Cornerstone Learning is used for corporate and mechanic training for an automotive company.
Consultant SAP SuccessFactors Learning at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Graphically appealing, user-friendly, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Cornerstone Learning are the welcome page and the learner's home. It is user-friendly and graphically appealing."
- "Cornerstone Learning can improve reporting. If they had a harmonization of the administration UIs it would be great."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Cornerstone Learning are the welcome page and the learner's home. It is user-friendly and graphically appealing.
What needs improvement?
Cornerstone Learning can improve reporting. If they had a harmonization of the administration UIs it would be great.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cornerstone Learning for approximately two and a half years.
Buyer's Guide
Cornerstone Learning
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cornerstone Learning. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Cornerstone Learning is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cornerstone Learning is scalable.
One of my customers had approximately 220,000 users using this solution in their company.
How are customer service and support?
The support from Cornerstone Learning can be better but they were okay. The quality of the first-level support could do better. You start investigating and escalating the support and then you receive a different answer. The quality of the support could be better.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Cornerstone Learning is complex, but this is normal. The full deployment took approximately half a year as a standard deployment.
What about the implementation team?
For our large customer with 220,000 users we had a team of 10 consultants for maintenance and support of Cornerstone Learning. Additionally, from the customer side, they had at least four or five people.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Cornerstone Learning depends on many factors, such as size and negotiations.
If you have special requirements, then you have to use their engineers and have special projects that they need to scope and then you have to pay for it. However, that's only if you have special requirements and typically these are more or less one-time fees. For example, you need some background jobs that runs every day. Then you need them to set them up and that costs money.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is for them to think about the complexity of their security roles.
I rate Cornerstone Learning a nine out of ten.
There is no perfect solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Learning Management Specialist
Organized management, helpful support, and detailed documentation
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Cornerstone Learning are how they organized the management of the different content types is good. They are done in different ways which is a benefit. Additionally, the reporting 2.0 and playlist functionality are very good."
- "Cornerstone Learning could improve the curriculum function by giving it more flexibility. I'm managing the solution and I adding content to the system, and overall, the backend of the system looks a bit dated. Cornerstone Learning has focused a lot on the user experience and less on the backend operational administrative experience. This could be improved overall."
What is our primary use case?
We use Cornerstone Learning for managing learning in corporate environments.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Cornerstone Learning are how they organized the management of the different content types is good. They are done in different ways which is a benefit. Additionally, the reporting 2.0 and playlist functionality are very good.
What needs improvement?
Cornerstone Learning could improve the curriculum function by giving it more flexibility. I'm managing the solution and I adding content to the system, and overall, the backend of the system looks a bit dated. Cornerstone Learning has focused a lot on the user experience and less on the backend operational administrative experience. This could be improved overall.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cornerstone Learning for approximately eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Cornerstone Learning is a reliable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Cornerstone Learning is good.
We have approximately 5,400 end-users and 100 operations and administrators using this solution in my organization.
Cornerstone Learning is used widely in my organization for compliance training, and leadership managerial training. We are looking to increase engagement with Cornerstone Learning over the next year or two.
How are customer service and support?
The support from Cornerstone Learning is good. They have an online forum, we have a customer service manager and technical support that are good.
The documentation of Cornerstone Learning is detailed and comprehensive. They are available to anybody, they can be found with a quick internet search. The documents are very detailed about how you can accomplish tasks. There are times the information covers less of why you would use certain functionality and the pros and cons of using that functionality.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
My organization had two separate systems, and as part of a merger, it was decided to choose only one system because one of the systems didn't have the capacity for all of the offices for the entire two organizations. The problem was more about scalability and functionality. That's why the decision was made to use Cornerstone Learning.
How was the initial setup?
It took approximately six months for us to fully implement Cornerstone Learning. However, this timeframe was not necessarily a negative reflection of Cornerstone Learning but how we were implementing it.
What about the implementation team?
There were approximately five people were involved in the deployment.
Cornerstone Learning requires some maintenance and we have two people that support the solution. I am one of the two that support Cornerstone Learning.
What was our ROI?
We have received a return on investment for Cornerstone Learning. There is a more coherent view in terms of the management of training, auditing of training, tracking of learning, and the way that learning is presented to people. It is a positive return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing of Cornerstone Learning is reasonable, but my knowledge of the cost is limited. I've had some discussions about licenses. I suppose we've had to push them a little bit to be more flexible about the licensing. For example, someone said they could only give us licenses in a batch of 500, but we found out that it wasn't true. We were able to negotiate a different amount.
There are some additional features that you can purchase. All the additional features are easily laid out and they have made everything transparent if knowing exactly what features you will receive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
My company evaluated three or four different learning management systems, and Cornerstone Learning came out top. This is why we are using it.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is they need to define what their existing learning landscape is and go around your organization to inform everyone of the things that are going to be taught and how things are going to be managed. Aspects of the system have to be determined, such as what other learning management systems are there, for example, spreadsheets. It is important to define what's going on at the moment, how much of that is learning, and what is it that is being taught. In the end, you can determine what learning has to go into the new system.
I rate Cornerstone Learning an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Cornerstone Learning
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cornerstone Learning. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
General Director at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Allows for a federated, single-system, learning management practice.
What is most valuable?
Learning management and reporting are the most valuable features.
How has it helped my organization?
We replaced our previous Learning Management System (LMS) for improved e-learning delivery. From an organizational point of view, it allows for a federated, single-system, learning management practice across different countries and companies (of the same group).
Its flexibility allows different configurations for different areas of the company while keeping it all together. Reporting and data delivered to the end user is also much improved over our previous reality.
What needs improvement?
There is always room for improvement. I would like to see improvement in notification management and administration.
Notification management, while it has improved a bit in the past years, is still a bit cumbersome and error prone. E-mails are tied to triggers, and while there are plenty of triggers available, each email template needs to be activated one by one, and each language is a different template. So that entails lots of clicks for the training administrators.
Several features could improve the situation markedly – from creating “mail packs” (instead of activating one email at a time, activating pre-defined groups) and, of course, creating multi linguistic templates, where the user automatically would receive the email version of his selected language.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used it for six years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We encountered no deployment issues with the LMS itself.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There were no significant stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We did not have any scalability issues. It handled the international expansion and the global deployment of quite large (500 MB) courses (10k+ users at the same time) without any issues.
How is customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
I would give customer service a rating of 8/10.
Technical Support:Technical Support has improved. Sometimes one still receives inaccurate answers based on a misinterpretation of the question. There is no further input from the client restating the initial issue. It is usually fast and reliable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly simple in a technical sense. It was a breeze. The organizational realities and culture are somewhat more complex.
What about the implementation team?
Initial deployment was a mix between vendor and a third-party consulting company quite a few years ago. Afterwards, new deployments on an international level were done in-house. I would give them an expertise rating of 7/10.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Saba, CLIX, SumTotal, and Moodle.
What other advice do I have?
Start by getting training in the product so you can actually understand the options and impact.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director at Acitya
Good virtual meeting facility, distance learning, and online assessment tools
Pros and Cons
- "The Meeting feature is similar to a conference call facility that can be used for virtual meetings."
- "The user interface is in need of improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We are a solution provider and Saba Cloud is one of the products that we implement for our clients. Our customers include banks, as well as other companies.
What is most valuable?
The Saba learning management system (LMS) is quite good.
The platform includes a communication platform that uses social media, where users can use it to communicate with each other. They can create groups, have discussions, and so forth.
The Meeting feature is similar to a conference call facility that can be used for virtual meetings.
Distance learning, online assessment, and career planning features are very useful.
What needs improvement?
The user interface is in need of improvement.
Reporting and analytics capabilities could be more flexible.
The platform is more useful for a corporate team program rather than for individual users, which is something that could be improved.
Better support for iOS is needed.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with Saba Cloud for about three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Saba Cloud is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a very scalable solution and the performance is not an issue. It also supports mobile devices.
How are customer service and technical support?
Online technical support is good but offline technical support can be improved a little bit.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have worked with similar solutions in the past and I think that for a corporate setting, Saba is the best.
In my former company, we used the SAP SuccessFactors product. Compared to SAP, Saba is very reasonably priced. I also find that their platform is not as good as Saba. If I were rating SAP then I would score it a six out of ten.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is very reasonable, considering the quality.
What other advice do I have?
One of the good things with Saba is that they have money and time management in one platform. They have experts around the globe and take input from the users. It is quite easy to use, yet also quite powerful, and because the systems are integrated you don't have to manage two different ones. For example, if you need financial and time management reports then they are all in one place.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: reseller
Sales at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees
Has dynamic assignments, and you don't have to be logged into the company network to be able to use it
Pros and Cons
- "It's better than the previous learning solutions we had. We liked that it was global. We liked that you don't have to be logged into the company network to be able to use it. Those were really big benefits for us."
- "There is a need for quite a bit of improvement. The reporting side of things definitely needs a lot of improvement. At the moment, it gives you a data dump. You have to open it up in Excel and filter out the bits that you don't want and need."
What is our primary use case?
It was our learning management system. I was responsible for all the GCP training for the entire organization. So, we used the Cornerstone system to create and assign training for the whole company.
It was on the cloud, and it was global.
How has it helped my organization?
It was better than the previous learning solutions we had. We liked that it was global. We liked that you don't have to be logged into the company network to be able to use it. Those were really big benefits for us.
What is most valuable?
Dynamic assignments were valuable.
What needs improvement?
There is a need for quite a bit of improvement. The reporting side of things definitely needs a lot of improvement. At the moment, it gives you a data dump. You have to open it up in Excel and filter out the bits that you don't want and need.
The whole system itself is not so user-friendly from an administrative side. The way we used it is that we assigned curricula to our learners. So, if there were due dates on a certain learning object, those due dates weren't shown at the curricular level.
Another thing that we found was that where we used groups, the groups were attached to the assignments for the curricula. For example, if you have a group with about 30,000 learners in it, and if a learner left that role and moved into another role, you literally have to scroll through the pages one by one or three at a time to find that learner and remove that learner from the group. That's the only way that you could get them out of the group so that they were no longer assigned to that curricula. We spent a lot of time doing that. We asked for simply being able to search in the group for a learner and be able to remove them that way. We should be able to just remove people a lot easier. We should also be able to just delete a group. Certain people, such as super users and super admins, should be able to delete the groups. At the moment, there's no way that you can delete them. There should be a way to remove them to keep the system clean.
It was so vast in terms of what we could do in the system, but there was a lot of the functionality we didn't need, and we had to bypass that. From that aspect, it would be nice to have a default so that those selections are not available to us. That stops people from doing things wrong in there.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used it for two years. I used it in my last role, which ended on the 31st of March. I'm not using it at the moment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There were times when things didn't work. For example, if we had training that had a due date on it, we had to put the due date on the learning object level, and some learners didn't see the due date. They didn't realize there was a due date because not all our training had a date. The Cornerstone people we liaised with did recommend that we don't use any due dates at all because they were aware of that problem, but we had to. As a compliance company, we had to make sure that we have due dates for our training. So, there were times when those due dates didn't show, which was a problem.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It depended on what task you were working on in the system. For example, if we were administrating the groups or the assignments, it worked fine. If we were working on curricula, for some reason, the system was really, really slow. It took a long time to actually find the curricula, and it took a long time to do anything in that. It would depend on what time of the day you went in there. If you, for example, went in on a Sunday, or you went in on a Saturday evening, the system worked fine, but if it was like a normal workday on a Monday at about three o'clock in the afternoon when there were more people using the system, the system was really slow. So, for that particular task, it was slow, and you wouldn't want a lot of people to be in there.
How are customer service and support?
We had first-level support, which was someone in our organization. They then liaised with the technical team. There were quite a lot of issues. That was because of the complexity of our organization and the sheer number of people who were going into that system to use it.
How was the initial setup?
It was complex. That could be because of the way we used the system, but it was very complex.
What about the implementation team?
It was done by the organization. HR decided on Cornerstone for the company. It was the learning management system that we had to adapt to and use, but the way that we used training in the GCP environment was quite complex. So, there was a lot of added complexity for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not aware of the costs. It must have been something for which we paid. Every single employee in the company had some kind of access to Cornerstone because that's how they got to their training.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise really thinking about how you're going to set it up and your training in there. Try and make it as uncomplicated as you can. Once you are in there and you've added your own complexities to that system, it is quite difficult to then try and rectify or improve anything. For example, if you create groups, you can't delete those groups.
I'd rate it an eight out of ten. That's because when it works well, it's brilliant.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Provides a lot of options for learning and has a user-friendly interface
Pros and Cons
- "Its user-friendly interface is most valuable. You can configure your welcome page and design it the way you want on your own."
- "A minus is that Cornerstone doesn't provide the admin the ability to create their own content for learning. So, you can just manage the content."
What is our primary use case?
Cornerstone covers learning, recruitment, succession, and performance. For me, Cornerstone is the best for learning and performance. It has the core functionalities, but it's not a module in itself. It just has some data, and this data helps to use other modules, such as LMS.
What is most valuable?
Its user-friendly interface is most valuable. You can configure your welcome page and design it the way you want on your own.
It is the best one in the market for learning. It has a good functionality where you can follow your learning, stop learning, and remove learning. You can do a lot of actions. They invest a lot in learning. Every three months, there is a release, and any bugs that we have found are solved every three months. They have a good support team.
What needs improvement?
A minus is that Cornerstone doesn't provide the admin the ability to create their own content for learning. So, you can just manage the content.
They don't invest a lot in some of the other modules. For instance, Succession is a very good module, but it is still a small module. You cannot do everything that you want. Similarly, with the HR module, it is complicated to put all the strategies in Cornerstone because it is very hard to find a workaround.
They should also work on the Recruitment module. There are a lot of bugs in this module. From my experience, even their support team is not proficient in this. They don't have a level-three support team experienced in the Recruitment module.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability varies. It is a stable solution. If you have found a bug, you can escalate it to support. They have a very good support team, and they can solve it, but sometimes, it can become unstable. When Cornerstone releases some patches, they can have an impact on the solution. If a fix is already implemented, they create a patch, but they don't inform. They just publish a paper on this patch, and if you don't go and look for this information, they will make it live, which can have an impact on the solution.
You have a lot of rules. You need to be a little bit experienced to know all the tips to have a good implementation without a lot of bugs. So, it's stable when you have all the support of the team so that if you have any bug, they can find a solution very quickly. On the other hand, like any other solution, when they do new releases, sometimes, these releases can have an impact on what you have already done.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is definitely scalable. Cornerstone is built for big companies. Mostly, all people in the clients' organizations use Cornerstone. They have a portal, which is like a virtual HR. It depends on the module, but they can see their career and their training.
When Cornerstone is for the whole company, it's just the rules that change. You have end-users. You have managers, and you have functional HR managers. The visibility is different from one user to another. You can put a function in the solution that's deployed for all.
How are customer service and support?
It depends on the client because it's a part of the package. All the clients do not have support, but if they do, it is a good thing because you can communicate with someone who can find the solution for you.
Their support is good. There is also a help page, and you have all the functionalities on the help page. Sometimes, you just need to go to the help page, and you can find the bug or issue that you are facing.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am a consultant. I go to companies that have other information systems, and they change to Cornerstone. They usually change because it's simple. The budget might also have a role to play in it, but it's more likely because Cornerstone is very well-known for learning. Sometimes, they change just for learning. They try the Learning module, and then they find it better to also take the Performance module so that they can link both modules and have more information about all the paths for the career of the employees. So, it starts with the Learning module, and then they start to deploy everything. They end up deploying Performance, Recruitment, Succession, and other modules.
Like any information system, it has ups and downs, but for talent management, it is a good solution where you can find several functionalities to help HR. I saw the value of Cornerstone when I worked with other information systems.
How was the initial setup?
A plus point of Cornerstone is that they give you the steps to deploy the solution for each module, which makes the process easier because you have the methodology. You just need to follow the steps, but it also depends on the client. You cannot follow the same process for all clients. So, you take the key steps of the methodology, and then you adapt it for your client.
The number of people required for deployment varies. Sometimes, you need more than 10 people. For instance, for a company here in France dealing with water and waste, we needed about 20 people for the project. It also depends on whether it is the first deployment. If it is the first deployment, you would need at least five people. You would need one to two junior consultants for implementation, and you would need others to better understand the need of the client and analyze the impact. Cornerstone is super, but it cannot do everything. So, you need to analyze the project.
The implementation can take a year and a half if you don't have anything else previously, or if you have another information system and you want to move everything to Cornerstone.
When we deploy Cornerstone, sometimes, we first deploy it on a small scale to see how they react. That's because we need to do change management for the users, but we can extend it to the whole company and business worldwide. The more we extend it, the more interesting it gets because we have a lot of information and reports regarding the whole company.
What was our ROI?
Clients do see an ROI but not in the first year. They need to wait for two years at least to have some data and start seeing the improvement in learning. They can see that people are doing more learning because they have more reminders. They can see the performance and the percentage. It helps to have a global idea.
What other advice do I have?
I can recommend the product, but you need to find a good consultant to implement it. That's because the first implementation will play a big role in the future of the tool. If you implement it in a good way, you don't need to hire someone to fix all the bugs later on. So, the first deployment has a big impact on the future usage of the tool. You have security rules and other things in Cornerstone, and if you don't know the solution very well, things can get very hard in the future.
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Managing Partner at TAMAHRIS
Offers a complete suite of solutions and features and has good scaling abilities
Pros and Cons
- "It is a complete suite of solutions and features. Compared to other solutions which are more niche solutions, which may be as good as Cornerstone or even better in certain parts of it, like discerning user experience. You will not find another solution that has the same completeness of features in all different areas of learning."
- "In the next release, I would like to see improvement in the dashboards and reporting."
What is our primary use case?
Cornerstone is always on the cloud. We are a consultancy company, so we also implement Cornerstone for clients. There are different types of use cases. It can be digital learning, it can be classroom training, it can be blended learning, it can be certification management, it can be social learning. There are different kinds of use case that depend on the client's priorities.
What is most valuable?
It is a complete suite of solutions and features. Compared to other solutions which are more niche solutions, which may be as good as Cornerstone or even better in certain parts of it, like discerning user experience. You will not find another solution that has the same completeness of features in all different areas of learning, beit classroom training, digital learning, learner experience, content curation, blended learning, certifications etc
What needs improvement?
They're working on the mobile app. It's a lot better already, but it can be improved. Another thing that can be improved is the whole reporting. The online reporting, visual data, visualization dashboards are also improving, but it's not there yet.
In the next release, I would like to see improvement in the dashboards and reporting.
The user experience should be a bit more configurable in terms of recommending training to specific users. Now it's either quite hardcoded or based on machine learning. It would also be good to have some kinds of intermediate features that allow organizations to propose training based on the criteria they choose and not just based on machine learning.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cornerstone Learning ( /products/cornerstone-learning-reviews ) for nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is quite safe stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's quite scalable. We have clients using it with a population of fewer than 500 people and we have the clients using it with 180,000 users, so it is very scalable depending on the complexity of the organization. Scalability is one of this solution's advantages.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is relatively straightforward. The complexity will depend on the complexity of the organization, the requirements and the decision process at the client's site that can make it quite complex. If you go for a simple setup then you can do it relatively fast. For example, we recently installed with one client who wanted to just go live with a limited set of e-learning features than the essential. The setup features are about making sure that the training is visible and assigned to the right people.
What about the implementation team?
We are the integrators. Most companies who use Cornerstone use an integrator, that's the implementation model of Cornerstone. You cannot really do it completely on your own, you need an integrator.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend Cornerstone. It's one of the best learning solutions on the market.
I would rate it a nine out of ten. Not a ten because in specific areas there are some products that have similar or better features. It is the best as a whole, but ten would mean it's a perfect solution but there are always things that can be improved.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementation Partner
Sr. Business Systems Analyst - Human Resources Operations at Encore Capital Group
A client-centric solution that provides easy delivery of compliance and skills training
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are the Playlists, Learning Assignment Tool, Earner Experience Platform, Machine Learning, and Reporting 2.0."
- "In general, some of the portal pages have an outdated look and feel."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution as a learning management system for companies with up to 10k users.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution has given us easy delivery of compliance training as well as on-demand skills training.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the Playlists, Learning Assignment Tool, Earner Experience Platform, Machine Learning, and Reporting 2.0.
I'm always impressed with how client-centric CSOD is. They truly value client feedback and are eager to make product improvements based on client interactions within the Client Success Center.
What needs improvement?
In general, some of the portal pages have an outdated look and feel.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Cornerstone Learning since 2013, for almost eight years.
What other advice do I have?
I am impressed with Cornerstone's dedication to updating the portal pages. A good example of this would be the new Training Details page redesign, as well as the upcoming Assessment redesign for the test engine.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: November 2024
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