Excellent tool for education and online training

Pros

I have tried this platform and I think it is very complete, since it allows you to educate other people individually and train both employees and clients, very good

Cons

Despite being very good, its interface is not competitive with other platforms, they have to develop a better interface because this platform has potential

Feature rich and open source vs Complex handling

As a consultant for Totara LMS I would totally recommend Totara to other customers. In short... The Downside: - Very complex to learn for people who do not have any technical understanding - Usability very low because of too complex site-structure and permission management - Design very simple and overloaded with blocks, nobody knows what they are for in the first place - Documentation partially very poor, especially when it comes down to programming and adding advanced features - Many useful features are still lacking some important settings for establishing real logical learning workflows The Upside: + Very rich of standard features that make it easy to establish simple learning workflows + Open Source let the system be flexible by adding your own plugins and adjusting the system core to your needs + Great support in fixing bugs and advancing the system with new features (Evergreen) + Continuous Development All in all I would say it still needs some improvement, although I know that some requests are not as easy to programm as it might seem in the beginning. It is still a great tool, that can though still be adjusted to whatever someone likes it to be. If you have on the one side people who see the potential of TotaraLMS and have a great idea of how it can be used and on the other side people who can develop within that system, you can accomplish great things and have tremendous success by offering that tool to customers.

Pros

Open Source Great standard features Many possibilities of how it can be used

Cons

Poor Documenation (on the technical side) Missing important settings in detail (advanced use of features) Design not very user friendly (blocks overload)

Good LMS choice for heavily customized use cases

We are using it as a custom learning platform for our digital leadership development content. We have enjoyed using it to address the various business requirements of our end users and departments. We will continue to use it to address the evolving needs of the organization, because it is such a flexible system.

Pros

Totara is open source, so it is highly customizable based on your organization's use case. We are using it for leadership development content, and we have been able to implement custom themes to make the platform our own, and even co-brand content for our clients.

Cons

Its complexity and extensive functionality available can be a bit overwhelming, causing our users to mistakenly use a particular feature because it is very similar to one we built for custom use cases. It has required a ton of development to implement our processes.

Our company implemented Totara through a third party reseller. We migrated from Moodle.

Pros

It is hosted off-site so we don't need to rely on our small Systems team. This is really the true value to me as an LMS administrator as previously it was impossible to upgrade our Moodle versions. Navigating to the courses is very simple. The look and feel is decent. So far it's been pretty stable.

Cons

I would like to see more features that are not already available in the free Moodle LMS system. I would like to see the Reporting features better implemented. I would also like to see support for plug-ins that are currently supported in free Moodle, particularly H5P.

Perfect application for corporate training and learning.

Have an application focused on business learning, with tools focused on the corporate area to prepare quality professionals who know the business and its function in the company is optimal.

Pros

Totara is one of the most complete learning applications for the business world, noting the great detail that it is free, extremely complete where you can manage face-to-face and non-face-to-face training, evaluate the performance of workers, create reports on the progress of each employee to evaluate their evolution, strengths and devilities and all with a very comfortable interface and all this for a fraction of the cost of a private application, as it is focused on the corporate area its functionalities are focused on the development of complete professionals, to teach them the rules of business and strengthen your company, use it!!!!

Cons

Being free may not have the service and attention problems of a proprietary software, this is why you need the support of software specialists for problems that may arise, or solve any inconvenience of the stability of the program.

Aura Gold Partner

Through the last 5 years, Totara leads us won opportunities that we might lost in case of not having an enterprise LMS like Totara. It has helped us as companie to incorporate our full e-learning solutions (consulting, content authoring tool and LMS) at important companies. It represents between the 5 or 10% of our incomes and it gives also to Totara trough the last 4 years more than $40,000 USD anual revenues. Eventhough we feel the growing of the tool (Totara) or their features expansion has been limited during the last 4 years. Example: It doesn't integrate x.Api compliance (with a LRS Module), and we do not see intelligence guideness trhough the training experiencie taked from the training sessions of the user. We do not have so much reference about how to explote gamification through it (and what kind of tools are they innovating related with this model) Why do not integrate an authoring tool with the LMS like Shift, so you just not focus on the user that take courses, and let the creators, build content. Doesn't offer options for the smaller companies because the ntermediate price between 500K and 3K has a huge difference, that always is letting us a big issue on how to deal wiht those price diffeerences.

Pros

Incorportate Coporative elements

Cons

The improvements or features grow slowly.

Powerful and Flexible Enterprise Open Source LMS

I have been using Totara since it started more than 6 years ago. It has developed tremendously and has truly become a modern, powerful, flexible and reliable learning and performance system. The Totara team are very responsive and keen to make the product move forward and the way they listen to and take to hear the needs of the user community is a great demonstration of the symbiosis of users, customers, developers and service providers. Looking forward for fast future developments of the platform.

Pros

Lots of learning tools and options to cater for all kinds of learning approaches, blends and strategies Flexible product with many options for configurating things via settings Responsive support and development team

Cons

Some of the older features and architecture are based on Moodle which is less geared for enterprise learning. I know this may change in the upcoming future though

Totara for Securitas Aviation

Pros

We recommended this software for one of our client to help them with their challenge. Totara offered us the required flexibility to setup and configure the system as required for the project. The easy way to create and maintain the content, the wide variety of learning activities, the forums etc. made Totata the perfect solution.

Cons

The possibilities offered within the system are vast and thus require some time to understand.

The open LMS with better support

For large companies I have recommended it since they allow to create individual development plans, so each person in charge of the team will be able to see the progress of their employees in charge and adjust the learning objectives needed within the platform.

Pros

This LMS has all the characteristics of the well-known moodle plus a set of extra functions for business training, among them the personalization of reports and the planning of individual and group objectives.

Cons

What did you like least about the software? Some plans can be expensive, but it depends on the provider. By having a subscription you can be calm before the failures or errors that arise, because the support team of the company will help you at any time to solve it.

Totara Review

I mostly work with the Totara LMS from a server admin and web developer point of view and so far my experience has been ok. Not the easiest / most simple system I work with or have worked with, but manageable. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I find the support material and documentation from Totara to be pretty lackluster for server admins. If I find answers to my questions, 99% of the time I find it on Moodle documentation or forums. Bad thing because for the price of Totara I would expect much better, good thing that I am able to utilize a very large community. I do spend quite a bit of time developing themes and plugins for Totara for our clients, and I do have to say that I like and support your decision use the native Bootstrap class names as well as using Grunt as the task runner since use Bootstrap and Grunt quite often with other projects. I look forward to migrating to Totara 9 towards the end of this year / beginning of next year.

Pros

Fairly simple server setup

Cons

Almost never does what our clients' needs 100% out of the box. Every implementation we do for a client requires custom made plugins to fill the gaps

Totara LMS was used at a government agency I contracted for.

This is a very cost effective solution to organizations' Learning Management needs.

Pros

Totara is very flexible and easy to use. It provides many features that other LMSs don't have. The report building feature is top notch. You don' t have to be a database expert to create reports. It also allows you to brand the LMS easily. Learning Plans are built into the LMS, so creating things like Individual Development Plans were a breeze.

Cons

Some of the administrative features could use some work. Sometimes when you perform a search (within an administrative task), a list is provided that you have to scroll through. If you have thousands of courses, for example, it makes finding the right course cumbersome. Having search boxes for all administrative tasks would be very helpful.

Totara LMS for small organizations

Very positive - it was a first LMS for our company and the set up and implementation were smooth. Users did not have much difficulty using this (construction workers) and it has been easy to maintain.

Pros

I liked the ability to customize and make the system work for our needs. We were able to work with our vendor to add some functionality to fit our business.

Cons

From an admin role it helps to be a little techie/geeky. But the support from our vendor really helped get through that.

Flexible, scalable, and won't break the bank

Finally a commercially focused LMS that puts the user in control of the Learning experience and LMS functionality. Our organization has found Totara LMS to be feature rich and yet cost effective, while the open source aspect provides flexibility to mold the system where necessary to our specific needs. The UI is pretty basic, but again you have the flexibility to control even that and make it what you will.

Pros

Out of the box feature set and inherent flexibility of an open source platform.

Cons

The UI is very basic and outdated

Friendly software

Long journey of learning, with a lot of useful features which interact with our employees in a friendly way. The dashboards cover wide numbers of tables resources which allow us to make a lot of reports.

Pros

Customizable software, easy navigation for administrator, friendly interface for the learners

Cons

Some notifications are hard coded , which prevent us from customizing them.

Excellent Product

Really good product, lots of good features which would cost a lot more from another vendor. Could do with more detailed release notes and help guides. For examaple, more written 'How to' guides

Pros

Cost

Cons

Lack of detailed release notes, how functionality should work, examples of using / implementing functioanlity

Totara LMS Review

Totara LMS provides a low cost solution for our clients to be able to develop and roll out eLearning, automate classroom bookings and manage performance.

Pros

Ease of use for administrators

Cons

UI could be improved

Value for money

Buying Totara LMS is value for money according to me. What attracts me for this value is, 1. Features list, 2. Ease of installation and configuration of the LMS 3. Flexible Analytics/Reporting 4. Integration possibilities (with other systems through webservices, SSO, LTI etc) 5. Great community/customer support (with regular releases) 6. Plug in-plug out customizations

Pros

Ease of use

Cons

User interface could be made attractive.

Totara

Ability to provide an inexpensive LMS for use by

Pros

Easy to use to load content on and create a learning environment for users.

Cons

Not as visually pleasing as other LMS software I have used.

Very good option for elearning implementation

We are currently considering use Totara LMS for both commercial and individual clients. Totara LMS is adaptable as we consider enough to be implemented in the academic sector as well as for team members training

Pros

We work on the instructional design for a micro master on leadership and excellence, and Totara LMS has wonderfull features that means we can take the elearning product even further, in considerably less time than starting from scratch

Cons

It can be difficult for us to get to grips with the LMS. Our administration team will need some class of training. Of course, the good news is that Totara LMS spend a great deal of time training and supporting their partners

A standard LMS that is decent

Pros

There wasn't a huge learning curve to this software which is always ideal in a workplace where disruption is the last thing that new software should bring. The tech stack seems pretty modern and the load times for the software were pretty good. The layout and UX is decent, perhaps slightly better than the run-of-the-mill LMS

Cons

Integrations and supported activities are lacking. It would be good if this were fully responsive (it seems like most is but some stuff still renders poorly). The price point is high for the value delivered; I think that it will be a tough sell if they try to increase rates upon renewal

Good features, but difficult setup

Functionality of the product is good, but some features are very cumbersome to set up. This is improving continuously improving from one version to the next, but some areas eg. Learning Plans still have lot to be desired.

Pros

Features, support

Cons

Configuration of the features, unstable roadmap and release of new versions / features is taking a long tome

Excellent LMS, cost effective and full of features

Pros

- All in one learning platform, customizable and it has some great features to manage teams and programs.

Cons

- Need some technical skills to fully exploit it. It can be hard at first but once it's up and running it will give you all the tools you need to manage learning.

Totara the Best

Totara is easy to use for end users as well as the admin. Flexible and it saves lot hectic works and time. Great to use such a product.

Pros

User friendly and core functionalities.

Cons

about the reports.

Moodle supercharged!

I have found Totara LMS to be as administrator focused as Moodle but is like Moodle on steroids! The feature set and reporting capabilities were very noticeable and welcome addition to my prior use of Moodle.

Pros

Feature set, flexibility, ability to host locally vs cloud, cost effective

Cons

The UI and general look and feel still feel very outdated compared to the latest web sites, technologies, and UI you expect today

Used dozens of LMS systems and this is the best by a country mile.

There are many LMS choices on the market and deciding which system to select is never easy, but we couldn't have made a better choice when we selected Totara LMS. Totara LMS stood out for its ease of use and reporting features. Navigating in the system is intuitive at all levels. The system is reliable, very flexible, innovative, open and convenient. The customer service has been fantastic and they have gone out of their way to problem solve on issues that have arisen during our setup. Highly recommended Totara LMS. Intuitive and affordable, with a great team behind it.

Totara LMS is awesome!

The best part of Totara LMS is that it is open source and a lot of feature/functionalities come straight out of the box. Configurations are also pretty easy and can be easily configured without coding knowledge. An hour or two spent on the application can help you modify the entire UI, look and feel, and other configurations enabling you to have the desired visual appeal. The support and users community is very good and always active with new suggestions and improvements.

Great learning lms

Have worked on many major lms and lcms in my professional experience. Working with Totara lms was really wonderful. Its features are helpful, and usability is very good.

Pros

Reports section, hr integration...

Cons

Nope...

Very complicated, Nice reports

I am the creative director for a learning group that deals with several international brands. We have had several challenges with the Totora software, as implementation takes a significant effort. When it comes to true customization we have found it a bit bulky. In addition, we have had to go into the code to turn off several "calls" just to boost performance, that seem fairly unnecessary. The reports can be beautiful, but the cost so-efficient doesn't justify the work often.

Pros

Great reporting engine

Cons

Cost of deployment on already complex systems can be difficult and expensive.

Meet customer expectations

Good product, but it get more difficult to setup. Functionality of this product is awesome. Also Some futures are very nice.

Pros

Support

Cons

Need clear roadmap

Totara LMS is great

I have been using Totara since the first release and I have found it's flexibility and it's open source code to be very useful. The standard options and extensive feature set has allowed me to meet most requirements through configuration only, but when necessary the ability to add to, or edit the code to achieve non standard functionality has allowed us to tailor Totara to any need.

Very user friendly webiste

It is an interesting tool which has helped me train and form networks

Pros

This is a great learning platform & is easy to navigate as well. Very good technology & over all an amazing platform to quickly learn

Cons

I would rate the over all experience as great and did not have any issues.

Solid LMS that needs some work

As a Totara Partner, our company deals with Totara on a daily basis. We see some improvements in functionality and stability in Totara 2.9 and 9, compared to previous versions. It has a lot of features and gets a lot done. It's catching up with the latest infrastructure level updates, like php7, but we would like to see many more updates sooner. Also the forking from Moodle is a bit of a concern in terms of plugin compatibility, as Moodle community plugins repository is very diverse and having them become obsolete is not ideal, unless an alternative can be presented in a timely fashion. Overall, I'm satisfied with the product and we definitely recommend it to all our prospective and existing clients that fit the need.

Pros

Learning plans, audience-based learning, hierarchies, dashboard

Cons

Bugs

Totara

Pros

The software is relatively easy to use if you understand the concept behind a learning management system.

Cons

To simple. There software is not very robust and is limited in its features and capabilities.

Amazing experience

Featured could be enhanced but overall good. Flexibility could be enhanced and also more resource management would be good for face to face learning and enhanced reporting. Customizable certificates would also be appreciated

Easy to use with lots of standard features to use!

Value for money. Standard features you'll only find in the big expensive LMS's. Easy to use for the learners. Clear overviews and reports. Lot's of possibilities.

Totara is an awesome LMS

Totara is easy to use and offers all of the reporting options that we need. Easily tracks information for both large and small projects and multiple clients.

Totara course creator

I really like the type of the course with the videos and helpful teachers. This course help me a lot to learn the basics of totara.

Good stuff

Good product, but it get more difficult to setup. Functionality of this product is awesome. Also Some futures are very nice.

Great LMS

i have been working with TOTARA for the last 6 years and they keep on improving it with every version