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Canvas vs iSpring Learn

Last Updated: November 18th, 2024

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

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Product Basics

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.

The iSpring platform is a learning tool with over 54,000 clients worldwide. Overall, it has an authoring capability for creating interactive lessons, quizzes and assessments and reporting and analytics to track education in a corporate or institutional setting. With many integrations, it can be used for its content or act as a way to analyze skills in an organization.

One of its most notable functions is the way it works with PowerPoint.Through HyperPointe technology, it’s able to convert the slideshows into SCORM compliant HTML5 or MP4s. It has different levels of support and design abilities depending on the subscription.

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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.

More Effective Assessments The software has templates so instructors can quickly create multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, sequencing, matching and other types of questions. To ensure information is retained properly, it also has feedback capabilities, branching scenarios, randomized questions and customizable scoring rules.
Greater Security: The solution is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation and uses Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) for transferring data between EU and non-EU countries. The servers are hosted at Liquidweb, IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services or FirstColo which all comply with various standards. It uses an https connection, thoroughly background checks all employees and undergoes security audits.
Higher Quality Content: Its ability to convert PowerPoint presentations makes it easier to create high-quality lessons with embedded links, images, animations and other elements. There’s also a library where administrators can find the necessary course materials and thousands of assets.
Better Communication: The platform comes with due dates and reminders to keep learners on track and centralizes knowledge so it’s easily accessible. In terms of video conferring, Zoom integrates within the application. This allows users to jump on calls without losing time switching applications.

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.

Content Creation: Instructors can create a PowerPoint presentation and then add screencasts, narrations, quizzes and more to make a dynamic lesson. Then, they can upload the content for their students.
Products: There are two main options:

Learn: This product contains the base course functionality for students and instructors.
Suite: The Suite has a Suite version and a Full-Service Suite version on the pricing page to indicate two different levels of functions. The full-service version comes with authoring tools, access to the cloud, access to priority support and access to an online library.

Conversion: The platform converts PowerPoint presentations to an HTML5 or MP4 format. Through HyperPointe technology, they can generally keep the same animations and formatting so no one needs to reformat for the web. PowerPoints are converted without having to leave the program. Users can then upload to Vimeo or YouTube.
Content Library: It comes with over 55,000 royalty-free assets such as templates, over 30,00 character images and more than 230 backgrounds from different locations. Aside from that, it also has various icons, paper clips, buttons and switches to complete a presentation. For assets created in-house like logos or brand guides, the built-in cloud allows all team members to have access.
Integrations: For organizations that are looking for more robust functionality, the solution integrates with 156 systems. It’s built to integrate with materials that meet AIIC, cmi5, SCORM or xAPI compliance. The apps include Absorb, Adobe, Flora, Schoology, SmarterU, TOPYX and more.
Video Lessons: It can capture video lectures, narration, screenshots and annotations that provide step-by-step guides and easy to follow lessons. The program comes with a simple video editor so it’s easy to tweak videos, add effects, include text, add music and more.
Responsive Design: The platform works across mobile devices, tablets, PCs and more across Android and iOS. Teachers only have to create courses once. It automatically adapts to other formats. Learners can access materials offline.
Corporate Training: It can facilitate many different kinds of business training. The solution manages deadlines, provides consistent branding, secures information and can conduct comprehensive reports on employee skill level. An administrator can assign specific training options. Some real-world applications include:

Onboarding: It lets new hires get accustomed to company culture, compliance and policy more quickly.
Partner/Channel Training: For associations who work with other affiliates, channels or partners, it offers an easy way to get everyone up to speed.
Compliance Training: It helps learners stay on top of annual or monthly compliance whether that means safety, privacy, anti-harassment or discrimination policies or more.
Certification Training: Administrators can make in-house certification training so they can see who has completed the necessary training.
Product Training: It provides uniform, accurate dissemination of information to all when new products or updates are released.
Sales Training: With the ability to make how-to guides and choice-based scenarios, instructors can create interactive sales training to ensure the funnel is working properly.

Quizmaker: It helps create more engaging quizzes to see the skill level of employees. It has assignments geared toward retention and testing at key moments to ensure the subject is understood. The activities provide hands-on experience while teachers can provide feedback with annotations.
Cam Pro: This function allows the user to share their screens and record to provide tutorials. It provides narration over a slideshow and highlights the cursor so it can be followed visually.

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Analyst Rating Summary

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User Sentiment Summary

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.

92%

of users recommend this product

iSpring Learn has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 237 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (11)

4.7 (14)

4.4 (1482)

4.7 (48)

4.6 (3998)

4.7 (135)

4.5 (77)

4.1 (3)

4.5 (281)

4.2 (37)

Awards

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.

User-Friendly Design: Around 80% of reviewers loved the interface and said it was easy to implement, learn and navigate.

Excellent Customer Service: Users found the customer service to be friendly, helpful and effective in 60% of all reviews.

Competitive Price: About 60% of users felt that the price was fair and that the functionality was well worth the money.

Overall Good Functionality: The features were described as working well in just over 40% of the reviews. The most popular mention was its quick course setup, learning paths, customization, integration, mobile functionality and course authoring capabilities.

Testing Assessments: Around 20% of users who left reviews said the platform had excellent capabilities when it came to delivering tests, surveys, quizzes, assessments and simulations.

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.

Problems with Features: While many felt the features worked well, around 40% found issues with the existing tools, with around10% disliking the reporting and customization features.

Missing Functionality: In 20% of the reviews, users requested add-ons to the current feature set with better native screen recording and screenshots capabilities mentioned the most.

Pricing Issues: Between 10% to 20% felt the price was too much for its functionality with just under 10% saying they felt pressured to buy more expensive subscriptions.

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.

The iSpring system is an extremely user-friendly option especially popular among educators. This is likely due to its tie-in with PowerPoint. Users can create a presentation in PowerPoint and then, without leaving the app, directly upload it to iSpring where it’s converted into the proper format. Its usability, quick adoption, good price and excellent customer service made for an overwhelming number of satisfied reviews. On the other hand, the satisfaction with the feature set was split with half saying it worked well and half finding the functionality wanting. Many users wanted new features, but the requests were mostly distinct from one another and for very specific capabilities. While iSpring does offer customization options, there are many features that are out of reach due to price, technological limitations or lack of knowledge on the part of the customer. Overall, this is a great solution for educators and corporate administrators looking to adopt a system quickly and easily. It may not be suitable for large businesses with more complex needs. Users should also look into exactly what they need so they don’t get bumped into the more expensive pricing tier.

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FAQ

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Which LMS Software is rated the highest by users? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

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