We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Your training is only as good as the technology you use to support it. That applies just as much to virtual instructor-led training (VILT) as it does to any other training format. But how do you choose the right platform from all the different VILT solutions on the market?
We can help with that. Today, we’re going to go over some of the best VILT software of the year — with any luck, you’ll find a solution that fits your business on this list.
The 7 Best VILT Software Platforms
Adobe Connect
Top Features:
- Pods: Supercharge training by adding pods to deliver mini experiences within a broader environment.
- Layouts: Create virtual storyboards, complete with images, muilti-media, interactive courses, polls, chats, quizzes, and notes.
- Custom Branding: Use images, logos, and custom colors to add your branding to any room.
Adobe Connect focuses on creating a virtual learning environment that’s as close to a physical classroom experience as possible. Instructors can access a ton of interactive features including Q&A’s, polls, chats, and whiteboards. The platform also features a crisp and modern interface with the ability to apply custom layouts and branding.
The big wing of Adobe Connect, however, is in how it tracks learner participation. Rather than rely solely on how participants interact with training materials, the solution features an engagement dashboard that aggregates a ton of different parameters into a digital body language score. Your instructors can see a full overview of how much attention everyone’s paying to their training, making it a whole lot easier to identify possible bottlenecks in the learning experience.
Learn Upon
Top Features:
- Course Management: Design and structure your training with various content types like SCORM, webinars, and instructor-led sessions.
- Gamification: Boost learner motivation with points, badges, and leaderboards that reward progress and create healthy competition.
- Custom Branding: Customize the LMS with your organization’s logo, colors, and fonts, ensuring a consistent brand experience across your training platform.
LearnUpon is a cloud-based platform built for both corporate training initiatives and membership-based organizations. Equal parts LMS and virtual training environment, the solution comes with pre-built integrations for Adobe Connect, Zoom, GoToWebinar, and Microsoft Teams. Its diverse feature-set includes learning paths, social learning, comprehensive reporting options, and personalized learning portals.
It’s through those portals that LearnUpon really shines. Through them, participants can track their learning progress via a learner dashboard, access discussion forums, view leaderboards, review their certificates, and receive updates about their training. LearnUpon also supports a huge selection of roles for administrators, instructors, managers, and users.
Absorb
Top Features:
- Smart Administration: Automate and customize your training workflows to boost efficiency with bulk actions, role management, and advanced reporting.
- Mobile Learning: Empower learners to access training anytime and anywhere with a mobile-friendly interface, ensuring consistent engagement on the go.
- AI-Powered Personalization: Leverage AI to create personalized learning paths and optimize search results.
Absorb is a powerful and comprehensive learning management system intended primarily for larger corporate training initiatives. Its user-friendly interface is supported by a massive featureset, including a full suite of eLearning tools, custom scheduling and reporting, and advanced branding and customization options. There’s also Absorb Pinpoint, an AI-powered transcription tool that automatically translates video lessons into searchable text.
For businesses that want to draw on third-party expertise, Absorb features a library of pre-made content and courses. In addition to VILT, Absorb supports a wide range of other training modalities, including self-paced lessons and tracking for in-person instructor-led training. And if you’re looking to be proactive when developing and deploying training materials, Absorb has you covered there, as well — in addition to learner performance, the platform tracks their in-portal search activity, making it easier to identify knowledge gaps and training needs.
Litmos
Top Features:
- AI Automation: Use AI-powered tools to automate training processes, enhance efficiency, and create personalized learning paths and rules.
- Content Authoring: Build engaging SCORM-compliant training content with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
- Mobile Learning: Ensure training is accessible anytime, anywhere with Litmos’ mobile-friendly platform for on the go learning.
Like Absorb, Litmos is made with large organizations and global workforces in mind. The platform supports both academic and corporate training across a range of different industries, including professional services, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and technology. Similarly, Litmos’s feature set means it’s well suited for everything from compliance training and professional development to customer education.
Learners can not only upload their own content but also access custom-built, personalized learner dashboards, making it easier for businesses to segment diverse learner audiences. In addition to personalized learning paths, Litmos supports learners and instructors with a specialized AI assistant. Monetization is also available via Shopify integration.
TalentLMS
Top Features:
- Customizable Learning Paths: Create personalized learning experiences with structured paths that guide learners through courses and assessments.
- API & Integrations: Integrate with popular tools like Zoom, Salesforce, and other HR systems using robust APIs.
- TalentLibrary: Access a vast library of ready-made courses to accelerate training and build skills without creating content from scratch.
Designed to both streamline and optimize employee onboarding, TalentLMS is a comprehensive, cloud-based solution that not only supports instructor-led training, but also gamification, social learning, and more. The software also leans heavily into adaptive learning with the ability to create and customize any number of dynamic branching learning paths. For a nominal fee, businesses can also access a massive library of pre-built third-party courses.
TalentLMS features a built-in assessment engine and course creation toolkit, with comprehensive analytics and reporting features ranging from activity logs to infographics. It integrates with many of the top video conferencing solutions, including Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Finally, businesses looking to commercialize their training will be happy to hear that the platform supports payments via both PayPal and Stripe.
Anthology Blackboard
Top Features:
- AI-Powered Efficiency: Enhance course creation, assessments, and grading with AI tools that streamline instructor workflows.
- Inclusive Learning: Empower learners with personalized learning experiences by offering flexible content interactions and device-based customizations.
- Actionable Insights: Use data-driven insights to monitor student progress, identify those needing extra support, and continuously optimize course effectiveness.
Developed and maintained by Anthology, Blackboard Learn is a reliable, powerful, and intuitive web-based LMS. Regarded as an industry leader in educational technology (EdTech), the platform uses generative AI to help instructors more efficiently structure courses, assess learner performance, and create grading rubrics. Blackboard’s AI also helps create multimedia content and detect plagiarism.
Businesses that want to ramp up their focus on inclusivity can deploy Blackboard alongside Anthology Ally, a platform-agnostic solution that improves usability for both websites and training content. Trusted by leading post-secondary institutions such as The University of Manchester and Boston University, Anthology Ally can serve as a powerful addition to an experience-focused training strategy.
CloudShare
Top Features
- Hands-On Virtual Labs: Create realistic, interactive environments for training, demos, and proof of concepts (POCs).
- Fast Setup: Spin up complex environments within minutes using customizable templates, and clone environments with a single click for quick deployment of training or sales demos.
- Real-Time Analytics: Track user activity and monitor progress in real-time to collect actionable insights, optimize performance, and maximize ROI.
We’ve always maintained that whether you’re onboarding a new employee, educating your customers, or helping your people develop new professional skills, hands-on training is the best approach. That’s why CloudShare is designed to make it easy for instructors to create virtual IT labs for everything from instructor-led training to proof of concept demos. Flexible and cloud-agnostic, CloudShare can deploy a lab into any public cloud environment without requiring any coding or development expertise.
Trusted by global brands such as Salesforce, Kaspersky, Atlassian and Motorola, our platform requires only minutes to create or clone virtual environments. More importantly, it’s cost-effective, with transparent usage-based pricing. CloudShare also integrates with the majority of LMS, CRM, and VILT tools, including several on this very list.
Explore How You Can Improve Your VILT Program
Now that you’ve had a chance to explore some of the leading virtual training platforms on the market, let’s talk about how you can put those tools to use. Check out our blog 10 VILT Tips: How VILT Software Can Help Your Business Stay Competitive in a Changing World. You might also be interested in How VILT Can Save a Technical Sales Pitch Under Pressure.
