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CYPHER Learning vs Totara Learn comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

CYPHER Learning
Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Totara Learn
Ranking in Learning Management Systems (LMS)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Learning Management Systems (LMS) category, the mindshare of CYPHER Learning is 4.5%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Totara Learn is 2.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
 

Featured Reviews

Roland Lorenzo M Ruben - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexible learning and saves printing costs; it has been excellent for us
There is room for improvement in the CYPHER Learning mobile application because my students have given feedback that they are not using the mobile app as it takes time to open. I also use the app. For me, it is easier to use than using the browser, but some of the students do not use it because it takes a very long time to open. Most of our students are using smartphones. Some students do not have laptops, so if the mobile app is more responsive, it would be a great help for us. The peer feedback feature is not user-friendly. Some of our faculty members were very happy when CYPHER gave the news that there is already a peer feedback feature because we were asking for it, but when they used it, they found it complicated and not user-friendly. They were disappointed with the peer feedback feature. When students submit their outputs, we want their classmates to give feedback as well, but that is not very easy to use. After I tried it, I also did not find it very friendly to use. They have this assessment type where we can group our students. We create groups, and they can work and collaborate with the group. While grading the submissions of the groups, although we can see that the students are separated by groups, we still have to grade them one by one. We would like a way to grade the group as one. For example, if there are five members in a group, currently, we give each member a grade. It would be easier to be able to give the same grade to all the members of the group. The team assessment feature could be improved to allow grading the group as one.
MarcFonoll - PeerSpot reviewer
The tool's deployment is not complex but need to work on multi-tenant trainings
The challenge was understanding the entire solution, particularly its capabilities for managing training within a distributed organization. As part of a group of companies, some with training hubs and others working differently, the need for different tenants arose. This helps organize the training offerings centrally, addressing the challenge of a multi-tenant solution, which wasn't fully grasped initially.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is the ability to use private external portals through which we can sell our courses, which is enormous. This feature is one of the primary reasons we stitched from our previous LMS, as it allows us to grow and create customization. We can customize the portals within CYPHER Learning for specific clients, and that's huge."
"Overall, I would rate CYPHER Learning a ten out of ten."
"E-commerce is still one of the exotic features, meaning that not all LMS providers offer it. It is critical for us. We have had no trouble implementing payment gateways with this system and it works out-of-the-box without any special tricks."
"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."
"There are so many valuable features: The structure of the platform is fantastic and the learner experience is very good."
"There are several valuable features. One is the competency mapping. This helps us, as faculty members and developers of learning materials, track and monitor which competencies our students have acquired, based on the outcomes that we wanted them to have at the end of a particular module or term."
"CYPHER Learning far outperforms some of the more basic ones."
"It is a platform that has everything. It is very powerful and intuitive. And because it is so user-friendly, it allows anyone without any knowledge of LMS platforms to make a course, publish it, and monitor it."
"The tool's deployment is not complex."
"The multi-tenancy features of Totara Learn are the most useful for training efficiency."
 

Cons

"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."
"Due to the complexity of our business, we would welcome more options for access rights management."
"While the number of apps available for integration with CYPHER Learning has increased over the years, I would love to see this number continue to grow. I believe this would help solidify its position amongst other learning management systems as a viable option for educators and schools."
"The user interface looks dated compared to more modern learning management systems, which are really clean. There is so much functionality that it almost becomes too much for the user, so the user interface could be improved."
"One thing that I wish was different was that it showed the full title in the catalog when I create something outside, such as in Articulate 360, and bring it in. When you go into the catalog title, it does not show you the whole title. If it is a long title, it will just have three dots. I wish it would just show the entire title, even if it goes into the next line so that people can see the whole title."
"eCommerce integration is crucial for us. They have two separate reporting styles. You can view information within the courses themselves, and you can view information on the eCommerce orders. The reporting within the courses and the eCommerce orders are separate, causing difficulty."
"In terms of face-to-face education, a suggestion for CYPHER LEARNING is that it give more presence to CYPHER Learning as an entity in the school by teaching more about how to exploit the tools: how to create games, and more about the use of SCORM."
"The parents' training was not adequate. Parents say that it wasn't user-friendly for them."
"Totara Learn needs to improve the look and feel, and make it easier to use, more user-friendly."
"The challenge was understanding the entire solution, particularly its capabilities for managing training within a distributed organization. As part of a group of companies, some with training hubs and others working differently, the need for different tenants arose. This helps organize the training offerings centrally, addressing the challenge of a multi-tenant solution, which wasn't fully grasped initially."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price was fair for all the features we received."
"Understanding your active users, compared to total users, in terms of the plan you choose, is something to be aware of."
"Our satisfaction with the pricing is a 10 out of 10."
"We have compared pricing with different vendors and found that CYPHER Learning was the most reasonable."
"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."
"I am happy with it. It is very well priced."
"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."
"It's not expensive. It's user-based."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
8%
University
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I did not negotiate the pricing, but from what I gathered, it was a significant purchase for us at West Music. We recognize its value and potential for growth, making it worthwhile.
What needs improvement with NEO LMS?
The primary area for improvement is the reporting between courses and eCommerce, which currently use two separate reporting styles. Information can be accessed within the courses themselves, as wel...
What do you like most about Totara Learn?
The tool's deployment is not complex.
What needs improvement with Totara Learn?
The look and feel is not good. Totara Learn needs to improve its look and feel and make it easier to use and more user-friendly. The interface is okay, but sometimes it's messy. Totara needs to imp...
What advice do you have for others considering Totara Learn?
For people who need a highly scalable, multi-tenant LMS on a low budget, this is a good option. It's a very good option in the market, low-priced, and a very good LMS. Overall, I would rate it an e...
 

Also Known As

MATRIX LMS, NEO LMS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Millions of users across business, academia, and entrepreneurs - worldwide.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about CYPHER Learning vs. Totara Learn and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.