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Canvas vs Chamilo

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Our analysts compared Canvas vs Chamilo based on data from our 400+ point analysis of LMS Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Overview Pricing Benefits & Features Analyst Ratings Comparison Charts User Ratings Analyst Summary Screenshots
Canvas Software Tool
SelectHub Award Winner
Chamilo Software Tool
SelectHub Award Winner
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Product Basics

Analyst Rating

79 Detailed Analysis

User Sentiment

Excellent User Sentiment (5849 Reviews)

Analyst Rating

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Detailed Analysis

User Sentiment

Excellent User Sentiment (1 Reviews)

Canvas helps you create and deliver engaging courses to your students and track their progress in real time. It allows you to post course materials, assignments, quizzes and grades. Students can access these resources, submit their work and communicate with other team members.

You can host discussions through discussion boards and chat rooms, provide personalized feedback using SpeedGrader and track student progress with built-in analytics. Canvas integrates with third-party apps like Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting, and offers three mobile apps, one each for teachers, students and parents.

User reviews about Canvas praise its smooth interface, real-time collaboration tools and course creation capabilities. Since pricing details aren't mentioned online, you can contact the vendor directly for more information.

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Chamilo is a cloud-based open-source learning solution designed to improve access to education. It helps businesses develop virtual campuses to facilitate online or semi-online training. It empowers its users with the capability to accommodate over 3,500 connected learners simultaneously.

It comes with powerful inclusions like course catalogs, certificate generation, skill management, configuration and SCORM support. It also provides shopping carts for users to sell their e-learning courses and generate revenue.

It can connect over 3,500 learners, help users prepare training material, strengthen learning methods, install web hosting solutions for free, make use of synchronous and asynchronous communication channels and much more. Due to its cloud compatibility, it is accessible via iOS or Android and support can be extended via documentation and email.
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Product Insights

  • Ensures Continuous Learning: Experience minimal disruptions with a 99.9% uptime. Say goodbye to unexpected crashes and keep your educational ecosystem reliable and accessible at all times.
  • Enriches Learning with Unlimited File Size: Upload as much audio, visuals and video content as you need to courses. File size is not limited, so you can provide comprehensive and engaging materials without worrying about storage constraints.
  • Strengthens Collaboration: If you’re looking to create collaborative learning experiences for your team, Canvas is the perfect LMS for you. Based on our analysis, it provides a variety of collaboration tools fully out of the box, such as discussion boards, content sharing, group chat, two-way messaging, and notes and annotations.
  • Ensures Consistency in Evaluations: Create centralized repositories of questions at account levels. For instance, you can create sub-account question banks to store assessments like basic grammar rules across various courses. This ensures consistency in evaluations across different classes, making it easier to access and administer assessments. 
  • Offers a Flexible Pedagogy: Enable instructors to design classes around their preferred learning methods. That could mean standards-based grading, traditional grading, flipped learning, project-based learning and more.
  • Streamlines Corporate Training: Use Bridge LMS, Canvas’ corporate training solution, to meet your employee training needs. Create and track training programs, use built-in performance tools, integrate with HR systems and more.
  • Award-Winning LMS: Canvas ranks among our top 10 LMS software, alongside LMS giants like LearnUpon, Absorb LMS and Moodle. In the SelectHub Awards 2024 for the LMS category, it won best-in-class honors for assessments, collaboration, compliance, user management, gamification, and integrations and extensibility.
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  • Free Customizable Open-Source Platform: Chamilo is an open-source platform that empowers its users to customize their extensions and share their improvements with the online community. It lets educators control the content of their learning sessions to facilitate exciting studies. It is convenient, easy-to-use and easy to learn for students, compared to other online learning tools. 
  • Accessible Course Content: Its course contents are seamlessly accessible for students and teachers. This ease of access minimizes the rate of abandonment by remote learners. It also helps companies improve their chances of meeting their learning goals. It offers an editing tool that enables teachers to generate new content at an economical rate. The editing functionality lets users create self-evaluation processes, add tests and import external contents. 
  • Improved Access to Education: Chamilo allows users to enhance their access to education and knowledge across the globe. Backed by the Chamilo Association, it fosters a steady communication network between service providers and contributors. It enhances collaboration and builds a strong community of educators and trainers to improve course quality and teaching capabilities. 
  • Interoperability: It seamlessly integrates with external IT applications and systems to synergize workflows. It also offers integrations with Drupal and Joomla. For webinar options, users can integrate with open-source solutions like BigBlueButton, LibreOffice, OpenMeetings, Prestashop, Wiris and more. 
  • Less Bug Prone: It performs functions like editing, modifying, creating and deleting an object on the same platform. Its single platform solution lets modules and applications interact in a significantly less bug-prone manner. 
  • User-Friendly: Chamilo is intuitive and easy-to-use for educators as well as learners. Its technical requirements for usage are minimal, and users don’t have to suffer through a difficult learning curve to use its features. Its friendly interface lets teachers develop basic courses with text and multiple-choice questions for advanced courses. Some of its other features include conditional questions, assignments, group collaboration support and forums. Educators have a variety of options to structure their courses according to their preferences by organizing students into classes and pre-decide the lessons to be completed per session. 
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  • Course Creation: Create new courses using built-in interactive tools. Add specific details like name, course code, due date, language, grading scheme, modules and sections, description and more.
    • Announcements: Share key course information with everyone. Remind students of dates and tasks, point them to valuable resources, celebrate achievements and highlight events. You can include text, multimedia and files.
    • Grades: Show grades as points, percentages and complete/incomplete. Filter and arrange Gradebook entries, automatically apply grades for missing/late work, and hide grades until you're ready to release them.
    • People: Depending on permissions, add students, teachers, assistants and observers. Create student groups for group assignments, discussions and file sharing.
    • Pages: Create interactive content like weekly updates, collaborative wikis or resource lists. Include text, multimedia and links, and allow students to contribute to specific pages.
    • Files: Easily insert files into modules, assignments, discussions or pages. Share files with students or lock them until ready for download.
    • Quizzes: Use the New Quizzes engine for diverse question types. If unavailable, use Classic Quizzes to achieve your objectives.
    • Modules: Organize content by weeks and units. Add files, discussions, assignments, quizzes and more. Set prerequisites or lock modules until specific dates.
    • New Analytics: Use the New Analytics tool to monitor who has viewed content and participated in assignments and identify students needing extra support.
  • Dashboard: View published/unpublished courses, access the calendar and upcoming events, start new courses, view grades, enable notifications and more.
  • Assignments: Include quizzes, graded discussions and various online submissions (files, images, text, URLs media). Assign to everyone or set different due dates for specific groups. Organize assignments into groups, weigh them by percentage, and enable Peer Review for student feedback.
  • Gradebook: Easily input and distribute grades using various methods, such as points, percentages, pass/fail, GPA scale and letter grades.
    • Use SpeedGrader to assign grades and provide feedback efficiently.
    • Automatically create columns in the Gradebook for assignments, discussions, quizzes, surveys and attendance tracking.
    • View grades by grading periods, sort by due dates or student names, and apply specific filters for streamlined management.
    • Download and grade assignments offline and calculate totals.
    • Monitor grades across all courses, notify students of graded assignments and manage grade history.
    • Customize grading curves, message students based on assignment status, leave private comments and excuse assignments when necessary.
  • Rubrics: Set custom or outcome-based assessment criteria to communicate quality expectations. Use rubrics to align learning outcomes, assess submissions in SpeedGrader and support non-scoring assessments for comprehensive grading.
  • Canvas Catalog: Integrate with Canvas Catalog to streamline course offerings.
    • Easily bundle multiple courses into programs and enable registration for community education and professional development.
    • Create branded sub-catalog listings for specific departments or organizations.
    • Customize page templates for FAQs, contact info and individual course landing pages.
    • Set up personalized certificates and automate their distribution.
    • Allow students to track their progress with customized dashboards.
    • Generate reports on course progress, registrations, revenue and enrollment trends.
    • Offer hassle-free self-registration and self-paced courses with automated enrollment, payments and certificate distribution.
    • Build, manage and customize courses and programs.
  • SpeedGrader: Quickly grade student submissions in one place with SpeedGrader. Use a simple point scale or detailed rubrics to assign grades, and accept various document formats and URLs to mark up assignments directly for feedback. Sort submissions by student, hide names for anonymous grading and track your progress. Easily view submission details, handle resubmissions and manage moderated assignments.
  • Intelligent Insights: Enhance teaching and learning effectiveness with Intelligent Insights, a premium analytics solution tailored for admins.
    • Use AI and analytics to gather actionable data.
    • Leverage conversational AI for quick ad hoc data requests and pre-built analytics for tracking goals such as course effectiveness and student success.
    • Customize insights to pinpoint best practices, optimize LTI usage and address learning needs.
    • Build custom dashboards and automate SQL queries to streamline data management and improve learner support.
    • Identify courses that need improvement, notify instructors promptly and foster continuous improvement across teams.
  • Roll Call Attendance: Manage attendance in courses using the Attendance (Roll Call) tool, an external LTI app suitable for both online and face-to-face classes. Enabled at the account level, users can access it across all courses within your Canvas account.
  • Discussions: Communicate about course topics anytime. Create graded or casual discussions for idea exchange and problem-solving. Use threaded discussions for detailed topics and focused discussions for short exchanges.
  • Assessments: Administer assessments in the form of assignments, quizzes and discussions.
  • Assignments
    • Allow students to submit assignments online through text entry, file uploads, media recordings, external tools, URLs or Canvas pages.
    • Assign to individual students, groups or sections.
    • Include a due date for Not Graded assignments, without providing points or grades.
  • Discussions
    • Grade student responses to discussion topics.
    • Assign to individual students, groups or sections.
  • Quizzes
    • Conduct surveys or assess student comprehension of course content through quizzes.
    • Assign to individual students or sections, but not to groups.
  • Collaboration: Teachers can communicate with individual students, groups or the entire class through messaging, audio notes, video and more. Students can work together via chat groups, video and other messaging tools.
  • Mobile App: Provide equal access to curriculum and instruction with native mobile apps for students, teachers and parents on iOS and Android devices.
  • Canvas Student: Enables students to access courses anytime, anywhere. They can:
    • View grades and course content.
    • Submit assignments.
    • Keep track of coursework with a to-do list and calendar.
    • Send and receive messages.
    • Post to discussions, take quizzes and watch videos.
    • Receive notifications for new grades and course updates.
  • Canvas Teacher: Helps teachers manage their courses anywhere, both in and out of the classroom. This app offers quick access to three main tasks:
    • Browse submissions and give feedback to students with the enhanced mobile SpeedGrader.
    • Send announcements and messages (like "Message Students Who..."), and join course discussions quickly.
    • Change due dates, publish assignments and correct misspellings directly from your phone.
  • Canvas Parent: Allows parents to see their child's educational details easily at a glance. They can:
    • View assignment descriptions and due dates
    • Set reminders for assignments
    • View assignment and course grades
    • View course announcements
  • Outcomes: Set and track learning goals. Focus on skills and activities, not just grades. Assess progress using the Learning Mastery Gradebook. Import existing outcomes and align them with course rubrics.
  • SIS Imports: Upload and integrate data from SIS using CSV files or through the Canvas API. Manage users, accounts, courses, enrollments, logins and more. Use IMS Enterprise Specification XML zip files or Banner Grade Exchange Results XML for automated imports.
  • Canvas Studio: Create, deliver and organize video content in various formats within your media library using Canvas Studio.
    • Upload videos directly from devices or integrate them from YouTube into courses.
    • Monitor student engagement by tracking views, duration and interactions.
    • Connect with platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts.
    • Engage students with interactive video quizzes, real-time feedback and integrated Gradebook.
    • Provide personalized feedback using SpeedGrader and customize learning paths with MasteryPaths.
    • Encourage student participation through video creation and peer feedback.
    • Integrate instruction, assessment and additional learning opportunities directly into the video experience.
  • Conferences: Integrate with BigBlueButton to host lectures, office hours and group meetings. Broadcast audio/video, share slides, and demonstrate applications and resources.
  • ePortfolios: Create ePortfolios to display and discuss your students’ submissions and experiences. Allow them to collect and document educational projects, assignments and more. Keep ePortfolios private or share them with peers, instructors and future employers.
  • Video Assessments: Create engaging video quizzes where students answer questions as they watch. Give instant feedback and automatically submit grades to the Gradebook. Review videos and provide comments. Use SpeedGrader to apply rubrics and offer quick, personalized feedback.
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  • Flexible, Fast and Consistent: Chamilo organizes publication tools like categorization, target group selection, visibility and period of publication on its common interface. This commonality empowers it to be fast, consistent and flexible for its users. Its integrated portals and web services make it suitable for both educational institutions and businesses. 
  • Timed Learning Paths: It allows users to set a minimum time limit per user on a learning path. These time limits ensure that a course will not be considered complete until a pre-decided number of hours to study it has passed. Time-limit features help users meet regulatory compliance guidelines required for eLearning programs. 
  • Built-In Course Authoring: Chamilo’s authoring tool lets users structure their courses, add descriptions, update learning paths and include objectives and methodologies in their classes. Educators can organize their course contents using the learning path tool and guide their students through a specific learning experience. It also helps educators evaluate their students’ performance. 
  • Certificate Generation: Chamilo lets users generate certificates for students that have completed course modules successfully. Its included templates provide all the relevant data needed to automatically generate certificates. Users can also customize these default templates to suit their requirements using the certificates editor tool. 
  • Communication Forums: Chamilo’s forum tool allows users to exchange opinions, ideas and information regarding learning paths. It helps users find answers to questions related to a course without having to endlessly browse through massive amounts of information. Forums let multiple participants engage in discussions in public or semi-public spaces, strengthening learning support and fostering the exchange of ideas. It helps learners chart an informal path within a controlled environment, where they can like and dislike other students’ ideas and opinions. Students have the opportunity to express ideas and share interesting information. 
  • Plans Training Sessions: Chamilo lets businesses plan training sessions for their employees and enhance their performance. It keeps administrators informed about upcoming training sessions and their durations per week or month. Employees can sync their calendars with upcoming training sessions, which are color-coded on a monthly or yearly basis. It helps employees inform administrators well in advance of planned training sessions. 
  • Ranking: Chamilo lets educators add rankings to test results after evaluating them. When ranking mode is enabled, learners can view their scores in a ranking table containing the top scores. It encourages students to attempt a test several times to secure the best possible score. 
  • Visual Reports: Its updated student progress tracker provides learners with data in a visually appealing manner. Student progress is represented in graphical charts, which display data like learning path progress, dates when the course was accessed and time spent studying course contents. Graphs help educators assess their course modules and gauge the number of learners currently studying or connected to the course. 
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Product Ranking

#10

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LMS Software

#104

among all
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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 5849 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 1 reviews
91%
of users recommend this product

Canvas has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 5849 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

100%
of users recommend this product

Chamilo has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 100% when considering 1 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (11)
5.0 (1)
4.4 (1482)
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4.6 (3998)
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4.5 (77)
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4.5 (281)
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Awards

Canvas stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Chamilo stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

User-Friendly Interface: According to 60% of users who mentioned this pro, Canvas offers an intuitive and navigable interface, and is easy to use for both instructors and students.
Mobile Accessibility: The Canvas mobile app, praised by 72% of users, offers a responsive design and on-the-go access on various devices.
Best-In-Class Integration Capabilities: 55% of users said Canvas integrates well with a wide range of third-party tools and services, and helps create a customized learning environment.
Effective Communication and Collaboration Features: 45% of users appreciate Canvas’ communication tools, specifically discussion boards, announcements and email.
Personalized Course Design: Canvas offers flexible course designs, allowing instructors to create personalized learning experiences for their students, said 40% of users.
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Open Source and Free: Chamilo is a breath of fresh air for organizations seeking a robust LMS without the hefty price tag. Its open-source nature eliminates licensing fees, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious institutions.
User-Friendly Interface: Users consistently praise Chamilo's intuitive design. Its straightforward layout allows both instructors and students to navigate the platform with ease, minimizing the learning curve often associated with new software.
Flexible and Customizable: Chamilo doesn't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. Its highly customizable nature allows institutions to tailor the platform to their specific needs, creating a learning environment that aligns with their unique pedagogical approach.
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Technical Glitches and Bugs: Nearly 40% of users report experiencing technical issues, such as system crashes, data loss and bugs.
Steep Learning Curve for Complex Features: According to 30% of users, while the overall interface is user-friendly, more advanced features have a steep learning curve.
Rigid Due Date Policies: Some users mentioned that Canvas's rigid due date rules can be challenging for students who submit work late due to technical issues or other reasons.
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Limited Mobile Friendliness: Some users have reported that the mobile interface is not as user-friendly as other learning management systems.
Occasional Technical Issues: Users have mentioned encountering occasional bugs or technical glitches, which can disrupt the learning process.
Smaller User Community: Compared to more popular LMS platforms, Chamilo has a smaller user community, which may result in less readily available support or resources.
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Canvas is an eLearning solution used for online, in-person and hybrid learning in a variety of educational settings. Users praise its smooth interface, mobile accessibility and integration capabilities, while also highlighting some technical and usability challenges that may require attention.Users found the system easy to use and navigate, and were happy with its vast suite of features, especially the grading, assignments and assessment tools. Most reported that it’s budget-friendly and had positive experiences with customer service.On the downside, users said they encountered bugs and glitches in the program. They requested a more flexible due date policy and more ease of use in advanced features.All things considered, Canvas is a versatile LMS that provides a modern platform and industry-specific features to make learning more engaging and personalized. It may require some initial investment in training and customization, but it delivers a positive overall experience for both instructors and students.

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Want to know if Chamilo is the chameleon of learning management systems, adapting to any need? User reviews from the last year suggest Chamilo is a solid, if somewhat basic, learning management system best suited for smaller organizations or those on a tight budget. Users consistently praise its ease of use, highlighting the clean and intuitive interface that even the least tech-savvy individuals find accessible. One user even compared setting up the platform to using "softaculous," implying a level of simplicity rarely found in learning management systems. This straightforwardness makes Chamilo a popular choice for businesses dipping their toes into the e-learning pool for the first time. However, Chamilo's simplicity can also be its downfall. Users needing advanced features or extensive customization options may find Chamilo lacking. One user expressed frustration with the limited template options and the lack of readily available tutorials for more complex tasks. While Chamilo offers essential tools like course creation and content management, it doesn't boast the bells and whistles of competitors like LearnUpon or Adobe Learning Manager. This isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, as Chamilo's affordability makes it an attractive option for organizations prioritizing value over a vast feature set. Ultimately, Chamilo is a practical, no-frills learning management system that excels in ease of use and affordability, making it a perfect fit for budget-conscious organizations or those seeking a straightforward platform for basic e-learning needs.

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Screenshots

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Head-to-Head Comparison

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