About CANVAS

Canvas’ ability to seamlessly plug into existing technology tools and it’s unparalleled up-time, reliability, and security all ensure a solid foundation for your learning ecosystem. Canvas ease of course design, Speed Grader’s anytime anywhere access, and our powerful Teacher and Student Apps for mobile devices, ensure Canvas gets used deeper than any other LMS.

Learn more about us at https://www.instructure.com/en-au/canvas

Pricing starting from:

Not provided by vendor

  • Free Version
  • Free Trial
  • Subscription

Top 5 alternatives to CANVAS

Key benefits of CANVAS

Native Mobile Apps
Engage students in learning anytime, anywhere and support 1:1 and other technology initiatives both in and outside the classroom.

SpeedGrader
Grading is a breeze and takes half the time. With SpeedGrader for iPad, even grading on-the-go is easy.

Student View
Teachers can preview assignments and other course elements as students see them.

Selective Release
Defines course, curriculum and certification paths, including pre-test and post-test assessment tracks.

Parent App
Connect parents to students’ courses automatically—giving them the insight to help their students be successful.

Typical Customers

  • Freelancers
  • Small Businesses (2-50)
  • Mid-size Companies (51-500)
  • Large enterprises (500 and more)

Deployment

  • Cloud-based
  • On-premise

Markets

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra and 224 others

Supported Languages

English

Pricing starting from:

Not provided by vendor

  • Free Version
  • Free Trial
  • Subscription

Top 5 alternatives to CANVAS

Images

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Features

Total features of CANVAS: 107

  • API
  • Academic/Education
  • Activity Dashboard
  • Activity Management
  • Activity Tracking
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • Assessment Management
  • Assignment Management
  • Asynchronous Learning
  • Attendance Management
  • Attendance Tracking
  • Audio/Video Recording
  • Blended Learning
  • Block Websites/Applications
  • Built-in Course Authoring
  • Built-in LMS
  • Calendar Management
  • Certification & Licensing
  • Certification Management
  • Chat/Messaging
  • Class Scheduling
  • Class Summary
  • Classroom Management
  • Collaboration Tools
  • Commenting/Notes
  • Communication Management
  • Compliance Tracking
  • Content Library
  • Content Management
  • Corporate/Business
  • Course Authoring
  • Course Library
  • Course Management
  • Course Publishing
  • Course Tracking
  • Curriculum Management
  • Curve Scores
  • Customisable Branding
  • Customisable Questions
  • Customisable Reports
  • Customisable Templates
  • Data Import/Export
  • Document Management
  • Document Storage
  • Drag & Drop
  • Email Management
  • Employee Training
  • Engagement Tracking
  • Enrollments/Onboarding
  • Event Calendar
  • Faculty/Staff Management
  • For Schools
  • Gamification
  • Grade Calculations
  • Gradebook
  • Higher Education
  • Individualised Assessments
  • Instructor-Led Courses
  • Interactive Content
  • Interactive Learning
  • Learner Portal
  • Learning Management
  • Learning Paths/Tracks
  • Lesson Planning
  • Media Import
  • Media Management
  • Mobile Access
  • Mobile Learning
  • Multi-Language
  • Multimedia Support
  • Parent Portal
  • Progress Reports
  • Progress Tracking
  • Quizzes
  • Real Time Data
  • Real Time Notifications
  • Real Time Reporting
  • Real-time Broadcasting
  • Remote Access/Control
  • Report Cards
  • Reporting & Statistics
  • SCORM Compliance
  • Screen Sharing
  • Self Service Portal
  • Self-Learning
  • Skills Assessment
  • Skills Tracking
  • Social Learning
  • Storyboarding
  • Student Information/Records
  • Student Management
  • Student Portal
  • Support Audio/Images/Video
  • Surveys & Feedback
  • Synchronous Learning
  • Talent Management
  • Teacher Dashboard
  • Template Management
  • Tests/Assessments
  • Third Party Integrations
  • Training Companies
  • Video Conferencing
  • Video Management
  • Video Streaming
  • Virtual Classroom
  • Weighted Assignments
  • eLearning Companies

Alternatives

Litmos

4.2
#1 Alternative to CANVAS
Litmos develops eLearning solutions for top-performing companies. Litmos offers the world’s easiest-to-use LMS and a...

Moodle

4.3
#2 Alternative to CANVAS
With hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, more organisations choose...

QuestBase

4.3
#3 Alternative to CANVAS
QuestBase is a web-based application that allows organizations to create and manage tests, assessments, exams, and...

Google Docs

4.7
#4 Alternative to CANVAS
Google Docs is an online word processor that lets you create and format text documents and collaborate with other...

Reviews

Overall rating

4.5 /5
(3,626)
Value for Money
4.5/5
Features
4.4/5
Ease of Use
4.4/5
Customer Support
4.3/5

Already have CANVAS?

Software buyers need your help! Product reviews help the rest of us make great decisions.

Showing 5 reviews of 3,626
Luis Carlos
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: 51–200 Employees
  • Used Weekly for 6-12 months
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

The most user-friendly management service

Reviewed on 21/12/2021

Now I don't hate using an online tool for managing my courses. After trying other two alternatives...

Now I don't hate using an online tool for managing my courses. After trying other two alternatives for a couple of years each, Canvas is the only one that I don't want to just get rid of. Before, the online management tool was a requirement, now it is a must have.

Pros

I've used a couple of alternatives both as a student and as an educator and this has by far the best user experience. This one helps going straight to what you need to do with it. I like how it doesn't try to add a lot of functionality that no one will ever use. The features it has are great and the way to access them just makes sense. When we changed to Canvas, we all agreed at my institution that it was one of the best decisions we have ever taken.

Cons

I would like to have the option as an admin to disable some features. Take forums as an example, my students use social media for pretty much anything or some other stuff. That fact that forums are there is nice, but if you won't ever use it, I would like to be able to remove it.

Ho'omana Nathan
Overall rating
  • Industry: Higher Education
  • Company size: 10,000+ Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10

The best LMS I've used so far (much better than Brightspace/D2L)

Reviewed on 7/4/2021

Overall, Canvas is the best I've used so far (1000x better than buggy/feature-impoverished D2L)....

Overall, Canvas is the best I've used so far (1000x better than buggy/feature-impoverished D2L). It's generally nice to work with, plays well with most other online resources (especially Google Drive which I use a ton for teaching), it's fairly easy to explain to students, and it makes it easy to transfer materials between courses each semester.

Pros

One thing I love is that unlike Brightspace/D2L, Canvas has continued to develop and gain new features as long as I've used it. I also like how easy it is to transfer course materials from one course to another so that classes I teach each semester, or every other semester, can be easily copied over.

Cons

Some of the more advanced/useful features aren't always easy to use, and there isn't great documentation from Canvas. In fact, most of the documentation I've found has been from other university's websites.

Megan
Overall rating
  • Industry: E-Learning
  • Company size: 201–500 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

canvas

Reviewed on 17/1/2023

overall it’s great and I definitely have told other people about it

overall it’s great and I definitely have told other people about it

Pros

I really like how easy it is to manage everything that I need for classes and especially like the calendar to keep track of my classes

Cons

I didn’t love the layout of everything for example when navigating through the tabs it takes a lot of time to get to certain tabs

Dr. M Y
Overall rating
  • Industry: Education Management
  • Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10

Canvas for Online Learning, Teaching & Assessment: OK but...

Reviewed on 6/2/2021

Best valuable features: Share to Common, Import/export content i.e., transport/transfer files from...

Best valuable features: Share to Common, Import/export content i.e., transport/transfer files from past year or another course. It saves time, not reinventing the wheel.

Assignment Due date is very cruel to learner as 1 second late submission may cause a heavy penalty. Recently due to COVID-19 my learners in UK and International faced difficulties. I suggest to add a feature giving some window instead of a fix hh.mm.ss timestamp.

Pros

Learning & Teaching: Various useful features, e.g., upload/download files, page creation, announcement and discussion and valuable apps containing ubiquitous tools, like MS Team meetings, Panopto, Vimeo, YouTube, Dropbox etc.

Assessment: Huge variety of Quizzes, secured quizzes, quizzes SWOT statistics, lockdown browser, Assignments, anti-Plagiarism tools, Moderation, Marker Allocation, Grades,

Research: Conferences, collaborations, Canvas digital forum support.

Cons

Assessment of students: sorting may not be sync'd with local university database. i.e., downloaded grades and university's marksheet contains names of students starting differently. Imaging if you have 300+ names! this causes sorting issues while assessing online.

Quizzes are great but cannot create duplicate questions, some time academic need this feature. Also because quiz question can be an Essay therefore, this type of assessment must include anti-plagiarism tool (i.e., Turnitin etc), not available in Quizzes but only in Assignments.

Reference Manager and Library tools are not available but can be added, e.g., Talis, StudyNet etc. These features are necessary for cognitive learning and cresting your own Library does help. I need to use either Endnotes or Mendeley as an external app on my desktop or on cloud.

Its good to use integrated Email tool but its not linked to outlook or other email app. I cannot send email to other people outside my module, i.e., cannot do cc to manager, examiner etc but I need to permanently add in the list of people.
Also cannot add images etc in text but can attach files. Also cannot format the text but just plaintext is allowed. You cannot add http link to a text.

Dylan
Overall rating
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source

Overall rating

  • Value for Money
  • Ease of Use
  • Customer Support
  • Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10

Canvas review

Reviewed on 26/12/2022

Overall my experiences with Canvas has been really good, I’m really happy with both the app and the...

Overall my experiences with Canvas has been really good, I’m really happy with both the app and the web browser.

Pros

What I like most about Canvas is that it’s very user friendly and very easy to use, checking on assignment due dates from my phone is something I do everyday when I’m enrolled in classes.

Cons

Something I don’t like about Canvas is that whenever the app for Canvas is updating it takes a while to update and things don’t load properly.

Showing 5 reviews of 3,626 Read all reviews

CANVAS FAQs

Below are some frequently asked questions for CANVAS.

CANVAS offers the following pricing plans:

  • Starting from:
  • Pricing model: Free Version
  • Free Trial: Available

To learn more about pricing, please reach out to us directly.

CANVAS has the following typical customers:

11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000

CANVAS supports the following languages:

English

CANVAS supports the following devices:

Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile)

CANVAS integrates with the following applications:

Adobe Connect, Blackboard Learn, Diigo, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive, Kaltura Video Platform, McGraw-Hill Connect, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Outlook, Moodle, Skype for Business, Twitter

CANVAS offers the following support options:

Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support, Chat

Related categories

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