Totara

What it is

Totara is an enterprise learning platform from Totara Learning Solutions. The About page says the platform is trusted by over 1,500 organizations and 21 million users worldwide. The company began as a startup in 2011 in New Zealand, where it was founded, and now has offices in the UK, the US and New Zealand and a team of over 200 people. The platform includes Totara Learn, the LMS; Totara Perform, for performance management; and Totara Mobile. The product menu also lists Totara Suite.

Two things set Totara apart in its own telling. The first is openness: "Our code base is open, our community is active, and our partner network is transparent." Totara traces its products to open source origins, and its home page promises fully customizable open code so that customers are no longer limited to what an LMS allows them to do. The second is how it is delivered. Totara reaches customers through a network of more than 75 certified partners, who handle implementation, customization, learning design, training, hosting and ongoing support. The site's partner directory lists 72 partners across regions from Europe and North America to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

What you get

Compliance and mission-critical training. The home page leads with "Trusted for mission-critical learning" and "Compliance without compromise." Totara says its platform handles everything from recurring assessments to streamlined onboarding, with efficient workflows and enhanced reporting. Audit-ready reports and automatic training record updates come through HRIS integrations. A customer quote from Kevin Avis, Head of Learning at Circle Health Group, gives the scale of the effect: "90% of two L&D people's time was compliance. Now, it's 10% of one person."

Audience-based automation. Totara's "Automated by Audience" approach makes sure "the right people receive the right training at the right time." Ayman Al Kurdi, Vice President of iLearn, says on the home page that his team supports clients "who serve more than 50,000 learners, with just three people managing the account using Totara's automation."

Learning and performance in one system. With Totara Perform, the About page says organizations can "Link competencies to training, connect goals to development, and tie reviews to outcomes" in a single system. Culture of coaching and employee development and retention are listed among the needs Totara serves.

Multi-tenancy and extended enterprise. Multi-tenancy lets one Totara site serve different audiences with separate branding and access controls. Extended enterprise learning is one of the needs the site lists, next to onboarding, collaborative learning and off-the-shelf learning content.

AI features. According to the home page, BuildAI turns policies and documents into engaging, trackable learning "in minutes, not weeks." Totara has used machine learning for recommendations for years: its engine suggests trending content, microlearning resources with a read or watch time under five minutes, courses and workspaces, based on learner profiles, actions and what colleagues are engaging with. Version 18.8 added an OpenAI integration that lets partners build plugins, such as chatbots that work on approved course content, and version 19.1 added four AI features: a writing assistant, an image generator, a SMART goal assistant and a knowledge check-in tool. AI course tag recommendations are available too, using the customer's own OpenAI API account. The AI page sets out principles: AI-generated content is labeled, use is logged and auditable, human verification is required, personally identifiable information is not accessed, and the features are opt-in. Integrations with other LLM providers, such as Llama, Anthropic and Gemini, can be built through partners.

Sector editions. The home page describes a dedicated healthcare LMS that "takes the pain out of audits, cuts compliance costs, and helps you motivate, develop and retain staff." For government, TotaraGov is described as "a FedRAMP® Authorized LMS purpose-built for government training," and the company says it serves the UK Government and Healthcare sectors and the US public sector. The OpenAI integration is not available on TotaraGov at present, because the FedRAMP-approved platform does not include it.

Integrations

The integrations page is long. Content integrations include OpenSesame, GO1, LinkedIn Learning and Anders Pink. HCM integrations include Bob, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, Cornerstone HCM, BambooHR, Lucca, Personio and Ellucian. Content management connections cover Google Drive, SCORM, OneDrive, monday.com, Dropbox, H5P, Amazon S3, YouTube, Vimeo, Box and Adapt Totara Direct Publishing. For selling courses there are e-commerce and payment integrations with BigCommerce, Shopify, Adobe Commerce, WooCommerce, PayPal, Stripe and Zuora. Workflow tools include Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams and BigBlueButton, analytics runs through Google Analytics, and sign-on options include SAML, Okta, Jumpcloud, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, OneLogin and OAuth. Mobile and engagement add-ons include the Aspire and mLearn mobile apps and Incentli. One customer, Transavia, credits the integration of Articulate Rise and Storyline with Totara for transforming its cabin crew onboarding.

Community, partners and pricing

The totara.community connects "over 5,000 learning professionals who use Totara," with forums and a course catalog that can be viewed without an account, regular webinars from the Totara team, partners, customers and industry experts, and direct access to the people who build the product. The Totara Academy lets professionals build their career and earn open badges for their Totara skills. Members can submit roadmap and feature requests from their community dashboard. In 2021 the Customer Education Management Association (CEdMA) named Totara its Innovation Award winner for merging community and education in one learning experience.

No prices appear on the pages. The site refers to a "Totara subscription," invites buyers to request a demo, and notes that AI integrations involve partner work whose costs should be discussed with the partner, alongside any charges from the LLM provider.

Named customers on the About page include SPAR, where Totara has been in use since 2016 and now serves more than 94,000 employees, Transavia, and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, which uses Totara Learn for mandatory training compliance. The home page also quotes the Met Office.

Who it suits

Totara is built for large and complex organizations: health systems, government agencies, retailers and multinationals with tens of thousands of staff, multiple brands or audiences, and compliance obligations that are audited. Its sector menu runs from healthcare and the NHS, retail and government to financial services, hospitality and travel, manufacturing, education and training, and nonprofits. The open code base and partner model suit organizations that want an LMS shaped around their own processes rather than the other way round, and the integration list means it can sit inside an existing HR and content stack.

The partner-led model is also the main thing to plan for. Implementation, hosting, customization and AI features typically run through a certified partner, so choosing the right partner matters as much as choosing the platform. A small team with simple training needs may find that degree of configurability more than it requires.