What are Learning Management Systems, and How do you Choose One?

Learning and development teams today are under pressure to help employees build modern skills faster, smarter, and at scale. With hybrid work entrenched, rapid technological change, and a constant need to upskill for new tools and roles, traditional training programs can’t keep pace.

To stay competitive, organizations need learning experiences to be flexible, data-driven, and seamlessly integrated into daily workflows. But managing this kind of learning at scale requires more than just uploading a few courses or tracking completions in a spreadsheet. Teams need a centralized platform to design, deliver, and measure learning across the business.

A learning management system (LMS) provides that foundation. The right LMS helps companies create engaging content, personalize learning paths, and track skills development—all while improving efficiency and consistency.

This guide breaks down what a learning management system is, why it’s essential for modern L&D, and how to choose one that fits your organization’s goals.

Key takeaways

• An LMS centralizes and scales learning. It brings all training programs, content, and analytics into one platform—making it easier to manage and measure learning across the business.
• Modern LMSs go beyond course delivery. They enable collaboration, personalization, and real-time feedback, helping employees learn more effectively and stay engaged.
• Choosing the right LMS is a strategic decision. The best platform aligns with your organization’s goals, integrates with your existing tools, and supports the skills your teams need for the future.

What is a learning management system (LMS)?

A learning management system (LMS) is a platform that enables organizations to create, manage, and deliver online learning at scale. It serves as the central hub for designing training programs, distributing content, tracking learner progress, and measuring the impact of learning initiatives.

While learning content management systems (LCMSs) focus primarily on content creation and organization, an LMS provides the broader infrastructure to manage learners, programs, and performance data. Together, these systems form the backbone of a modern digital learning ecosystem.

Over time, LMSs have evolved from simple course-hosting tools into powerful, cloud-based platforms that support social learning, personalized learning paths, and detailed analytics. They now integrate seamlessly with HR systems, collaboration tools, and skills platforms—helping organizations link learning directly to performance and business goals.

Whether it’s onboarding new hires, developing leadership capabilities, or building technical skills, a learning management system provides the structure and flexibility needed to make learning continuous, measurable, and aligned with company strategy.

A brief history of LMS platforms

Learning management systems first appeared in higher education institutions in the late 1990s. These early LMSs, such as Blackboard and Moodle, were facilitation tools for organizing instructor-led online courses.

The software was pretty basic. It consisted mostly of defined class modules and assignment-submission features. Most classes involved prerecorded classroom lectures and written course materials.

In the early 2000s, the corporate world began adopting and adapting LMS software to help meet their learning and development (L&D) needs. With an influx of interest and cash, LMSs evolved from clunky e-learning course-delivery systems to comprehensive online learning platforms with course-building, administration, and analytics features. Today, corporate LMSs are a $2.5 billion business, and 79% of all LMS users are outside of the education industry.

How LMSs are used

A modern LMS is your central hub for managing all aspects of organizational learning. It gives your L&D team the learning tools to design, deliver, and optimize training programs at scale. Whether for new hires, leadership development, product knowledge, or compliance.

Here’s how companies typically use learning management systems:

• Create and distribute learning content: Build custom online courses or upload existing materials. Some LMSs include built-in authoring tools; others integrate with external content-creation software.
• Deliver personalized learning experiences: Organize content by role, department, or skill area, and guide employees through structured learning paths or certification programs.
• Track progress and performance: Monitor learner engagement, completion rates, and assessment results to understand where additional support or new training is needed.
• Automate administration: Assign courses, manage enrollments, and set permissions for learners, instructors, and administrators.
• Analyze and improve impact: Use dashboards and analytics to measure training effectiveness, tie learning outcomes to business metrics, and continuously improve your programs.

By consolidating all of this functionality, a learning management system helps organizations make learning more consistent, efficient, and scalable—empowering teams to build the skills needed for long-term growth.

Why your company needs an LMS

Investing in a learning management system (LMS) can feel like a big step, especially for companies just starting to formalize their online learning efforts. But even without a dedicated L&D department, the right LMS quickly becomes indispensable.

It helps you create, share, and scale learning programs efficiently across the organization.

1. Build structure and consistency into learning

Ad hoc training—shared documents, webinars, or video playlists—can only go so far. Without a central system, learning content gets scattered and hard to maintain.

An LMS provides:

• A single source of truth: All learning materials live in one accessible platform.
• Standardized delivery: Every learner experiences consistent, high-quality training.
• Ease of updates: Refresh or reuse existing courses as your business evolves.

This shift from informal learning to an organized platform dramatically improves efficiency and long-term impact.

2. Make course creation and management simple

Modern LMS platforms empower L&D leaders to build courses without needing a developer. In fact, anyone can build training material easily.

• Drag-and-drop tools let you create interactive, media-rich courses in minutes.
• Reusable templates make it easy to update and relaunch training.
• Automated administration handles enrollments, reminders, and tracking, so L&D teams can focus on strategy rather than logistics.

As your company grows, your LMS scales with you. No need to reinvent your learning infrastructure every time you add new employees or training needs.

3. Enable collaborative and employee-driven learning

A collaborative LMS takes learning beyond the L&D team. It empowers subject-matter experts and employees themselves to create and share knowledge.

• Employees can request and build courses on the topics that matter most.
• L&D teams get direct insight into real training needs through feedback and usage data.
• Learning becomes democratized, reducing bottlenecks and fostering a stronger learning culture.

This approach not only lightens the load on administrators but also makes training more relevant and engaging.

4. Improve accessibility and engagement

Employees learn best when they can do it at their own pace and on their own time. With an LMS:

• Anytime, anywhere access supports remote, hybrid, and global teams.
• Mobile-friendly learning encourages consistent participation.
• Personalized learning paths make content more relevant and easier to complete.

When training is convenient and engaging, completion rates and knowledge retention both rise.

5. Gain insight and prove impact

An LMS gives administrators the data they need to continually improve learning programs.

• Analytics dashboards track completion rates, progress, and performance.
• Feedback tools capture employee input on content quality and usefulness.
• ROI visibility helps identify which courses drive the most value—so you can scale the best and rework the rest.

This data-driven approach ensures your learning investments deliver measurable business outcomes.

6. Preserve institutional knowledge

When employees document their expertise through online courses, that knowledge remains available long after roles change or people move on. An LMS becomes a living knowledge base, safeguarding valuable internal insights and making them accessible to future teams.

In short, a learning management system is more than a training tool. It’s an engine for scalable, consistent, and collaborative learning. By centralizing content, simplifying administration, and empowering employees, an LMS helps your organization build the skills it needs to grow and adapt.

Benefits of a learning management system

The benefits of using an LMS to create more effective online learning programs don’t stop at better-informed employees. The positive effects are far-reaching.

• Increased employee satisfaction: Online learning programs are more convenient and more enjoyable than sitting in all-day workshops or long training lectures.
• Greater employee retention: The link between career development and employee retention has been well established. According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report, a staggering 94% of employees said they would with at a company longer if that company invested in their career. Helping employees learn new skills and grow on the job is a great way to show your commitment to them.
• More Comprehensive Onboarding: A solid onboarding process sets the tone for life at your company and helps engage and hold on to new employees. Studies have shown that a comprehensive onboarding process makes employees 69% more likely to stay at the job for three years or more.
• Increased knowledge retention: Online learning gives employees more control over the learning process. They can take their time learning complicated concepts or go back and review past modules as needed. As a result, the Research Institute of America found that elearning boosted retention rates by 25-60%.
• Reduced L&D costs: An LMS is an investment in the future of learning in your company. While the costs may be high initially, creating online courses that can be repeated as many times as needed is significantly cheaper than running in-person courses. Many large companies have saved thousands or even millions of dollars by switching to an online learning model.
• Easier team building: While online learning might seem like a solitary activity, new collaborative learning platforms give you the opportunity to pull employees into the process of assessing training needs, building courses, and leaving feedback.
• Better ROI on training programs: An LMS gives you the tools you need to measure the efficacy of various educational programs. Fine-tune them to get the best return on investment. Some LMSs integrate with other tools (like Salesforce) so that you see the direct correlation between your training and sales numbers. This data lets you allocate your training resources more effectively so that your training dollars stretch further.

Adopting an online learning curriculum doesn’t have to mean shuttering all of your preexisting in-person training programs. Many companies have blended learning programs, which employ a mix of instructor-led training programs and asynchronous LMS elearning programs.

Related: Discover 11 Benefits of Implementing a Learning Management System

6 key use cases for LMS tools

Most companies use an LMS to create standard employee trainings, but the possibilities go far beyond that. Here are just some of the ways you could use online learning to enhance your company’s learning programs.

• Onboarding: As mentioned above, a strong onboarding process sets new hires off on the right foot, and leads to more confident and prepared employees. Organizations that improve their onboarding processes see an 82% increase in new-hire retention and a 70% increase in productivity.
  
  Onboarding is even more important for remote companies, where employees don’t have the chance to learn from each other in person. A strong remote onboarding process makes up for that knowledge gap and makes sure employees are prepared for both their jobs and their lives at the company.
• Technology upskilling: According to research, more than 92% of jobs today require digital skills. But over a third of works don’t have these skills. Which makes building technological skills a core focus of professional development for many employees and firms.
• Online training programs are one of the most cost-efficient ways to help employees stay up to date with new technology, build core competencies, and prepare for the next evolutions in working life.
• Soft skill training: Soft skills are some of the hardest to train for. And they’re particularly poorly suited to rote, classroom-based learning. LMS tools let you create courses to teach conflict resolution, leadership, time-management techniques, and more. And just as vitally, you can deliver these courses in a range of settings, more suitable for the topic.
• Sales enablement: Sales teams benefit from in-depth product training, starting from onboarding and moving forward throughout their career. LMS platforms are great here because they allow for bite-sized, just-in-time training as well as more concentrated, deep sessions. And eLearning is obviously an easy way to facilitate remote sales training.
• Compliance training: An LMS is perfect for running compliance training to mitigate company liability and risk. You get a clear record of each employee who completed the training and their progress towards certifications (where necessary).
  
  Training courses on workplace safety, harassment training, and diversity training all reduce risk and encourage a happier, safer work environment.
• Customer training: You don’t have to limit your course offerings to people inside your organization. Some companies use their LMS to educate potential clients, onboard new customers, or teach existing customers about new features.
  
  Creating standardized online courses is far more cost-effective than arranging in-person training for each and every customer.

Types of learning management software

While learning management systems have become the standard term for software that facilitates online learning, there are several adjacent types of learning solutions. Some overlap with LMSs and some serve an entirely different purpose.

All of the learning management acronyms are quite confusing: LMS, TMS, LXP, etc. It’s important to understand the distinctions of each so that you choose the right system to meet your needs.

LMS: Learning Management System

As discussed above, an LMS is a software for managing online learning programs. These platforms facilitate online learning and are a high-level solution for creating, managing, and delivering courses. Moodle, Coursera, Blackboard, and Adobe Captivate are examples of a traditional LMS.

LMSs were the genesis of all other online learning solutions. As the science and technology around online learning has evolved, several other types of online learning systems have emerged.

LXP: Learning Experience Platform

A learning experience platform (LXP, or sometimes LEP), helps distribute courses to employees in an engaging and interactive way. LXPs have some overlap with LMSs (and many new LMSs have built-in LXP solutions) but often you need both for an effective learning experience. LinkedIn Learning, Degreed, and Docebo are examples of LXP solutions.

An LXP personalizes the employee’s learning experience. Instead of an admin assigning relevant courses, employees explore the courses on offer and select those that interest them. It is course content on-demand, kind of like Netflix.

Traditional corporate LMS systems were not designed to be employee-centric. They were created to make managing and distributing courses easier for L&D departments. LXPs, on the other hand, offer a better experience for the learner. They’re stand-alone portals for viewing and interacting with content. They provide intuitive design, interactive features, and on-demand access to e-learning content.

Another way to look at it is that the company uses an LMS to create and manage content, and employees us an LXP to discover the content.

Collaborative Learning Platform

Collaborative learning platforms are a new breed of online learning software that decentralizes the learning process to create a more democratic learning environment. 360Learning is a collaborative learning platform.

While traditional LMSs and LXPs put the onus of course creation on the L&D department, collaborative learning platforms make it possible for anyone in the company to create learning content.

• Employees identify training needs and make course requests.
• Other employees volunteer to meet those needs and create courses.
• Administrators help prioritize learning needs and oversee course quality.
• Learning coaches create learning paths for individual employees.

Whereas LMSs and LXPs offer more traditional top-down approaches, from leader to employee, a collaborative learning platform is bottom-up. This bottom-up approach to course creation is faster, more relevant, and more impact-driven than the traditional centralized approach. The concept of continuous iteration is embedded in the collaborative learning process.

People are constantly making requests, creating new courses, and leaving feedback on courses. This results in significantly higher engagement and course completion rates hovering around 85-90%.

Overall, the company learns faster and more efficiently.

Related: Centralized vs. Decentralized - Which is the Right L&D Approach for Your Business?

LMS vs. TMS (Training Management System)

The difference between an LMS and a traditional training management system (TMS) is subtle but extremely important.

TMSs are not used to organize online learning programs. They instead help organizations optimize back-office training practices for in-person or online instructor-led training. This software is used to do things like schedule courses, handle logistics (registrations, confirmations, etc.) and manage e-commerce data. If you’re running webinars or seminars for clients, a TMS helps you manage that.

GoToTraining, SkyPrep, and LearningCart are examples of TMSs.

This is very different than an LMS, which manages async online learning programs, although the line gets blurry, as each sometimes offers features of the other. Unless you plan to run instructor-led training events, you most likely don’t need a dedicated TMS.

Related:

• Types of LMS: A Guide
• 7 Features to Look For in an Enterprise LMS Solution
• What Is a Social Learning Platform (And Is It Really What You Need)?
• A No-Nonsense 8-Step Process for a Friction-Free LMS Implementation
• Choosing an LMS for Healthcare: Here’s What to Consider
• 4 Must-Have Learning Management Features for Hospitality

What's the best LMS for you?

Choosing a learning management system can feel overwhelming, especially for first-time buyers. How do you narrow down your search when there are literally hundreds of different options out there? The most visible or most popular software might not be the right one for your company’s needs.

We’ve compiled a list of important factors to consider as you make a purchasing decision. Concentrate your search by focusing on the characteristics and features that best fit your company’s learning needs. The following should give you an idea of what to look for.

Characteristics of the Best Learning Management Systems

Modern LMS systems are capable of so much more than just building and delivering courses. The best systems make the course-creation process easy and provide a top-notch learning experience.

Here are some of the characteristics you should look for in an LMS:

• An intuitive interface: An LMS isn’t useful if it’s too complicated or confusing for your team to use. Look for an LMS with an easy-to-understand interface on both the front and the back end. It should be simple for administrators to create courses and for users to find and navigate through them.
• Emphasis on feedback: Courses sometimes go out of date or contain ambiguities, misleading statements, or even flat-out errors. There should be a mechanism for team members to give feedback about the course quality, point out errors, or request more help if they need it.
• Built-in course authoring: Unless you have a dedicated instructional designer on staff, and the budget for a separate authoring tool in addition to an LMS, look for an LMS that lets you build courses directly within the platform. You want a code-free editor that preferably lets you drag and drop components for ease of use.
• Cloud-based: While some larger companies use hard-drive-based, on-premises programs, cloud-based LMSs are infinitely more flexible. Users should be able to access the courses online without downloading special software.
• Peer learning abilities: Collaborative learning offers so many psychological and practical learning benefits. Look for a system that has mechanisms in place for team members to share their knowledge and learn together. This includes features like forums and peer review, and the ability to collaborate on course creation.

LMS features

Every LMS platform offers a unique selection of special features. Here are some of the most common and important LMS features to look out for:

• Analytics/reporting: Built-in analytics let L&D teams track completion rates, engagement levels, and learning outcomes. These insights make it easier to refine courses, demonstrate ROI, and link training to business performance—especially when connected with tools like your CRM or HR system.
• Mobile capabilities: With flexible and hybrid work now the norm, learners need access from anywhere. An LMS with a responsive design or mobile app allows employees to complete training on their own schedule, boosting accessibility and participation.
  
  Mobile device access is particularly important for retail, healthcare, and manufacturing companies. If employees don’t spend most of their day in front of a computer, you need to deliver quite training chunks wherever they are.
• Gamification: Adding game-like elements (points, badges, leaderboards, or challenges) makes learning more interactive and motivating. Gamification can increase completion rates and help learners stay engaged throughout the course.
• Customer support: Even intuitive platforms benefit from reliable support. Look for an LMS that offers responsive customer service through your preferred channels (chat, phone, or email) and provides onboarding or training to help your team get the most out of the system.
• Third-party integrations. Integrations connect your LMS to the rest of your business ecosystem. Linking it with HR tools, content creation software, or communication platforms streamlines workflows and ensures learning data aligns with performance metrics.
  
  Here’s a great guide to LMS integration.
• Support for multiple content formats: Engaging learning experiences rely on variety. A strong LMS should support video, presentations, documents, audio, webinars, quizzes, and even immersive formats like VR or AR—helping you design training that fits different learning styles.
• Artificial intelligence: Modern LMSs use artificial intelligence to recommend courses, tailor learning paths, or even generate new content from internal documents. Personalization helps learners focus on what’s most relevant to their role or skill goals, improving both engagement and retention.
• SCORM/xAPI (Tin Can) compliance: Compliance with learning standards ensures your content works seamlessly across systems. This makes it easier to import, export, and track learning content—while modern LMSs also offer built-in authoring tools to simplify course creation.
• Co-authoring functions: Multi-author functionality allows teams to build and refine courses together in real time. This collaboration leads to richer, more accurate content while speeding up the course development process.
• Instant feedback functions: Instead of waiting until the end of a course to collect feedback, some LMSs let learners share comments or ratings as they go. Real-time input helps course creators quickly identify areas for improvement and keep content relevant and effective.

LMS pricing models

Most LMS vendors follow a SaaS (software as a service) model, for which businesses pay monthly, depending on their usage. Within that model, there are several different ways that companies set up their pricing tiers:

• Free (open source): Free LMS options, including Moodle and Canvas. Many of these systems were community-built and open source. They will most likely be lacking in a lot of the features mentioned above but are often highly customizable if you have a knowledgable developer on staff.
• Freemium: Very basic use of the service is free, but upgrades in terms of users or features would move the account into a pay per month plan.
• Pay per user: You pay based on the number of users in your system. Plans could be for as few as 10 employees and as many as thousands.
• Pay per course: You pay based on the number of courses you launch.
• One-time license fee: Instead of paying monthly, you buy a license to use the software indefinitely. These fees range from a couple of thousand dollars to more than $20,000.

Related: LMS Pricing: The True Costs of Adopting a Learning Management System

Collaborative learning platforms are the future of LMS

A collaborative learning platform is your secret weapon against stagnation. It brings the benefits of in-person learning, community, connection, and collaboration back to the online space. A collaborative learning platform truly democratizes the learning process.

Companies are struggling to keep their training programs up to date, given the rapid changes in technology and in-demand skill sets. As a result, more businesses are turning away from legacy LMSs and toward integrated learning solutions that offer more collaborative learning experiences.

The benefits of collaborative learning are extensive. By crowdsourcing training needs, you can create courses that are more timely and relevant. Because they are required to be both students and teachers, learners benefit from increased engagement and accountability. Courses ship quicker because all of the work is done in-house by people across the organization. And because courses are constantly being iterated based on student feedback, they stay up to date and relevant for much longer.

A learning management system will help you train employees, and a collaborative learning platform takes it a step further to help you create a larger culture of learning inside your company.

Want to see how a Collaborative Learning Platform works? Get a free, no-strings-attached demo: