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CYPHER Learning vs Canvas LMS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Canvas LMS
Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CYPHER Learning
Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) category, the mindshare of Canvas LMS is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CYPHER Learning is 5.3%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
 

Featured Reviews

James Phelps - PeerSpot reviewer
Intuitive, easy to learn, and easy to adapt to various teaching methodologies
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.
Dani Bates - PeerSpot reviewer
You can edit all your courses at once by editing the master course
I have one team member who is in charge of monitoring and checking students' progress. She is very tech savvy and has really dove into the reporting feature in CYPHER Learning. If I had one complaint, it would be the reporting. It is so robust and detailed that it is hard to obtain some of the specific things that we want. That has been her response to me, and I have found the same thing. If I just want to know how many students have completed a course in a specific organization, then it is a little bit too daunting and difficult to obtain exactly what we use as our key indicators.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The integration with Zoom is a notable feature. It allows for seamless access to live class sessions directly from Canvas after authentication, enabling quick entry into Zoom calls. You can also schedule Zoom calls or private recordings directly within Canvas, making it convenient, especially for situations like self-recording exams. Additionally, Canvas excels in collaboration and discussion capabilities. Users can engage in discussions on various topics, and there's the option to create custom groups for more focused interactions. These groups provide a level of privacy and isolation from the broader class, which is a significant advantage."
"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."
"We have been using Canvas LMS, and overall, it has served our needs well for managing courses and general settings."
"They have a more extensive support base in terms of infrastructure."
"The solution is easy to access."
"The product's flexibility is exceptional."
"The assessment tools in Canvas significantly contribute to educational outcomes by allowing instructors to create and manage assessments effectively."
"Canvas LMS is user-friendly. Its assessment tools help to find the weaknesses and strengths of students."
"The ability to build and customize our own courses is one of the most valuable features. When we launched with CYPHER LEARNING, their team helped us build our courses. They took our paper-based coursework and developed a really engaging digital solution on the platform. The best part, for us, is being able to continue to customize and edit it."
"CYPHER Learning is a user-friendly platform that makes it easy for me to manage my instructors and track my learners."
"The entire system is incredibly valuable, but one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning was the social interaction features, such as forums, student groups, and messaging."
"CYPHER Learning is the main way to communicate with students. In CYPHER Learning, everything is recorded, including messages about tasks. I like that the messages are registered in the system. This way, I can keep track of students' efforts. We have a WhatsApp group and students also have my email, but I ask them to communicate through CYPHER Learning. The university administrators review teachers' data through CYPHER Learning. So, in case of any complaints, everything is registered there."
"When I do a survey, CYPHER Learning is helpful because then I can more quickly peruse students' responses. I don't have to go through question by question. Grading-wise, it has certainly helped, when giving a survey, to streamline my grading for that assignment."
"The ability to integrate it with a lot of our third-party service providers like Turnitin, through a plugin, is helpful. There aren't many learning management systems that integrate so well with different APIs and LTIs, especially when a school has various tools in its tech stack."
"I have many students in my charge and thanks to the automation provided by CYPHER Learning, it is possible to apply any class to any classroom and, in that way, replicate the same content for all classrooms."
"One of the features that is very good is the automation for setting trigger rules that show or hide specific class sections or assignments."
 

Cons

"The product could be integrated with a talent management system."
"The learning curve is not steep, but it is intermediate."
"It would be nice to be able to do more real-time comprehensive reporting with Canvas LMS."
"The solution could be upgraded and improved."
"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."
"Integrating more AI capabilities for the product could enhance its functionality, particularly in automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning experiences."
"The high-tech interactivity with other software, like ArcGIS or RSA Archer, can be better. It is not as easily compatible with them. You can put apps in it that the students can then access, but the routing of apps through the Canvas system slows down functionality on the other types of products."
"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."
"There could be improvements in the dynamic and accessibility tools for the youngest students. For example, I create or attach links from other pages, and I use activities and games, such as roulettes, that encourage student participation."
"When they bring on new partners, like Udemy, we do find that there are quite a few bugs in the system. They brought them on more than a year ago and there are still a few bugs, just pulling things through to CYPHER Learning. Integration bugs are a bit of an issue."
"Perhaps there is room for improvement in the gamification part. I have used it but it has not been very clear to me. It may be my responsibility for not asking about it in the training sessions, but the way you use it is not so clear."
"What we've been asking them for recently is that, while we really appreciate the shopping cart, it doesn't have a recurring payment charge. A lot of our participants, instead of paying the full fee, spread it out over several months and that feature is not there yet."
"One thing I find annoying is that the system is quite limited when it comes to roles. I was used to our old system where I could create custom roles to cater to specific users and that's not available in CYPHER Learning."
"The mobile app has quite a lot of bugs and it has many fewer integration options."
"We have teachers of all ages and those who are a little older hardly interact with the platform. It needs greater accessibility and more detailed updates and information regarding all its tools."
"CYPHER Learning should definitely offer live video conferencing integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Canvas LMS is low-priced compared to other vendors."
"We are on a plan where we pay for 1,000 users every month. The pricing structure is pretty straightforward. It just depends on what you need. We are currently going with a monthly model because sometimes there are still months during the year where we will have a lot less students on the system, and we took that into consideration."
"It's affordable, but they have doubled the pricing at random times. That's a problem. They have to change that for forecasting purposes."
"CYPHER Learning is a bit more expensive than our previous solution."
"I'm an instructional designer, and from a build or a designer standpoint, it would be nice to have a more user-friendly resource folder to access artifacts to pull into course modules. The second feature that I would love is that while editing any page inside CYPHER Learning, there should be more functionality to design it well."
"NEO's price is good."
"The system is not cheap but it's affordable. The pricing is fair... The cherry on top was that we received all the functionality with the simplest plan, the one with the minimal number of users. It couldn't be any better."
"During the negotiation for our five-year contract, CYPHER Learning did an excellent job of being fair and upfront with us. We have to budget for the future and know what the solution will cost us over the next five years. That's fantastic, and the company was very accommodating and worked well with us."
"It's a little bit more than I want to pay, but I'm okay with it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
University
12%
Government
8%
Non Profit
8%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Canvas LMS?
We have been using Canvas LMS, and overall, it has served our needs well for managing courses and general settings.
What needs improvement with Canvas LMS?
Integrating more AI capabilities for the product could enhance its functionality, particularly in automating repetitive tasks and personalizing learning experiences.
What do you like most about NEO LMS?
Creating courses for our resources is one of the best features of CYPHER Learning.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NEO LMS?
CYPHER Learning is more cost-efficient for us compared to others.
What needs improvement with NEO LMS?
The common cartridge format is not supported by the older version. On the dashboard, if we upload the common cartridge, it can be easily added, but unfortunately, it is not supported. Therefore, we...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
MATRIX LMS, NEO LMS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pragmatic Group, MRWED Training and Assessment, RedHill Education
Millions of users across business, academia, and entrepreneurs - worldwide.
Find out what your peers are saying about CYPHER Learning vs. Canvas LMS and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.