Blackboard was first to market, went public and gained tremendous market share across Higher-Ed. They acquired much of the competition along the way (WebCT and Angel).
Desire2Learn was boot-strapped, slower to grow but had traction with state-wide systems. Blackboard sued them over patents, went into a whole legal mess and ended with a cross-liscence agreement for the 'greater good' of education. After litigation, Desire2Learn grew substantially and took on 80M of venture funding in 2013, and is on-track for IPO.
Instructure (Product called Canvas) is the newcomer and 'next-generation' platform. It's designed well and marketed far better than the incumbents. It's growing much faster (for good reason) then the others, and on-track for IPO as well. They've done a good job of UX and getting involved at the professor/teacher level to create a following for the platform.
Open source:
Sakai is a collaboration of several Higher-Ed institutions to develop their own platform. It was never great and last I heard support is dropping.
Moodle by market-share is the largest. There are several companies which offer hosting/support for Moodle (A large one in NA being Moodlerooms, which Blackboard also acquired).
Blackboard Desire2Learn Instructure - Canvas Moodle (Open Source) Sakai (Open Source)
Blackboard was first to market, went public and gained tremendous market share across Higher-Ed. They acquired much of the competition along the way (WebCT and Angel).
Desire2Learn was boot-strapped, slower to grow but had traction with state-wide systems. Blackboard sued them over patents, went into a whole legal mess and ended with a cross-liscence agreement for the 'greater good' of education. After litigation, Desire2Learn grew substantially and took on 80M of venture funding in 2013, and is on-track for IPO.
Instructure (Product called Canvas) is the newcomer and 'next-generation' platform. It's designed well and marketed far better than the incumbents. It's growing much faster (for good reason) then the others, and on-track for IPO as well. They've done a good job of UX and getting involved at the professor/teacher level to create a following for the platform.
Open source: Sakai is a collaboration of several Higher-Ed institutions to develop their own platform. It was never great and last I heard support is dropping.
Moodle by market-share is the largest. There are several companies which offer hosting/support for Moodle (A large one in NA being Moodlerooms, which Blackboard also acquired).