Cornerstone lives up to its name with its cloud-based, five-part platform, which provides a range of important management and HR functions. Its LMS, Cornerstone Learn, uses a distinctive card/tile system to make it easy for learners to engage with content. That said, Cornerstone is far from the only LMS provider on the market. Every platform brings something to the table, but some clearly stand apart from the rest. Dig deeper into the top alternatives to Cornerstone:
The state of learning management
The ways organizations conduct skills development have changed significantly in the past few years, but we still have a way to go. According to the 2024 Skills Research Report from Betterworks:
- 78% of organizations have lowered job requirements due to a lack of sufficiently skilled or qualified candidates.
- 82% of organizations believe in using tech as a solution to skills gaps.
- 96% report that personalized skill plans are important for addressing individual employee needs.
Between the normalization of hybrid work and the increasing implementation of AI, how we work looks set to change in some big ways. In order to keep up with changing skills demands, employers need channels to deliver efficient, up-to-date and personalized training and education.
That’s where various Cornerstone alternatives like our Human Success Platform come in. Betterworks’ survey respondents were right. Tech is the solution to the skills gap crisis.
About Cornerstone
Cornerstone was originally founded in 1999 under the name CyberU. Since then, they’ve evolved into a talent experience platform provider. As noted earlier, they offer five core modules, which we’ll detail in their list of core features.
Currently, they have over 7,000 customers, totaling over 100 million users—a significant increase from 6,000 customers and 75 million users at the start of 2022. Moreover, they serve a diverse range of larger organizations across various sectors, including Dell, DHL, Nestlé, and Wendy’s.
Core features of Cornerstone
Cornerstone offers a robust array of tools available in 50 languages. They’re suited to enabling complex learning and performance management processes at scale. The platform has seen great success as a tool for onboarding employees and supporting their development internally.
- Five-module system including LMS: Cornerstone’s five modules include their LMS (Cornerstone Learn), Recruiting, Performance, LXP and Core HR. Each of these platforms provides a wide array of features, although they do seem to overlap in places. Obviously, we’ll mainly be focusing on their LMS and LXP.
- Tile-based content navigation: The best learning management software makes it a priority to offer an easy, engaging user experience. Cornerstone achieves this with its card system, or tile system if you prefer.
Content is represented by “cards” which are clickable thumbnails. L&D admins create these and add content as a video attachment. Each card contains the thumbnail, title, content type, duration and creator. You can also see the numbers of views and followers, and add content to playlists. - Cornerstone Content Anytime: This service allows L&D admins to subscribe to curated content packages from integrated third-party providers, delivered via Cornerstone’s interfaces.
They offer an array of core subscriptions, like Leadership and Management, Modern Compliance, and Professional Skills. On top of that, there are specialized subscriptions, such as DEIB, Sustainability, and Remote Work Essentials. - AI-driven content curation and personalized learning: Cornerstone Content Studio allows L&D admins to use AI for content discovery and curation. Additionally, Cornerstone’s LXP module supports the creation of personalized learning paths with AI recommendations as part of their focus on democratized learning.
Cornerstone also supports personalization with a diverse array of learning types, such as asynchronous courses, virtual classrooms and self-paced styles.
Strengths and selling points of Cornerstone
Cornerstone aims to modernize learning development. Furthermore, their LMS, combined with the other modules, allow them to deliver a connected employee experience for learning, skilling and mobility. Cornerstone’s particular selling points are:
- An engaging, intuitive UI: The interactive tile system really does a lot to bring Cornerstone’s LMS together. It’s the kind of thing even less tech-savvy employees can easily get to grips with. In addition, the platform provides gamification features like levels, leaderboards and badges. These help keep your people motivated and inspire a little healthy competition where training might otherwise feel like a slog.
- Great HR functions: Cornerstone’s suite of modules offers great breadth of functionality for learning management and beyond. Indeed, this makes Cornerstone a great centralized hub for HR, which supports employee learning by ensuring timely compliance management.
- Automates a wide variety of processes: One of Cornerstone’s biggest strengths is its range of automation features, like enrollments, scheduling, emailing, and of course, its learning path personalization. Beyond the LMS, Cornerstone also supports and automates complex performance review processes to show the real impact of skills development.
- A wide selection of content subscriptions: Cornerstone clearly understands the importance of quality. In addition, they offer content from a variety of popular creators through their subscription-based packages. As a result, this makes it easier for L&D admins to mix and match materials and create courses that suit the needs of your organization. Furthermore, this flexibility allows for more tailored learning experiences that can better align with specific organizational goals.
Pricing and best fit of Cornerstone
Cornerstone does not offer a separate package for SMBs, preferring to target larger organizations and enterprises. Besides that, it’s a good fit for all kinds of businesses, as shown by the fact they have clients from a wide variety of industries and sectors.
As is common for learning management software, Cornerstone is available on a subscription basis. You license each model separately, but they cost the same, with the overall price being determined by the number of users. Cornerstone also provides discounts for bundling modules together, with the price change varying case-by-case.
Drawbacks and limitations of Cornerstone
Cornerstone’s modules provide a wide array of features that can make it quite an enticing option. However, these unfortunately turn out to be a bit of a double-edged sword, which sounds cool but is actually wildly impractical. Here are the drawbacks we think will make you consider alternatives to Cornerstone.
- Disjointed modules with overlapping features: Although the five Cornerstone modules cover a wide array of functions for learning management and HR, they don’t quite line up perfectly with each other. For example, even though the LMS and LXP are distinct modules, they actually share a few of the same features. As such, it’s not immediately clear where the best place is to perform certain tasks.
- The necessity of multiple modules: The modules are designed to work together, with some important features gated behind specific ones. Further, this is problematic if you don’t want everything they have to offer, because you may have to pay beyond what you’ll actually use. Therefore, the problem is compounded by the fact Cornerstone isn’t particularly compatible with other commonly used systems.
- Doesn’t support user-generated content: While many Cornerstone alternatives sport collaborative L&D features, this platform doesn’t allow learners to create content. Particularly, this limits your ability as an organization to generate in-house training resources, as employees lack channels to contribute their insights and experiences.
- Has difficult to support custom requirements: Cornerstone can be a complicated LMS to implement due to its custom requirements. For example, the custom workflows, multiple user groups and permissions, and the many optional add-ons you need to coordinate.
1. Zensai’s Learn365
Although alternatives to Cornerstone come in many forms, it shares something in common with Learn365: They’re each part of their own sets. Zensai’s LMS is one of three platforms we offer, which include:
- Learn365, our learning management software (self-explanatory at this point!)
- Engage365, our engagement platform with employee check-ins and feedback
- Perform365, our platform for goal-tracking and performance conversations
Altogether, our platforms are the only learning and people management solutions 100% built into Microsoft 365. This gives them unparalleled ease-of-use and centralization. Zensai’s clients include Aspire Housing, Aston University, Priva, and Dynatrace.
Core features of Learn365
Learn365 shares plenty of features in common with other alternatives to Cornerstone. What sets it apart is its truly centralized design, efficient content delivery, and the relative lack of need to train new users. For example, its central features include:
- It’s built for Microsoft Teams: As part of the platform’s full Microsoft integration, Zensai designed Learn365 from the ground up to work entirely within Teams. Since Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular tools for workplace communication, your people are likely familiar with how it’s laid out. Basically this means they’re well-equipped to start exploring Learn365’s user features on their own, without needing extensive training or guidance. In addition, the seamless integration with Teams ensures a smoother and more intuitive experience for users.
- The Learn365 skills framework: This skills framework allows you to map and assess skills presence and maturity in your organization, as well as the training it’s connected to. Assign training based on roles or career goals, and enable self-assessment to democratize learning.
- Content365: An add-on solution for Learn365, Content365 provides… you guessed it, content. These training resources and educational materials come from world-class creators for curated learning experiences.
- AI-powered course development: Speaking of AI, it’s available in our standard course creation tools too. Curate, mix and match content from all your libraries, including Content365.
Additionally, AI assistance helps L&D admins to accelerate course creation. Orbie, Zensai’s AI assistant for course management, lets you quickly transform basic documents into fully realized courses in minutes. - The Learn365 mobile app: A modern LMS needs a good mobile app. As with the rest of our platform, our app is fully Microsoft 365-integrated to bring the full range of learning and development options to your deskless and frontline workers.
Strengths and selling points of Learn365
As useful as it is to know the core features of an LMS, comparing alternatives to Cornerstone means you need to know what they do well, and what they don’t. Accordingly, here are the biggest strengths Learn365 has to offer:
- Supports collaborative learning: A major reason to find alternatives to Cornerstone is that it doesn’t support user-generated content. Further, granular permissions mean you can allow your people to access course creation tools, which are incredibly easy to use with AI assistance. On top of that, Learn365 frequently collects user feedback, which is used to shape course development.
- A more cohesive overall platform: Both Cornerstone and Learn365 are individual parts of their own separate suites of tools. That said, Zensai’s Human Success platform integrates its parts more effectively. While Cornerstone is highly complex with overlapping functions, Zensai is streamlined, with platforms which support each other rather than compete.
- More flexible pricing for SMBs: Although Cornerstone’s value for money increases sharply for businesses with tens of thousands of employees, its starting price point is very expensive. Learn365 has a more flexible range of pricing options, including a limited free version.
- Access to the world’s largest content libraries: Cornerstone’s content integrations are one of its biggest selling points. Out of all the alternatives to Cornerstone, however, Learn365 has the content libraries to compete. Besides Content365, the platform also offers content from Go1, LinkedIn Learning, and of course, Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways.
Pricing and best fit of Learn365
Moreover, Learn365 is an agile and scalable learning management solution. Large enterprises will feel just as at home as any SMB or small team. This flexible approach is reflected in its pricing. In fact, unlike most other alternatives to Cornerstone, Zensai even offers a Freemium option at no cost, which includes:
- Access to one course catalog
- 8 learning and course modules
- 100 enrollments a month
- Audit trail
- Skill manager
- Third party integration access
- Standard security, recovery and data
Now for Zensai’s paid services. Pricing for Learn365 is as follows:
- Standard ($):
- Full access to content libraries
- Full access to course and learning modules
- Unlimited enrollments
- Success planning
- Standard security, recovery and data
- Professional ($$):
- Everything from the Freemium and Standard packages
- Copy courses across catalogs
- Offline mobile synchronization
- Select ($$$):
- Everything from the Professional package
- Audit penetration and reporting
- Advanced security, data and recovery
2. TalentLMS
Next up on our list of Cornerstone alternatives is TalentLMS, which is a SaaS-based LMS developed by Epignosis. It’s a service intended for small businesses in particular, although it’s starting to target larger clients like Amazon and Google.
Core features of TalentLMS
Overall, TalentLMS offers a nice array of features tied together with an intuitive UI. Its platform focuses on simplicity, which certainly has its benefits. The core features include its:
- GUI course builder
- Gamification features like badges, levels, points, etc.
- Categories and paths for complex content rules
- Automations for course assignments
- Customizable theming and colors with support for HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Strengths and selling points of TalentLMS
Despite its small-scale focus, TalentLMS has plenty to offer. Chiefly, its main selling points and overall strengths include:
- The emphasis on user-friendliness: TalentLMS’ graphic user interface emphasizes simplicity. This minimizes the need for LMS training. It also makes learning management more engaging for end-users, especially combined with gamification.
- Handy course automation: Automating course assignments based on specific criteria helps to reduce delays in training access.
- Price flexibility: TalentLMS provides more flexible pricing than other alternatives to Cornerstone. It’s even another entry on this list that offers a freemium version.
- Completely standalone: Unlike Cornerstone, TalentLMS doesn’t need a bunch of other modules to work.
Pricing and best fit of TalentLMS
TalentLMS is best suited for teams and small businesses, offering flexibility for different user needs. In addition to a limited free version, its pricing is structured around two main approaches: named users and active users.
The tiers include:
- Standard ($): A budget-friendly option for smaller teams.
- Basic ($$): Supports more users and includes features like SSO and custom domain support.
- Plus ($$$): Adds advanced options such as custom reports and support for additional branches.
- Premium ($$$$): Designed for larger teams, this tier offers features like account manager roles, live chat, automated tools, priority email support, and expanded branch capabilities.
- Enterprise (Custom): Tailored for organizations requiring support for more than 1,000 named users or over 500 active users.
Additionally, TalentLMS offers the TalentLibrary as an optional add-on for all plans, providing access to approximately 700 animated courses for an extra fee.
Drawbacks and limitations of TalentLMS
TalentLMS is a popular, useful platform for learning management, especially as an option that supports small start-ups and individual teams. But it also has flaws which other Cornerstone alternatives lack, such as:
- Poor scalability: TalentLMS’ simplicity means it struggles to keep up with the more granular and varied learning requirements of larger organizations.
- Doesn’t stand out in the SMB LMS crowd: Many of Cornerstone’s direct competitors for the SMB market fill the same niche in very similar ways.
- Only low-level content options: An LMS thrives on its content options, but TalentLMS doesn’t offer packages from any noteworthy creators.
- Lacks flow-of-work learning support: As a standalone platform, TalentLMS is isolated from actual workspaces, which can limit your ability to train real-world skills.
3. 360Learning
Of all the alternatives to Cornerstone, 360Learning has by far the most focus on collaborative learning. Prominent customers include Pizza Hut, Michelin, AirBus, and Mitsubishi Electric.
Core features of 360Learning
Since 360Learning supports collaborative learning as an alternative to top-down, hierarchical learning, its core features empower learners to become content contributors. These include:
- Course and content co-authoring tools
- Learner experience platform (LXP) learning hub
- Streamlined course group formation through Academies
- Reporting and reactions
Strengths and selling points of 360Learning
Still, 360Learning reports an impressive 91% completion rate, making it one of the Cornerstone alternatives to watch. Its main selling points include:
- Enterprise level learning support: 360Learning’s range of features effectively support learning management at scale. This makes it a viable option for big, multifaceted businesses with multiple distinct user groups.
- Collaborative content and continuous feedback: Co-authoring lets employees take an active role in developing knowledge resources. Even employees who don’t create their own L&D content can shape learning management through continuous, experience-driven feedback.
- Data-driven report packages: 360Learning’s packaged reports highlight essential metrics like learner performance, platform usage, and learner feedback.
- Flexible service packages: As is the case with a few alternatives to Cornerstone, 360Learning offers great price flexibility with package levels and optional add-ons.
Pricing and best fit of 360Learning
360Learning will take on businesses of any size as service clients. That said, they report being best-suited for companies with between 500 and 10,000 employees. Their service packages are priced quite flexibly, although anything beyond the Team package requires a minimum three-year subscription.
The service package levels for 360Learning include:
- Team ($): Features include:
- Authoring and collaborative editing
- Content integrations
- Relevance score and reactions
- Gamification and discussion
- Mobile app use
- Notifications and challenges
- Business ($$): Features include:
- Everything from the Team package
- User roles and nested groups
- API and SSO access
- Success management and email support
- 99% uptime SLA
- Enterprise ($$$): Features include:
- Everything from the Team and Business packages
- Attachments, tasks and deadlines for projects
- Volunteering for a Need
- Achievements support
- Declare, upvote, and sort functions for learning needs
Drawbacks and limitations of 360Learning
Like most alternatives to Cornerstone, 360Learning isn’t perfect. It has a few notable drawbacks, such as:
- Slow course and content management: Managing content isn’t too difficult when you’re drawing from small libraries. As they grow in size and number, however, navigation gets pretty cumbersome.
- Limited creation capabilities: Despite doing so much to enable communal collaborative learning, its options for course and content creation aren’t very flexible.
- High admin overhead: Enabling everyone to take an active role in L&D is complicated. This can limit admin usability and lead to a long implementation process.
- Lacks support for flow-of-work learning: As is all too common for alternatives to Cornerstone, 360Learning doesn’t have the level of integration needed to support learning in an employee’s actual virtual workspace.
4. Docebo
Docebo is another on our list of Cornerstone alternatives that places a lot of emphasis on its UI, which relies on the creation of custom pages with their own rules and functions. Some of their prominent clients include AWS, Samsung, and UniGroup.
Core features of Docebo
Overall, Docebo’s selection of core features provide relative flexibility using their custom page system and gamification support. Their page design tools use drag-and-drop features for intuitive function. Besides the page design tools, Docebo’s main features include:
- Coach and share social learning
- Extended enterprise support for multiple user groups
- Docebo’s virtual coach bot
- Learning impact reports
- Process automation features
Strengths and selling points of Docebo
Along with 360Learning, Docebo is one of the Cornerstone alternatives with a big emphasis on democratized learning. Even so, some of its best selling points are fairly broad functionality:
- High brand recognition: Docebo’s flexibility has given it a solid reputation in professional circles, which lends to the credibility of your learning management.
- Increasing enterprise presence: Docebo is gradually replacing outdated legacy LMS platforms in enterprise businesses as it moves upstream. This makes it a promising candidate for its future potential as an enterprise tool.
- AI functionality: Docebo uses AI to streamline learning processes for users, and in its learning impact analytics reports.
- Extensive analytical capabilities: Speaking of analytics, impact analysis combined with regular data collection offers a real-time view of LMS performance.
Pricing and best fit of Docebo
As a SaaS-based LMS provider, Docebo offers subscription terms ranging from one to three years. Their core module, Learn LMS, features scalable pricing based on the size of your organization:
- Small teams ($): Designed for organizations with up to 300 employees.
- Medium teams ($$): Suitable for companies with 500+ employees.
- Large teams ($$$): Ideal for organizations with 2,500+ employees.
- Enterprise ($$$$): Tailored for businesses with 5,000+ employees.
In addition to the core module, Docebo offers various add-on modules for enhanced functionality. These are priced separately and typically cater to groups of around 500 users, with costs scaling by feature set.
Drawbacks and limitations of Docebo
While Docebo may be taking enterprise businesses by storm, it struggles in some important areas. Here are its major limitations as an LMS:
- Lacks streamlined admin: Although Docebo does a lot to streamline employee learning, the same can’t be said for admin tasks. This can threaten scalability if your L&D team doesn’t have the staffing to manage it all.
- Escalating platform complexity: At this point, there are quite a few add-ons for Docebo, which can make setup more complicated. It also means having to increase your subscription cost every time a new module pops up with an important feature behind its paywall.
- Outdated course and content management: Docebo may have a nice UI, but the underlying processes are a bit basic. It risks being outshone by more modern Cornerstone alternatives.
- Doesn’t meet common customization requirements: Although the system is flexible in some ways, it isn’t in others. Businesses often need to customize an LMS for their particular needs, like integrating it with existing tools. Docebo lacks this type of support.
Getting the most out of your LMS
To wrap things up, here are some best practices for making the most of your learning management software. Knowing what you’re aiming for can make clear which Cornerstone alternatives could be the best fit for your business.
Accessibility is key
Likewise, if you want high enrollment and course completion rates, you need an accessible platform. This means a couple of things. First, usability. Overly complex learning management software is difficult to navigate, and can even require its own user training. A good LMS should be welcoming, even to users with low tech skills.
Second, how your people access learning and development. This is why so many alternatives to Cornerstone include mobile apps. Obviously, without mobile access, learning will be skewed in favor of office-based staff over frontline workers.
L&D data is like gold
Generally, just choosing the right LMS isn’t enough to guarantee great learner experiences. You need to monitor how people engage with your platform over time. Basic stats like enrollment and completion rates are a good start.
But, if you really want to improve your learning management, you need to actively collect learner feedback. Which content formats they engage with best, what courses are the most popular, and any blockers people experience, for example.
Expand your content libraries
Learning management software is more than just infrastructure for learners. It’s also the way L&D admins access the resources which are their building blocks. Hence, the more content at your disposal, the greater your capacity for course development.
Finding Cornerstone alternatives with the most content integrations is an important first step. Go further by expanding your collections and importing content between libraries to keep knowledge resources varied and up-to-date.
Finding the ideal LMS takes time
It’s important not to rush comparing alternatives to Cornerstone. Ideally, the LMS you choose will be with you for a long time. Undoubtedly, if you make an unsatisfactory choice, you’ll pay for it in overhead costs, not to mention wasted effort.
Therefore, weigh each of your options, and its respective strengths and weaknesses. While not all LMS platforms have freemium versions, most at least provide service demos. It’s up to you to reach out and schedule them today.
