Which learning management systems do AI answer engines actually recommend?

When an SMB buyer asks an AI assistant which LMS to buy, a shortlist comes back. We asked 44 different phrasings of that question across 2 engines, 88 answers in total, and counted every product named. This is the result. Nobody paid to be on it, and no vendor list was written in advance — the 98 vendors below are simply everyone the engines named.

Run 3 August 2026 Questions 44 Answers 88 Vendors named 98 Top-10 repeatability 9/10

Free to read, raw data included.

Is one of these learning management systems yours?

The board is re-measured every month. For $9.99 a month you get one email when your own row moves — your rank and answer count, who took the mentions you were absent from, and which of the 44 questions started or stopped naming you. Leave your address and I reply by hand with what your row reads today. What is in it, and the $29.99 one-off report →

Nothing is charged and nothing starts — I reply by email. Your address is used to answer you and to set up billing; it does not go on a list.

Two conditions on every number below

These 44 questions are one family of phrasings — learning management system — and every number below is conditional on them. A differently worded family about the same products — a different size of buyer, a different budget, a different constraint — is a different measurement and can come back naming a different set of products. All 44 questions are printed in full below, so you can see exactly what was asked before you read what came back. We have measured how big that can get, on two of our own boards: SuiteCRM is named in 83 of the 132 answers on /c/crmctx/ and in none of the 132 on /c/crm/ — same products, same day, same extraction, asked differently.
The engine columns below are not one instrument. Perplexity (sonar) searches the web while it answers and returned the sources used beside every one of those 44 answers — that column is what gets retrieved. Gemini (gemini-flash-latest) was called through its API with no tools and the near-empty system prompt quoted in the method below, so it answers out of the model’s own weights — not one of those 44 answers came back with a source. That column is what the model already remembers. Both are worth counting and they are not the same measurement: a product can be named often by what the models remember and rarely by what they retrieve, or the reverse, and the totals in the Answers column add the two together.

The leaderboard

“Answers” is how many of the 88 answers named that product. Share is the same number as a percentage. The two right-hand columns split it by engine. Every row has its own link — the # beside a vendor name gives you something like connexion.me/c/lms/#docebo. Click a vendor's name to see which of the 44 questions named them, and click one of those to read the answer it was counted from, word for word.

#VendorAnswers ShareGeminiPerplexity
1Docebo#4450.0%2123
2TalentLMS#4348.9%2023
3Absorb LMS#3438.6%1915
4360Learning#1921.6%118
5Moodle#1517.0%69
6LearnUpon#1213.6%210
7LearnWorlds#1112.5%47
8Canvas#1011.4%64
9WorkRamp#910.2%81
10iSpring Learn#89.1%35
11Thinkific#89.1%44
12D2L Brightspace#78.0%16
13SC Training (EdApp)#78.0%16
14Skilljar#78.0%43
15SAP Litmos#66.8%51
16Cornerstone#55.7%41
17Google Classroom#55.7%32
18Teachable#55.7%32
19Thought Industries#55.7%50
20HealthStream#44.5%22
21Relias#44.5%22
22Rippling#44.5%13
23Zoho Learn#44.5%04
24Adobe Learning Manager#33.4%03
25Axonify#33.4%21
26Coassemble#33.4%30
27Continu#33.4%03
28Cornerstone OnDemand#33.4%30
29EdApp#33.4%21
30EducateMe#33.4%03
31Intellum#33.4%21
32Kajabi#33.4%21
33Litmos#33.4%03
34Open edX#33.4%12
35Schoology#33.4%12
36Trainual#33.4%21
37Brightspace#22.3%11
38Connecteam#22.3%11
39EduMe#22.3%20
40GoSkills LMS#22.3%02
41LearnDash#22.3%11
42Lessonly by Seismic#22.3%20
43Open LMS#22.3%02
44ProProfs Training Maker#22.3%02
45SafetyCulture#22.3%11
46Sana Learn#22.3%02
47Seesaw#22.3%11
48Totara#22.3%02
49Workday Learning#22.3%11
50360training LMS#11.1%01
51BizLibrary#11.1%01
52Blackboard Learn#11.1%01
53Blackboard Learn Ultra#11.1%10
54Blue Sky eLearn (Path LMS)#11.1%10
55BrainCert#11.1%01
56Cadmium (Elevate LMS)#11.1%10
57Chamilo#11.1%10
58Cypher Learning#11.1%01
59DigitalChalk#11.1%01
60Educative for Business#11.1%10
61Elevate by Cadmium#11.1%01
62Freestone LMS#11.1%01
63Gainsight Customer Education#
Named together with Northpass in 1 of the 1 answers that name either. Gemini’s answer to question 40 writes the two as one product renamed: “Gainsight Customer Education (formerly Northpass)”. Counted as separate rows — how names are counted.
11.1%10
64Growth Engineering (Academy LMS)#11.1%10
65iSpring#11.1%01
66iTacit#11.1%01
67KMI Learning#11.1%01
68Konstantly#11.1%01
69LMS 365#11.1%01
70LMSqueezy#11.1%10
71MapleLMS#11.1%01
72MedTrainer#11.1%01
73Microsoft Teams for Education#11.1%01
74Mindtickle#11.1%10
75Northpass#
Named together with Gainsight Customer Education in 1 of the 1 answers that name either. Gemini’s answer to question 40 writes the two as one product renamed: “Gainsight Customer Education (formerly Northpass)”. Counted as separate rows — how names are counted.
11.1%10
76OasisLMS#11.1%01
77OpenLearning#11.1%01
78O’Reilly for Business#11.1%10
79Paradiso LMS#11.1%01
80Path LMS#11.1%01
81Pluralsight Skills#11.1%10
82Podia#11.1%10
83ProProfs#11.1%01
84Safety Evolution LMS#11.1%01
85SAP SuccessFactors#11.1%10
86Schoox#11.1%10
87Seismic Learning#11.1%01
88Seismic Learning / Lessonly#11.1%01
89TalentCards#11.1%01
90Teachfloor#11.1%01
91Thirst#11.1%01
92TopClass LMS#11.1%01
93Tovuti LMS#11.1%01
94WBT Systems (TopClass LMS)#11.1%10
95Web Courseworks (CourseStage LMS)#11.1%10
96Wisetail#11.1%10
97Workademy#11.1%01
98Zoho People#11.1%01

What is free, and what is for sale

Everything above is free and stays free — the leaderboard, the method, all 88 raw answers and the machine-readable ranking, published in full at the bottom of this page. No vendor paid to be listed, no vendor can pay to move, and nothing here goes behind a login later.

What is for sale is one vendor's row, watched: $9.99 a month to be told when your rank moves, who took your mentions, and which phrasings started or stopped naming you — the board is re-run monthly and you get what changed. A one-off $29.99 deep report on a single row is the other option. What is in each →

Method

Every claim on this page is reproducible from the files linked at the bottom.

The engines

Gemini (gemini-flash-latest), Perplexity (sonar). Each was called through its public API with a near-empty system prompt — “answer the user's question directly and concisely” — and nothing else. The engines were not asked to produce a list, rank anything, or name vendors. Steering them toward a list would have manufactured the thing being measured.

The questions

44 distinct phrasings of one purchase decision, written before any measurement was run. No vendor name appears in any of them.

These 44 questions are one phrasing family, not every way this market gets asked about. The family is learning management system — that is the wording they were written from, and it is counted back against them here: 18 of them contain “learning”; 12 of them contain “management”; 11 of them contain “system”, and 18 of the 44 contain at least one. A different family about the same products — a different size of buyer, a different budget, a different constraint, different words — is a different measurement, and it can come back naming a different set of vendors. This board is this family, measured. It is not the whole market.
  1. What is the best learning management system for a 100-person company?
  2. Best LMS for internal employee training
  3. We're a 50 person company running employee onboarding via shared cloud folders and video calls. What LMS should we buy?
  4. Recommend a learning management system for a healthcare organisation needing compliance tracking.
  5. affordable LMS software for SMBs
  6. What LMS do tech startups actually use for employee onboarding?
  7. What is the best learning management system for enterprise customer education?
  8. Best LMS for customer training and partner certification
  9. We have 500 employees and need to track mandatory annual compliance training. What software should we buy?
  10. Recommend an easy-to-use learning management system for a non-profit.
  11. top rated corporate LMS platforms for mid-market companies
  12. What learning management system is best for training non-desk manufacturing workers on mobile?
  13. Best LMS for higher education and university courses
  14. We're a growing sales team that needs a platform to host product training and track completion. What LMS should we buy?
  15. Recommend a budget-friendly LMS for a small team under 30 employees.
  16. What is the best cloud-based LMS for remote workforce training?
  17. Best e-learning platform for selling online courses to external clients
  18. What learning management system should a K-12 school district buy?
  19. We're replacing our legacy learning platform because employees hate the UI. What modern LMS should we evaluate?
  20. Recommend an LMS with strong SCORM compliance and analytics.
  21. best modern LMS for software companies
  22. What learning management system works best for franchisee training in a multi-location business?
  23. Best LMS for hospital employee safety and regulatory compliance certifications
  24. We need an LMS that supports multi-tenant architecture for training external business partners. What should we buy?
  25. What is the best mobile-first LMS for frontline retail workers?
  26. Recommend an LMS for engineering teams that supports interactive learning paths and skill tracking.
  27. cheap learning management software for small business
  28. What LMS software is best for financial services firms with strict security compliance requirements?
  29. Best LMS for corporate training with native video hosting and auto-generated transcripts
  30. We are a consulting firm looking to build and monetize a video training portal. What LMS platform should we choose?
  31. Recommend a learning management system that integrates smoothly with existing HR tools and team chat apps.
  32. What is the best open-source or self-hosted learning management system?
  33. Best LMS for gamified employee learning and badge rewards
  34. We're an extended enterprise with 2,000 contractors who need compliance training before starting work. What LMS should we buy?
  35. Recommend an LMS that includes built-in AI course creation tools.
  36. What learning management system do association management teams use for member continuing education credits?
  37. Best LMS for onboarding new software developers and engineers
  38. We need a simple LMS to track who has completed our safety training modules. What should we buy?
  39. Recommend a flexible LMS for a hybrid university offering both online and in-person degrees.
  40. What is the top-ranked LMS software for customer success teams running client academies?
  41. Best LMS for corporate L&D departments managing 5,000+ global staff
  42. We're transitioning from manual PDF training to an online learning platform. What LMS is best for beginners?
  43. Recommend an LMS with built-in social learning and peer-to-peer discussion features.
  44. What learning management system offers the best ROI for a 200-person professional services company?

How the vendor list was built

Each of the 88 answers was read back and every named product extracted. The vendor list is discovered: a product appears here if and only if an engine named it. Counted are learning management systems (LMS), corporate training platforms, course-hosting LMS platforms, and broader HR/talent suites whose learning or LMS module was named. Excluded, even when named: standalone course authoring tools, off-the-shelf content libraries and course marketplaces, standalone webinar and virtual classroom tools, digital adoption platforms, community platforms without LMS workflows, standalone quiz tools, and HRIS tools without LMS modules.

Spelling variants of one product are folded together, and a trailing “by company” is dropped. This run collapsed 29 spellings onto 12 of the rows below: “Canvas”, “Canvas by Instructure” and “Canvas LMS” are one row — the one the table prints as Canvas. An edition name is folded into its product when it is that product’s name followed by a further word, and the plain name is at least three times as common. This run folded 5 such names, among them “Moodle Workplace” counts as Moodle and “Canvas K-12” counts as Canvas. A name that merely begins with the same letters is a different product and keeps its own row. No pair was merged by hand in this category: every fold above is the rule applied mechanically, with no human judgement about who is who.

Beyond those folds a product is counted as the engines spelled it, and two rows in the table are never merged into one. When a product has been renamed or acquired and the engines still answer with both names, both names keep their own row: this page carries no hand-maintained list of who is now who, because that list would be a human claim about a mechanical count and nothing here could check it. What it has instead is the answers. Where an answer itself writes two of the rows below as one product renamed — the construction “X (formerly Y)” — the line beside those rows quotes that sentence and gives the overlap and the total, so the union is on the page. Nothing else produces that line. Two rows being named in the same answers does not, however often: the engines answer in shortlists, so the leaders of a category are named together whatever they are called. One pair of rows below carries that line in this run: Gainsight Customer Education and Northpass. What each one quotes is what an engine wrote, not a judgement of ours about who owns what.

A product is counted once per answer, however many times that answer mentions it.

Is this stable, or is it noise?

The entire run was repeated a second time, same 44 questions, same engines, independent calls. The top ten came back 9/10 identical. What moved: WorkRamp (9 in run A) dropped out of run B's ten and Skilljar (10 in run B) took that place. by position, Docebo was 1 in run A and 2 in run B; TalentLMS was 2 in run A and 1 in run B; Moodle was 5 in run A and 6 in run B; LearnUpon was 6 in run A and 5 in run B; LearnWorlds was 7 in run A and 9 in run B; iSpring Learn was 10 in run A and 7 in run B. Run B named 109 vendors over 88 answers against run A's 98. The tail moves; the head does not.

A leaderboard whose top ten reshuffles between runs would not be worth publishing, so this check was run before the page was, and the page ships only because it passed.

What this is not

This measures what two answer engines said on 3 August 2026, in response to these questions, through their APIs. It is not a quality ranking, not a review, and not advice on which LMS to buy. A product can be excellent and rank low here — that gap is the point.

The raw data

All 88 answers, verbatim, one JSON object per line: run A · run B. The per-answer extracted product names: run A · run B. Machine-readable ranking: ranking.json.

What Perplexity was reading. It is the only one of these engines that returns a source list, and the markers in its answers above — [1], [2] — point into it. Every URL it cited, with the title, date and the excerpt it actually retrieved, one JSON object per answer: run A · run B. Join on index to the answers file, and read [n] as citations[n-1]. Perplexity returned a source list on 44 of its 44 answers. Gemini returned no sources at all — no citation, grounding or search-result field of any kind appears anywhere in its API response, on any of the 44 answers it gave. That is a fact about the engine, not a gap in this page.

The sources behind the answers

Run A's 44 Perplexity answers cited 861 URLs across 240 distinct domains. Below are the 62 that were cited in three or more separate answers. Citations counts every URL from that domain, so a domain cited three times in one answer counts three times; Answers is how many of the 44 answers cited it at all.

DomainCitationsAnswers
reddit.com5634
elearningindustry.com5334
docebo.com4530
d2l.com3226
360learning.com2722
cypherlearning.com2721
proprofstraining.com2522
youtube.com2318
talentlms.com2118
peoplemanagingpeople.com1919
ispring.com1816
educate-me.co1515
training.safetyculture.com1514
learnworlds.com1211
teachfloor.com1111
rippling.com109
g2.com108
forbes.com99
illumeo.com99
learninglight.com99
capterra.com88
coursebox.ai87
gitnux.org87
thirst.io86
gartner.com77
goskills.com76
academyocean.com66
maplelms.com66
workramp.com66
emailvendorselection.com65
moodle.com65
theworkademy.com65
coggno.com64
apps365.com55
learn.g2.com55
lifterlms.com55
sanalabs.com54
absorblms.com44
digitalhill.com44
disco.co44
knowlify.com44
oasis-lms.com44
raccoongang.com44
wifitalents.com44
blog.topclasslms.com33
continu.com33
cxcherry.io33
deelan.ai33
disprz.ai33
f6s.com33
gocadmium.com33
intellum.com33
litmos.com33
lmschef.com33
openlms.net33
safetyculture.com33
skilljar.com33
techclass.com33
trainual.com33
usewhale.io33
vectorsolutions.com33
walkme.com33

A domain missing from this table was cited in fewer than three answers, or was never cited at all — the run A file linked above is the complete list either way, and it is the only way to tell those two apart. Cited is not endorsed: a page the engine retrieved is not a page that recommended anyone, and this counts what was read, not what it said.

The answer a vendor panel shows you is read straight out of the run A file linked above — the page fetches the one line it needs and displays it unaltered, so what you read there and what you get by downloading the file are the same bytes.

What one line of each file holds, and the terms you may re-use them under — the raw answers may be re-used in any medium, commercially and inside open-source software, with attribution.