Canvas LMS Reviews

Name: Canvas LMS
Brand: Instructure
Rating: 4.3 (10 reviews)

4.3 out of 5

10 reviews
100% willing to recommend

What is Canvas LMS?

Canvas LMS is a comprehensive learning management system that enhances the educational experience. It offers a user-friendly interface that allows educators to create and manage courses, assignments, and assessments. Canvas enables seamless communication and collaboration between students and teachers. It supports various multimedia formats, making it easy to incorporate engaging content into lessons. Canvas also provides a mobile app, ensuring accessibility on the go. Its built-in analytics and reporting allow educators to track student progress and identify areas for improvement. Canvas LMS can integrate with other educational tools and platforms, enhancing its functionality. Canvas LMS is a powerful and versatile platform that empowers educators to deliver effective and engaging online learning experiences.

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Canvas LMS is the #5 ranked solution in top Learning Management Systems. PeerSpot users give Canvas LMS an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Canvas LMS is most commonly compared to Cornerstone Learning: Canvas LMS vs Cornerstone Learning. Canvas LMS is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 59% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 24% of all views.

Helped 832,138 peers since 2012

Featured reviews

James Phelps

Adjunct Professor at Nova Southeastern University

It is scalable. There must be 20,000 people using it on that campus. We run a medical college, a public health department, and the hard sciences department. We also have a lot of things that are spread out across the state of Florida through Canvas. So, it is pretty scalable. In terms of our plans to increase its usage, I don't know what the university is going to do, but right now, the university is saturated with Canvas. Even if you're doing classes in a regular standard classroom, all of your exams, all of your quizzes, all of your practicals, and all of your teaching are recorded and loaded into the Canvas system for future review by accreditors. So, it is pretty well saturated on that particular campus.

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Matt Deakyne

Automation Evangelist at TeamDynamix Solutions LLC

I like that Canvas LMS allows you to have kind of a hierarchy of classes so that you could add different columns and give them certain permissions at a certain level. I really thought that the APIs of Canvas were really well defined and I used those to do a lot of data reporting, as well as to manage enrollments for students throughout the university. I thought the solution was really robust and offered a lot of ways to support a really complicated and large-scale university like the one I was at. I used a lot of other systems in my IT career and Canvas LMS truly has everything that I would look for in an enterprise system.

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Lance Levin

Learning Magic Solutions | Managing Director at CTI

The product is regarded as the best learning management system in the world, and the top institutions are using it. It has the biggest community of learning management systems. They have a more extensive support base in terms of infrastructure. It is easy to use and integrate. It has more case studies than any vendors.

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Canvas LMS mindshare

As of February 2025, the mindshare of Canvas LMS in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) category stands at 5.2%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

PeerAnalyst reports

Type	Title	Date
Category	Learning Management Systems (LMS)	Feb 1, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Feb 1, 2025	Download
Comparison	Canvas LMS vs CYPHER Learning	Feb 1, 2025	Download
Comparison	Canvas LMS vs Moodle	Feb 1, 2025	Download
Comparison	Canvas LMS vs Google Classroom	Feb 1, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Cornerstone Learning	4.1	4.3%	100%	29 interviews Add to research
Moodle	4.0	13.2%	93%	29 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Canvas LMS users praise its ease of use and intuitive interface. Users find it easy to navigate and accessible regardless of experience. The platform is feature-rich, with sections for assignments and content posting, as well as integrated Zoom capability. It also allows instructors to track grades and attendance. Canvas LMS is highly adaptable to different teaching methodologies and requires minimal training to become proficient. It offers a hierarchy of classes, enabling administrators to customize it and grant specific permissions. The well-defined APIs facilitate data reporting and enrollment management.

"Canvas LMS is user-friendly. Its assessment tools help to find the weaknesses and strengths of students."
"The assessment tools in Canvas significantly contribute to educational outcomes by allowing instructors to create and manage assessments effectively."
"We have been using Canvas LMS, and overall, it has served our needs well for managing courses and general settings."

Room for Improvement

Canvas LMS could improve its teleconferencing. First-time users may require some effort to learn how to use it. The compatibility with other software like ArcGIS or RSA Archer could be better. Routing these apps through the Canvas system slows down functionality. One user had difficulty extracting data to use in reports and suggested improving the APIs for real-time comprehensive reporting.

"Integrating more AI capabilities for the product could enhance its functionality, particularly in automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning experiences."
"In our working, we are encountering many challenges with Canvas LMS. One of the major area is their business model which is having a very different pricing structure. The structure is made in such a way that the license fee is needed to be paid for the complete year even if the student has been enrolled for a programme of short duration. This structure is not conducive with our needs and hence, in the past few years, been increasing our costs manifold. Along with this, Canva LMS also lacks many functionalities such as notifications and adaptive learning.There is a specific issue with the licensing model that affects us in continuous education. The inability to reuse a license for the same course in different terms hinders our cost efficiency. For instance, if a program runs from January to April, we are required to pay for the license twice within the same academic year. This contrasts with other platforms like Hyper, where reusing a license is possible, allowing us to use the same license multiple times in different terms.Along with the use, we are exploring the integration of artificial intelligence into our processes, and Canvas LMS falls short in this regard. While some platforms allow connections with external AI services, Canvas does not currently offer built-in artificial intelligence capabilities, a feature we find valuable for enhancing the learning experience."
"There are a couple of areas that could be improved. Firstly, the discussion feature is not very interactive and can be slow to respond, making it less intuitive at the moment. This is an aspect that needs substantial improvement.Another point to consider is related to the cost of the LMS system. It's perceived as relatively expensive, which has led to discussions about transitioning away from Canvas, potentially to a more cost-effective alternative. This cost-related aspect is a significant factor to consider when implementing such a system."

ROI

Canvas LMS users say the platform has improved accreditation and external monitoring.

Pricing

Canvas LMS offers an annual subscription model that appeals to larger institutions due to competitive pricing and favorable academic rates. However, smaller entities and continuous education programs may find it costly due to the inability to adjust licenses based on usage. Additional fees apply for extra features, and the effective cost can be higher when licensing isn't flexible. Overall, the platform's pricing benefits larger universities that can negotiate and accommodate its financial structure.

"The platform can be expensive for smaller organizations with fewer students."
"The pricing of Canvas is satisfactory for my university. We have negotiated a good price, especially considering that we are a large university with twenty-six campuses across the country. Canvas offers a favorable pricing model for academic institutions, and the cost is reasonable. However, in continuous education, the challenge lies not in the price itself but in the business model. The requirement to pay for the entire year when our students may only use the license for a shorter duration creates challenges. The inability to adjust the licensing based on actual usage is a significant drawback for us, making the effective cost higher compared to other platforms like Hyper Learning"
"Canvas LMS is an affordable solution."

Popular Use Cases

Canvas LMS is used to manage curriculum content, facilitate course delivery, submit assignments, and administer exams in higher education. It is used in undergraduate schools, graduate programs, and medical colleges. Some university systems use Canvas across multiple campuses.

Service and Support

Canvas LMS users consider customer service reliable and appreciate the timely and helpful assistance provided by the support team. They praised the responsiveness and knowledge of the support staff, emphasizing their ability to address queries and concerns efficiently.

Deployment

The initial setup for Canvas LMS is regarded as straightforward. One user remarked that it was easier to set up than Blackboard. Setting up a new class is also simple once you understand the process. The deployment requires very few technical personnel, but the solution requires some maintenance, such as deleting old courses.

Scalability

Canvas LMS users say its scalability is impressive. Our users work at universities with tens of thousands of students and faculty. In some cases, they are spread across multiple campuses.