Graph maps every employee to skills and proficiency levels using job-market data across 30,000+ job roles. You don't need to build a taxonomy from scratch or ask engineers to self-report. The AI handles the mapping, and managers refine it with Focus Skills and peer endorsements.

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Guru is HowNow's AI coaching agent. It teaches, quizzes, and runs scenario-based practice sessions, all grounded in your company's own knowledge. It cites its sources, so your technical team can verify every answer. In environments where accuracy matters, that's not optional.

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HowNow Plus adds 10,000+ curated learning resources mapped to skills. You get relevant technical content on day one without building a single course. Publishers include Packt, iHasco, and McKinsey.

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Hotelplan mapped 300+ job roles in one month and hit 99% activation within three months. Operatix reduced ramp time for new hires by 33%. And Infinity Works, a UK IT consultancy, hit 97% activation within four months.

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Key features

  • AI pathway builder: Personalised learning paths built from skills gaps, role context, and business goals. Automatically.
  • Adaptive learning: Every learner gets a personalised path based on their role, skills, and progress. 1:1 learning at scale.
  • AI curation: The right content found, tagged, and organised from your internal sources and external libraries. Surfaced automatically.
  • Learning communities: Peer expertise made visible, structured, and searchable. Your best knowledge captured and available to everyone.
  • Skills graph: Every skill and every gap visible. The intelligence that connects performance gaps to the learning that will close them.
  • Career paths: Every employee sees their skills, their gaps, and where they can grow. Real paths that drive engagement without mandating it.
  • AI Performance coaching: Answers, practice, feedback, and proactive coaching — delivered where your people already work. Connected to real work signals.
  • Trusted content: Expert knowledge your AI can actually use. Every recommendation grounded in real expertise, not generic results. 
  • Unified Search: Pulls any course, document or expert answer from one search box across your tools.
  • In-flow delivery: Serves learning inside Slack, Teams and the browser, where people already work.

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Pricing

  • Essentials - £60/user/year, Centralised learning with built-in compliance
  • Pro - £80/user/year, Personalised learning for every role, powered by AI, with zero admin
  • Plus - +£45/user/year, Curated learning from top providers, ready to use, skills-mapped, included in one subscription 

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G2 rating

4.5 out of 5.

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2. 360Learning

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360Learning is a collaborative learning platform where your subject-matter experts create the training, with L&D overseeing quality. For IT companies, that model works well. Technical knowledge lives in your engineers' heads, and 360Learning gives them AI authoring tools to turn it into courses quickly.

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The platform supports 80+ integrations, including Workday, Slack, and BambooHR. The Team plan covers up to 100 users and comes with a 30-day free trial, which makes it easier to test with a small group first.

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Key features

  • AI Content Builder: Helps experts create courses quickly with L&D oversight and quality controls.
  • Collaborative authoring: Lets multiple contributors build and review courses together.
  • 80+ integrations: Connects to Workday, Slack, BambooHR, and other HRIS tools.
  • Compliance management: Automates assignments, tracks completions, and generates audit-ready reports.
  • Reaction-based feedback: Surfaces content gaps through learner responses so you can fix them fast.

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Team: $8 per user per month. Business and Enterprise plans are custom-quoted.

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G2 rating

4.6 out of 5.

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‍

3. Docebo

‍

Docebo is an enterprise learning platform with a 30,000+ course marketplace and an AI layer called Harmony. For large IT organisations, that catalogue saves your team from building courses from scratch.

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AgentHub lets you build no-code AI agents for compliance triage and skill gap scouting. Skills Intelligence, powered by 365Talents, can infer skills from roles, projects, and learning activity. It's a paid add-on, which means it's not included in the base price. 

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Key features

  • Harmony AI: Provides tutoring, copilot features, and personalised content recommendations.
  • Content Marketplace: Offers 30,000+ courses from third-party providers.
  • AgentHub: Builds no-code AI agents for compliance, onboarding, and admin tasks.
  • Skills Intelligence: Infers employee skills from roles and projects.
  • Extended Enterprise: Supports multi-audience training for employees, partners, and customers.

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Pricing

Custom pricing based on active users.

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G2 rating

4.3 out of 5.

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4. LearnUpon

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LearnUpon is a multi-portal LMS built for organisations that need to train employees, customers, and partners from one platform. For IT companies running customer education alongside internal upskilling, that flexibility is a real advantage.

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The platform supports SCORM and xAPI content, automated enrolments, and SSO. LearnUpon's strength is simplicity. You can get a portal live quickly without heavy IT involvement.

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Key features

  • Multi-portal architecture: Lets you run separate training environments for employees, customers, and partners from one account.
  • Automated enrolments: Triggers learning paths based on role, team, or custom rules.
  • SCORM and xAPI support: Lets you import existing technical courses without rebuilding them.
  • Salesforce and HubSpot integrations: Connects learning data to your CRM for customer education tracking.
  • 24/7 support: Comes with a dedicated customer success team for every account.

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Pricing

Custom pricing based on user count. Minimum 100 users for employee training, 300 for customer education.

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G2 rating

4.5 out of 5.

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5. Thrive

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Thrive is an AI-powered LMS and LXP focused on engagement-driven learning. Thrive's AI agent, Kiki, handles coaching, content creation, and analytics in one tool. Skill Pathways map learning to skills with clear progression routes, and Spaces provide community areas for peer collaboration.

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Key features

  • Kiki AI agent: Covers coaching, content creation, and learning analytics in one tool.
  • Skill Pathways: Maps learning to skills with visible progression routes.
  • Spaces: Provides community learning areas for collaboration and peer discussion.
  • Topics: Offers 2,500+ curated learning resources from external publishers.
  • Published pricing: Lets procurement teams build a business case without a sales call.

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Pricing

Price starts at $34000 per 1-100 learners, $48263 from 501-600 learners onwards

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G2 rating

4.5 out of 5.

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6. Cornerstone OnDemand

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Cornerstone is one of the largest enterprise learning platforms, trusted by 7,000+ organisations across 180+ countries.

Workforce AI, launched in 2026, adds a skills engine covering 45,000+ skills. Cornerstone suits enterprises with dedicated rollout teams and the patience for a longer implementation cycle. It has been assembled through several acquisitions, and the interface reflects that history.  

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Key features

  • Workforce AI: Covers 45,000+ skills with recommendations and career pathing tools.
  • Compliance management: Includes deep tracking, audit tools, and regulatory reporting.
  • Talent suite integration: Connects learning to performance, recruiting, and workforce planning.
  • Global scale: Supports 7,000+ organisations and 50 languages.

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Pricing

Custom pricing. No public rates. Quotes are based on organisation size and selected modules.

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G2 rating

4.1 out of 5.

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7. TalentLMS

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TalentLMS is a lightweight, affordable LMS serving 70,000+ teams. It's one of the few platforms on this list with a free plan, and small IT teams can get running in a day.

The trade-off is depth. TalentLMS doesn't offer AI skills mapping, adaptive learning paths, or advanced analytics. It handles basic course delivery, quizzes, and certification tracking well, which is enough for small teams with straightforward training needs.

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Key features

  • Quick setup: Gets you live in a day without dedicated IT resources.
  • Course builder: Supports drag-and-drop multimedia, quizzes, and surveys.
  • Integrations: Connects to Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, and 200+ apps via Zapier.
  • Certification tracking: Automates assignment, completion, and renewal reminders.

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Pros

  • Affordable and fast to deploy for small IT teams.
  • Free plan lets you test with real users before committing budget.
  • Clean interface with minimal training needed for admins or learners.

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Cons

  • No AI skills mapping, adaptive learning, or intelligent recommendations.
  • Limited for mid-market or enterprise IT companies that need depth.
  • Reporting stays basic compared to platforms like Absorb, Docebo, or HowNow.

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Pricing

  • Free for up to 5 users
  • Core: $119/month (up to 40 users)
  • Grow: $229/month (up to 70)
  • Pro: $449/month (up to 100)

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G2 rating

4.6 out of 5.

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‍

8. Absorb LMS

‍

Absorb serves 3,700+ companies and millions of learners. The platform is built for organisations that are still growing and need admin tools and reporting that scale with them.

Intelligent Assist surfaces relevant content through AI recommendations. Custom reporting lets admins build compliance and skills dashboards. Absorb Infuse lets you embed learning directly into your existing tools, which is a strong fit for IT teams that live inside internal portals.

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Key features

  • Intelligent Assist: Surfaces relevant content with AI-powered recommendations.
  • Custom reporting: Lets admins build compliance and skills dashboards to their specs.
  • Scalable architecture: Handles growing learner populations without performance drops.
  • Absorb Infuse: Embeds learning into your existing apps and internal portals.
  • Integrations: Connects to HRIS, CRM, and collaboration tools out of the box.

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Pricing

Custom pricing. Contact sales for a quote.

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G2 rating

4.6 out of 5.

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‍

9. Degreed

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Degreed is a skills intelligence platform with 10 million+ activated users across 160+ countries. The focus is on skills development rather than traditional course delivery.

For large IT organisations, Degreed offers Skill Review assessments, career mobility tools, and an AI agent called Maestro. The platform pulls content from internal and external sources into one experience. You need a rich content ecosystem to get the most out of it.

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Key features

  • Skill Review: Assesses and tracks skill levels with structured peer and manager ratings.
  • Maestro AI: Personalises learning paths based on individual goals and skill gaps.
  • Content aggregation: Pulls internal wikis, external courses, and articles into one feed.
  • Career mobility: Maps current skills to internal roles and progression opportunities.
  • Partnerships: Covers 30+ content providers, including Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning.

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Pricing

Custom pricing. 

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G2 rating

4.3 out of 5.

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10. Litmos

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Litmos is a cloud-based LMS serving 11,000+ organisations across 150 countries. The platform is built for fast deployment, which suits IT companies with global teams that need to get training live quickly.

The platform handles course delivery and compliance tracking well, but it doesn't include AI skills mapping or adaptive learning paths.

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Key features

  • Fast deployment: Gets training live across global teams in days, not months.
  • Three-tier structure: Lets you scale feature depth as you grow.
  • Built-in content library: Sits alongside your custom courses for a blended approach.
  • Compliance tracking: Automates assignment, tracking, and reporting.

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Pricing

All three tiers are custom-quoted. 

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G2 rating

4.3 out of 5.

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Why IT companies need a purpose-fit LMS

Technical skills change faster than you can build courses for them. Cloud platforms release updates weekly. Security frameworks evolve with every new threat. A platform that mapped your team's skills six months ago is already out of date if it relies on manual input.

Integrations decide adoption. If the LMS doesn't plug into Slack, Teams, Jira, or your HRIS, nobody will open it. Your engineers spend their day in code editors and project boards. The learning platform needs to meet them there.

Developer onboarding sets the tone. New engineers need to ramp on your tech stack, codebase, and internal processes in weeks, not months. A purpose-fit LMS delivers structured onboarding paths mapped to role-specific skills, so new hires know exactly what to learn and in what order.

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Why listen to us

HowNow is an AI-native learning platform built for companies where skills move fast. We work with IT and tech organisations every day, from consultancies to product companies to global enterprises.

‍

Here's what they've achieved with HowNow:

  • Infinity Works, a UK-based IT consultancy, hit 97% learner activation within four months.
  • Trainline cut compliance training time by 50% after switching to HowNow.
  • TomTom reached 90%+ engagement and saw a 7–10% increase in internal mobility.
  • AND Digital achieved 75% daily platform use and 95% workforce engagement with their AI Ignition programme.
  • Hotelplan mapped 300+ job roles in one month and hit 99% activation within three months.

We build for this problem. We also reviewed every platform on this list. When another tool fits your situation better, we'll say so.

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‍

What to look for in an LMS for IT companies

Not every LMS is built for technical teams. Here's what to prioritise.

  • Skills tracking: Can it map and track technical skills automatically? Or does it only log course completions? IT companies need a platform that understands cloud certifications, programming languages, and security frameworks at the role level.
  • AI features: Does the platform use AI for personalisation, content recommendations, or skills mapping? Surface-level AI won't cut it. Look for a platform where AI runs through coaching, content creation, and analytics.
  • Integrations: Does it plug into the tools your engineers already use? Slack, Teams, Jira, your HRIS. If people have to leave their workflow to learn, they won't.
  • Compliance automation: Can it automate certification tracking, renewal reminders, and audit evidence? SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR compliance require ongoing proof, not a one-off tick box.
  • Pricing transparency: Can you build a business case without sitting through a sales call first? Check whether skills intelligence, AI features, and content are included or sold as paid add-ons.

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How to choose the right LMS for your it company

Start with what you're tracking. If you need to map cloud certifications, programming languages, and security frameworks to each role, you need AI-driven skills mapping. Not every platform here does that.

Think about integrations. Your engineers live in Slack, Teams, and Jira. If the LMS doesn't connect to those tools, adoption will stall from day one.

Factor in your compliance burden. SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR all need ongoing evidence. Pick a platform that automates tracking and reminders rather than relying on spreadsheets.

Consider your team size. A team of 30 has different needs from one of 3,000. TalentLMS fits small IT teams on a budget. Cornerstone and Docebo make more sense at enterprise scale. HowNow covers mid-to-large organisations where skills mapping and AI coaching matter most.

Check what's included in the price. Skills intelligence, AI coaching, and content libraries are often sold as paid add-ons. Those costs add up at renewal, so get the full picture before you sign.

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Your IT team deserves a learning platform that keeps pace

Technical skills don't wait. New frameworks ship, security threats evolve, and cloud platforms push updates faster than any course catalogue can track. Your learning platform needs to move at the same speed.

That's why we built HowNow around a Skills Graph that maps skills from real work, not self-assessment forms. Guru coaches your team with answers grounded in your own documentation and cites its sources. 

IT companies like Infinity Works, Trainline, and TomTom already use HowNow to connect learning to the skills their teams need. Infinity Works hit 97% activation in four months. Trainline halved compliance training time. TomTom saw 90%+ engagement and a measurable increase in internal mobility.

If you want to see how the Skills Graph and Guru work with your team's data, book a demo.

‍

‍

FAQs

What's the best lms for IT companies?

HowNow is the strongest option for AI-driven skills mapping tied to job-market data. 360Learning suits teams that want peer-led technical training. Docebo fits large enterprises with broad content needs.

‍

Do IT companies need AI features in an lms?

AI skills mapping and personalised learning paths save significant time when technical skills change fast. Without them, your L&D team manually updates taxonomies. That doesn't scale.

‍

How much does an LMS for IT companies cost?

LMS pricing varies by vendor. HowNow is quoted per organisation, starting from £60/user/year. Self-serve options include TalentLMS ($119/month), 360Learning ($8/user/month), and Skillsoft Percipio ($20/seat/month).

‍

Can an LMS track technical certifications?

Most platforms on this list track certifications and send renewal reminders. HowNow, Cornerstone, and Litmos offer the deepest compliance automation, including audit evidence and automated assignment.

‍

What's the difference between an LMS and an LXP?

An LMS delivers and tracks structured courses. An LXP aggregates content from multiple sources and lets learners explore. HowNow combines both with AI-driven skills intelligence.

We Reviewed the 10 Best Learning Management Systems for IT Companies

Blog
October 7, 2026
.
5 min read

Quick summary

Litmos handles compliance and course delivery well, but it doesn't go far on skills tracking or reporting. HowNow leads this list for mid-to-large organisations that want AI-native learning personalised by skills. For collaborative course creation, 360Learning is a strong pick. And Docebo fits larger enterprises that need deep customisation.

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10 best Litmos alternatives

We ranked these on skills mapping, reporting depth, pricing transparency, and G2 ratings from verified users. Platforms that tie learning to business outcomes, not just completions, scored higher.

Tool Best for Skills approach Starting price G2 rating
1. HowNow LMS, LXP, skills and content in one AI-native platform Inferred from real work activity Quoted per organisation, ROI calculator on site 4.5/5
2. 360Learning Expert-led, collaborative course building Skill tagging on courses and experts $8/user/month (Team, up to 100 users) 4.6/5
3. Docebo Employee, customer and partner training at enterprise scale Self-declared and survey inputs No published price, 250-learner minimum 4.3/5
4. Cornerstone OnDemand Organisations buying a full talent suite Skills Engine built on labour-market data No published price 4.1/5
5. Disprz AI-built content for distributed and frontline teams Off-the-shelf Atomic Skills Model $2/learner/month (Essentials) 4.4/5
6. Thrive Learning A work launchpad with AI agents included Skill pathways mapped to roles Published through a live pricing calculator 4.5/5
7. Kallidus UK organisations with heavy compliance needs Role-based assignment, lighter on skills No published price 4.3/5
8. TalentLMS Small teams that want to launch this week Basic skills tracking and self-assessment $119/month (Core, up to 40 users) 4.6/5
9. Absorb LMS Selling training externally alongside internal L&D Absorb Skills, mapped to 12,000+ job skills No published price, free trial available 4.6/5
10. LearnUpon Separate branded portals for each audience Lighter skills mapping No published price, from 100 users 4.5/5

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‍

1. HowNow

‍

HowNow is an AI-native learning platform that brings courses, coaching, communities, and career paths into one place. We built it for organisations of 250 to 5,000 employees who've outgrown a traditional LMS.

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What sets HowNow apart starts with skills. Our skills graph reads skills from the work your people already do, not from a self-assessment form. So content stays relevant as roles change, and there's no six-month taxonomy project to run first. AI runs through every feature, from dashboards to Guru, our AI coach, rather than sitting in a bolted-on chatbot.

‍

HowNow Plus adds 10,000+ skills-mapped courses on the same subscription. It plugs into ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude, so your AI tools draw on trusted content rather than the open web.

‍

Operatix ramps new starters 33% faster since switching to HowNow. At Hotelplan, 78% of employees now feel confident in the skills their role needs.

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Key features

  • AI pathway builder: Personalised learning paths built from skills gaps, role context, and business goals
  • Adaptive learning: Every learner gets a personalised path based on their role, skills, and progress. 1:1 learning at scale
  • AI curation: The right content found, tagged, and organised from your internal sources and external libraries. Surfaced automatically
  • Learning communities: Peer expertise made visible, structured, and searchable. Your best knowledge captured and available to everyone
  • Skills graph: Every skill and every gap visible. The intelligence that connects performance gaps to the learning that will close them
  • Career paths: Every employee sees their skills, their gaps, and where they can grow. Real paths that drive engagement without mandating it
  • AI Performance coaching: Answers, practice, feedback, and proactive coaching, delivered where your people already work. Connected to real work signals
  • Trusted content: Expert knowledge your AI can actually use. Every recommendation grounded in real expertise, not generic results
  • Unified Search: Pulls any course, document or expert answer from one search box across your tools
  • In-flow delivery: Serves learning inside Slack, Teams and the browser, where people already work

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Pricing

Quoted per organisation after a demo, with an ROI calculator on the pricing page to model the investment first.

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G2 rating

4.5/5 (54 reviews), with a Market Leader badge and Best Support and Easiest Admin awards.

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2. 360Learning

‍

360Learning is a collaborative platform where your internal experts create courses, not just the L&D team. The model suits teams whose knowledge changes faster than a central team can document it. It also handles instructor-led training and SCORM content alongside AI-built courses.

‍

If you're weighing other options here, our 360Learning alternatives guide covers them in more depth.

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Key features

  • Collaborative authoring: Experts build courses with AI tools, no instructional design background needed
  • Feedback loops: Learners flag outdated content directly inside a course, keeping it current without a separate review cycle
  • Blended learning: Mixes self-paced courses with live and virtual instructor-led sessions
  • Broad integrations: Connects to HRIS platforms, comms tools, and third-party content providers

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Pricing

Team plan runs $8 per user per month for up to 100 users, with a 30-day free trial. Enterprise is custom-quoted.

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G2 rating

4.6/5, Momentum Leader in the Learning Platform category.

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‍

3. Docebo

‍

Docebo is an enterprise LMS built for organisations that need deep customisation and multi-audience training. It's used by 3,900+ organisations and trains employees, customers, and partners from one system through Extended Enterprise.

For a closer look, see our Docebo vs Litmos comparison or our Docebo alternatives guide.

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Key features

  • AI content creation: Generates courses and translates them into 40+ languages
  • Extended enterprise: Trains customers and partners alongside employees, each in their own branded academy
  • White-labelling: Customises branding for each audience, including branded mobile apps
  • Advanced analytics: Builds custom reports with AI-assisted insights

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Pricing

No published price. Elevate and Enterprise are quoted by active user count, with a 250-learner minimum and one to five-year contracts.

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G2 rating

4.3/5 (752 reviews).

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‍

4. Cornerstone OnDemand

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Cornerstone is an enterprise talent platform covering learning, performance, recruiting, and succession planning in one suite. Half the Fortune 100 uses it, across more than 180 countries.

Our Cornerstone alternatives guide and Docebo vs Cornerstone comparison go deeper.

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Key features

  • Workforce AI: Identifies skills gaps and maps where automation will change roles
  • Full talent suite: Recruiting, onboarding, learning, performance, and succession planning in one system
  • Compliance at scale: Tracks certifications and audit evidence across global teams
  • Content subscriptions: Accesses third-party course libraries inside the platform, sold as a separate tier

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Pricing

No published price. You'll need a sales conversation to get a quote.

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G2 rating

4.1/5 (530 reviews for the Learning product).

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‍

5. Disprz

‍

Disprz combines an LMS, LXP, and skilling engine in one AI-native platform. It leans heavily on generative AI to personalise pathways and build content. We cover that model in our guide to how AI drives personalisation. It's built mobile-first for large, distributed, and frontline teams.

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Where Disprz stands out is its Atomic Skills Model, an off-the-shelf taxonomy mapped to every job role. The platform builds role-based pathways from it, then adapts assessments to how each person responds.

‍

Key features

  • Atomic Skills Model: An off-the-shelf skills taxonomy mapped to every job role
  • AI-powered pathways: Personalised upskilling routes built from proficiency, interests, and goals
  • Adaptive assessments: Multi-format assessments that adjust to how each learner responds
  • Generative authoring: AI drafts, summarises, and curates learning content quickly
  • Frontline enablement: Mobile-first, multilingual delivery built for distributed and deskless teams

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Pricing

Essentials, the LMS tier, starts at $2 per learner per month. Enterprise, which adds skills and AI experiences, is custom-quoted.

‍

G2 rating

4.4/5.

‍

‍

6. Thrive Learning

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Thrive brings learning, knowledge sharing, mentoring, and internal comms into one platform, positioned as a work launchpad rather than just an LMS. It's used by 500+ organisations and 5 million users, including Volvo, Vodafone, and British Airways.

We cover the wider field in our Thrive alternatives guide.

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Key features

  • Kiki AI agent: Handles coaching, analytics, content creation, and admin tasks, included at no extra cost
  • Skill pathways: Maps skills to roles and builds structured development programmes
  • Communities: Peer groups where teams and departments share knowledge in one feed
  • Mentoring tools: Matches mentors and mentees based on skills and goals

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Pricing

Thrive publishes a live calculator on its pricing page. Enter your learner count and it shows a price for Thrive Go and Thrive Content instantly. Price starts at $34000 per 1-100 learners, $48263 from 501-600 learners onwards

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G2 rating

4.5/5 (90 reviews).

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‍

7. Kallidus

‍

Kallidus is a UK-based learning and talent platform with a strong compliance focus. If you're a UK team managing mandatory training across a distributed workforce, it's a familiar, well-trusted name.

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Key features

  • Compliance management: Assigns training by role, with audit-ready reports built in
  • Content library: Off-the-shelf compliance and soft-skills courses included
  • Performance management: Appraisals, objectives, and development goals in the same system
  • Onboarding workflows: Automated task assignments and check-ins for new starters

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Pricing

No published price. Quotes are based on organisation size and the modules you choose.

‍

G2 rating

4.3/5.

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‍

8. TalentLMS

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TalentLMS is built for small and mid-sized teams that want training live fast. It's one of the few platforms on this list with public pricing and a usable free tier.

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Key features

  • Fast setup: Gets your first training programme live in under a day
  • Free plan: Trains up to 5 users across 10 courses at no cost
  • Gamification: Points, badges, and leaderboards built in on every tier
  • AI course creation: Generates draft courses from a topic using TalentCraft

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Pricing

Core runs $119/month for up to 40 users, Grow is $229/month, and Pro is $449/month. A free plan covers 5 users and 10 courses.

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G2 rating

4.6/5 (700+ reviews).

‍

‍

9. Absorb LMS

‍

Absorb is used by 3,700+ companies, including Sony, Samsung, and Toyota. It covers employee training, compliance, customer education, and course monetisation. It has recently added AI features for content generation and skills-based upskilling paths.

Our Absorb alternatives guide covers where it fits and where it doesn't.

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Key features

  • Absorb Create: Generates courses from a brief using AI
  • Course monetisation: Sells courses through 70+ payment gateways
  • Absorb Skills: Maps upskilling paths to 12,000+ job skills
  • Integrations: 40+ connectors, including Workday, ADP, and Salesforce

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Pricing

No published price, though a free trial is available.

‍

G2 rating

4.6/5 , named a Forrester Wave Leader.

‍

‍

10. LearnUpon

‍

LearnUpon is built for organisations training multiple audiences from one platform. It supports employees, customers, and partners, each with their own branded portal. If you're comparing further, our LearnUpon alternatives guide goes deeper.

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Key features

  • Multi-audience portals: Separate branded portals for each audience, run from one back end
  • Automation engine: Triggers enrolments and certifications automatically as people join a group
  • eCommerce: Sells courses with flexible pricing and bundling
  • Guided onboarding: Includes a dedicated customer success manager

‍

Pricing

No published price. Minimum user counts start at 100 for employees, 150 for associations, and 300 for customer education.

‍

G2 rating

4.5/5.

‍

‍

Why listen to us?

We build HowNow, so we have a stake in this list. We also sit in these evaluations every week, often against Litmos, and we see what happens after teams switch.

Infinity Works hit 97% activation within four months. At Hotelplan, 99% of employees activated and 78% now feel confident in their roles. Operatix ramps new starters 33% faster, and Trainline halved the time its compliance training takes.

When TomTom launched its academy on HowNow, learner activation reached 90% and every new starter completed onboarding. At AND Digital, 75% of people use HowNow every working day, and L&D curation time has halved. FitFlop saw 69% of employees rate their access to relevant learning positively, and Radius upskilled 3,000 managers.

Most of these teams sit between 250 and 5,000 people, the same size as many Litmos customers. You can read how each one did it in our customer stories.

‍

What is Litmos?

Litmos is a cloud-based learning management system used by 11,000+ organisations across 150+ countries. Its customers include HPE, ADP, Sabre, and Headspace. It handles course delivery, compliance tracking, content authoring, and integrations with the wider business toolset.

There are three tiers: Foundation, Platinum, and Platinum AI, and all three are quoted through a demo. For a closer look, see our Docebo vs Litmos comparison.

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‍

Why seek alternatives to Litmos?

Skills tracking and personalisation are limited

Litmos delivers and tracks courses well, but it doesn't map that content to your people's skills. Say you want learning paths based on what someone knows and what their role needs. You'll end up building that logic yourself, outside the platform.

‍

Reporting doesn't connect learning to outcomes

Litmos tracks completions and compliance well enough for an audit. But your head of L&D may need to show the board how training affects retention, performance, or revenue. Litmos reporting doesn't stretch that far. Most teams end up exporting the data into a spreadsheet to make the case themselves.

‍

Pricing is opaque

All three tiers point to a sales conversation, which makes it harder to compare options or plan a budget before you've spoken to anyone.

‍

Selection criteria: How we evaluated Litmos alternatives

We looked at each platform's learning features, AI capabilities, skills tracking, pricing transparency, and G2 ratings from verified users. We weighted platforms that connect learning to skills and business outcomes more heavily.

How to choose the best Litmos alternatives 

If you're a mid-to-large organisation of 250 to 5,000 employees that wants AI-native skills mapping, HowNow is built for that. If collaborative course creation matters most, 360Learning gives you that model at a transparent starting price. If you want a price before a sales call, TalentLMS and Thrive both publish theirs. And for training customers and partners at scale, Docebo, Absorb, or LearnUpon fit best.

‍

Find the right Litmos alternative for your team

The right platform depends on where your L&D team is heading next. If you're ready to move past compliance-first training, book a demo with HowNow. We'll map your job roles to skills on the first call.

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‍

FAQs

What's the best Litmos alternative for mid-to-large organisations?

HowNow is the strongest option for organisations between 250 and 5,000 employees. It combines AI-native skills mapping, personalised learning paths, and unified reporting in one platform. You can see the results in our customer stories.

‍

Does Litmos offer a free plan or trial?

Litmos has no free plan, but it does offer a 14-day free trial. Pricing for all three tiers, Foundation, Platinum, and Platinum AI, still needs a sales conversation before you can budget.

‍

Which alternative has the most transparent pricing?

TalentLMS and Thrive are the clearest. TalentLMS publishes every tier, starting at $119 a month for up to 40 users, plus a free plan. Thrive shows a price instantly through a live calculator.

‍

Can I move my SCORM content to another platform?

Yes. SCORM packages move across most of these platforms without a rebuild, and several support xAPI too. Completion history and certification records need more planning, since each platform models them differently.

‍

What's the highest-rated Litmos alternative on G2?

360Learning, TalentLMS, and Absorb LMS share the top G2 rating on this list at 4.6/5. Absorb carries the largest review base of the three. Ratings shift often, so check current scores before you shortlist.

We reviewed 10 Litmos Alternatives for Corporate Learning Teams

Blog
October 7, 2026
.
5 min read
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