--- title: "Sakai LMS Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice" description: "Reviews of Sakai LMS. Learn how real users rate this software's ease-of-use, functionality, overall quality and customer support. Talk to our advisors to see if Sakai LMS is a good fit for you!" source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/sakai-profile/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- 1 million+ businesses helped. Get advice Get Free Advice [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [LMS for Schools Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/education-comparison/) / [Sakai LMS](https://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/sakai-profile/) / Sakai LMS Reviews Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. [Overview](https://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/sakai-profile/) Reviews # Sakai LMS User Reviews ## Reviews summary - Overall rating: 4.1/5 - Total reviews: 33 ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 4.1/5 - Customer support: 4.7/5 - Value for money: 4.6/5 - Functionality: 3.9/5 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 11 reviews (33%) - 4 stars: 17 reviews (52%) - 3 stars: 4 reviews (12%) - 2 stars: 1 reviews (3%) - 1 star: 0 reviews (0%) ### Most mentioned cons - Difficult to look at (especially for those who had dyslexia and couldn't understand tabled information easily) and the time the software took to actually update information was slow (on the order of an hour or to at times). - The discussion boards can be a little confusing at times, it is difficult to tell which ones you have already posted on. ## Sakai LMS customer reviews Showing reviews 1-25 of 33 (page 1). ### Created by Educators for Educators - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: ZAiN R. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 6 months - Reviewed: February 2023 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Building Courses, grading of assessments and easy deliver makes this a breeze to use. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The self-hosted option is free, and allows you to deploy locally on site for faster access times.Easy integration and an API available allows easy integration.Deeply influenced by educators #### Cons Sakai Wiki and community is growing, which means more information is available. More video resources required. --- ### Good Learning Management Portal with Room for improvement - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Tanvi T. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Biotechnology - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: January 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Managing the course membership seems to be a cake walk. Based on my role and restrictions imposed by each course, I could access only the material that I was supposed to. For eg, the professor would schedule an assignment to be available for me only after the specified time. Tracking progress with respect to the assignments graded gives a good gist of the progress made in the course. #### Cons As a TA, I learnt that the grading is time consuming as compared to Canvas. Sakai opens a grading sheet for each assignment for each student and then allows us to put grades and comments. To grade the next student, we have to go back and then select the next student to be given grades for the assignment. A simple feature like Next Button can also help in saving time while grading. --- ### Sakai as a Platform for Bachelor's Courses - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Tamar B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Hospital & Health Care - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: April 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros As I mentioned previously, this system readily makes course grades accessible from any online outlet (iPad, smart phone/computer). There is also an option for email notifications with an encrypted link. I also liked how once you got the hang of the features, they were very easy to deploy with new courses. #### Cons Sakai does experience site outages every now and then which makes signing up for new courses a small nightmare. Once it works though, everything is magical! --- ### Sakai is Great! - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Chelsea H. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 5001-10000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: December 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Overall, Sakai is great for students! Its really easy to navigate, stay organized, and collaborate with classmates. I would definitely recommend! I never had any issues. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Sakai is really easy to use. We were supposed to watch a tutorial once we were enrolled in the semester. There was honestly no need. I figured it out myself easily! All of the tabs are well labeled and it's really easy to find everything you need to. I also love that you can see the roster for every class. This makes it really easy to collaborate with classmates! You can also choose to receive emails when assignments are added, announcements are made, changes are made, etc. This is very beneficial for someone who doesn't want to constantly be logging into Sakai. I also love that you can use Sakai on the computer or mobile phone. I would quite frequently use my phone and everything worked great! #### Cons There's not much I dislike about Sakai. The only thing is that under "Gradebook" you cannot see your overall grade and there's no way to automatically calculate it. You have to ass up everything yourself to see what grade you have in the class. That was pretty annoying. The teachers always had a total percentage, but for some reason, students didn't have access to that. --- ### Sakai Review - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Lauren M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Primary/ Secondary Education - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2019 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I use this for my class information and uploading documents to the class. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros A great place to upload documents, see work, and very user friendly. I love the bar on the side that has all the labels/tabes and you just click one and you are there. It is wonderful and very easy to change from one tab to the next. Uploading work is also very simple and easy to do. It works with all kinds of files, with is fantastic. #### Cons I do not really have any complaints about this software. It has served me well and I am grateful for it. --- ### Very modular CMS, but clunky at times - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2018 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros The modular aspect allows our IT department to create applications that suite our needs. #### Cons There seemed to be less functionality out of the box than other CMS packages. Much of the interface is dated, so the UI takes more clicks to do something than you'd expect out of a modern software package. --- ### Sakai Review - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Davesh M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Software - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: April 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Easy to submit assignments, view grades, and take assessments. Professors, not always tech-oriented, still find a way to communicate resources effectively with Sakai. #### Cons UI needs an update, text editors are old and outdated --- ### I thing Sakai in a better platform to manage a course - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Tousif A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: April 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Overall, I love Sakai more than Canvas. I used Blackboard for a very brief period of time. I must say Sakai is the best among these three. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros All of the crucial features of Sakai are easily discoverable. I managed two courses with 100+ students each very easily. Sakai has the feature to upload MS excel files on it which automatically gets filled in the system. Student communication is also quite easy and effective in Sakai. #### Cons I am not sure how much Sakai costs since I am an end user. It may be pricey. However, our university recently moved to Canvas. Finance could be a reason why. --- ### It's okay. - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Software - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: May 2019 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered As a student on this platform, I have found that it has some irritating quirks. The login screen frequently requires resetting my cache (I'm not sure if this is the auth my institution is using or the platform). Deep navigation links within forums do not always direct where one expects. And the mobile app is clunky to navigate. Although I understand that some of this is due in part by my institution's choices when constructing courses, it does not seem like the platform allows many options in the first place. The issues do not seem necessary for an un-customizable platform like this. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros - Simple layout - Simple to navigate (on desktop) - Supports templates #### Cons - This platform has some quirks - Poor app layout - Basic in functionality - Boring design --- ### Extensive use of Sakai within a PhD program - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Philip Smith M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Hospitality - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: October 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros The software design is simple and minimalist which helps with navigating Sakai. It is also nice to have an auto-save feature for saving drafts. #### Cons There are time when the software loads pages with errors when it times out, but it is not always clear that you need to log back in to restore the connection to the page. --- ### Sakai - student - Overall rating: 3.5/5 - Reviewer: Lanie C. - Industry: Medical Practice - Product usage: Used unspecified for unspecified - Reviewed: April 2015 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Sakai - student #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3.5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Customizability of different options and roles within the system #### Cons Lots of training required to use it effectively as an admin --- ### Sakai Makes College Easy! - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Val C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: May 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I have had a great experience with Sakai. It has been an easy tool to use while I’m in college! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros It was so easy to keep track of all my classes. I can always see what courses I’m in, and how far I am in the class work in those courses. Taking quizzes and tests is also super easy with Sakai which is necessary when in college. #### Cons The discussion boards can be a little confusing at times, it is difficult to tell which ones you have already posted on. --- ### A truly "Open" Source LMS - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Rebekah R. - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2016 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Our community college previously used Blackboard, but needed to upgrade. We looked at various LMS's available in 2012, and our faculty liked Sakai the best. Why? It was easy to use, accessible, reliable, and contains excellent tools we need to provide quality online, hybrid and face-to-face courses. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I love the Sakai community. They are a dynamic, talented, committed community, who strive and succeed in making the LMS easier to use and accessible, and constantly improve tools so they best meet the needs of faculty and students. The community has developed a responsive user interface, and is working towards meeting all of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level A and AA Success Criteria. #### Cons Like a true community, sometimes you have to wait until the money and resources are available to work on the project you think is important. In the four years I've been involved, the community has always found a way to find the resources needed to make important updates and improvements. --- ### Solid LMS platform - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Adam A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Architecture & Planning - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2021 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Good amount of different tools available like grade entry, storing files, assigning homework and exams, etc Can set due dates, exam length, overall good level of control #### Cons UI feels outdated, especially when compared to current industry competitors Feels slow at times Difficult to use on phone --- ### We used to use Sakai and I wish we can go back - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Munetaka K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: January 2020 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Sakai was a course management software that allowed easy organized access for students and faculty. This also played an equipment signup and scheduling tool for my group. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The user interface was intuitive (from the user's side, I never saw the admin side). Asides the traditional course management feature, my group used it for equipment scheduling, which was a great added bonus. #### Cons Overall, the software was great. I don't think they had an app, or at least I was not aware of one. With mobile devices becoming a mainstream method of content consumption, having to go to a website and sign in seemed dated. --- ### Learning Management system - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Ilan F. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: E-Learning - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: May 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Sakai is one of the best Learning Management systems in the market today. I have been using it for over five years and I can say with out a doubt that it has some of the most reliable features in the world of E-Learning. I am most impressed with the forum system and the assignment submission system. #### Cons There is only one element missing for Sakai, a real time option for a class meeting --- ### I wish it was a bit more user friendly - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Abritty A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros After using online web modules in Sakai for a while, it grows on you. If you know where the options are for the things you are looking for, you will be fine. But like I said, it takes time to grow on you. #### Cons The options are not clear at all. Nothing is self explanatory, I have had senior learners struggling with it the most as the courses do not show up automatically in the home page after signing up. Every aspect of Sakai seems not so unified, it requires different set of skills to do different things. --- ### Functional but not awesome - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Rachel C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: E-Learning - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It works for managing courses cheaply, but it doesn’t have the flash of blackboard or the convenience of Canvas #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 2/5 #### Pros It’s user friendly. You can train on its uses really quickly. The assignments sync to the gradebook #### Cons The gradebook is clunky, the chat is basically useless, and grading discussion boards is a nightmare. --- ### Product is good when searching - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Arram K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: August 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 3/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros If you need to search something, this product is great. Has everything laid out #### Cons It’s pretty hard to navigate through so u will need to have some training before diving in. --- ### Inferior to Canvas - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: John R. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Chemicals - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: February 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 2/5 #### Pros Sakai has a very basic loadout that doesn't clutter the screen with unnecessary information. #### Cons Compared to Canvas, Sakai became an inferior software. Difficult to look at (especially for those who had dyslexia and couldn't understand tabled information easily) and the time the software took to actually update information was slow (on the order of an hour or to at times). --- ### One stop shop for online education - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I used this platform as a doctoral student to access resources, syllabi, post assignments, read announcements, and engage in online/hybrid class discussions. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Once you log into Sakai CLE, you really can use it for anything you'd need as an online student #### Cons Sakai CLE took a little bit of a learning curve to navigate through, but once you figured it out, it was easy --- ### Not my favorite LMS - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Rae H. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 5001-10000 employees - Product usage: Used other for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros The Sakai interface is very a straightforward, hierarchical one. It appears clean and easy to navigate, but I would say it is not as aesthetically pleasing as other LMSs. It does have similar functionalities, such as quizzes, testing, discussion boards, and resource sharing. Many of the LMS add-ins are available for Sakai, as well. #### Cons I'd say my least favorite aspect of the Sakai LMS is its bland appearance. Some of the other LMS's such as Blackboard create a much more welcoming feeling when signing in, with all of the colors and customization that is available for the administrators. --- ### I am using the Software since 5 years - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Margarita E. - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2018 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Easy to use. Sakai is extremely flexible and highly configurable. Collaborative features. The scalability of the system is ensured through the usage of modern Java EE technologies. #### Cons The documentation of the developers is not good enough. The new Gradebook is not good for big classes. --- ### Good software for undergraduate and graduate students - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Sean C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Financial Services - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: February 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 3/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros For the most part, it is very easy to navigate. You can add items to your favorites so that you can access content quickly. When combined with other integrations (Box, Ponopto, etc.) it becomes a powerful tool! #### Cons The UI is pretty old. It could really use a refresh as it looks like it came out of Windows 95. However, that's a pretty minor thing to complain about. --- ### Perfect Education Software - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Harrison W. - Industry: Financial Services - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: May 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Sakai is great because it is very easy to pick up and use. It does not require a huge learning curve at all. It is also very easy for instructors to post assignments and interact with students. It has many features which makes viewing grades and turning in assignments online a piece of cake. #### Cons I have no complaints at all about Sakai. It is easy to use, is packed with features, and works flawlessly. ## More reviews [Next reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/lms/sakai-profile/reviews/?page=2) --- Sakai LMS Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice