After 17 years of working with D2L Brightspace, I continue to be impressed by its reliability, accessibility, and user centered design. The platform is easy to navigate, with clearly organized tools that support both instructors and learners. Brightspace’s emphasis on accessibility has consistently made it possible to create inclusive, high quality online learning experiences.

Equally valuable is the outstanding support provided by the D2L team. Their responsiveness, expertise, and genuine commitment to customer success have been consistent throughout my experience. Combined with the system’s long term stability and dependable performance, Brightspace has proven to be a trustworthy, well evolved LMS that I’m proud to recommend. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wouldn’t really use the word “dislike.” There are just a few things I’d like to see improved, especially in the attendance area. For example, the name column isn’t fixed the way it is in the gradebook, which makes the attendance view less user-friendly and a bit harder to navigate. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Every day, I meet with faculty who are trying to spark deeper engagement in their courses. Often, the conversation begins with a challenge — a discussion board that’s gone quiet or an activity that isn’t landing the way they hoped. As they talk, I listen for what students are struggling with and what kind of connection the instructor wants to build.

That’s usually where Brightspace enters the story. Together, we look at how tools like release conditions can create a sense of progression, or how small touches like replacement strings can make students feel seen by greeting them by name. We explore ways to give students multiple paths to show what they know, using interactive activities and flexible submission options.

These conversations remind me that engagement grows from intentional design choices — and Brightspace gives us the tools to help faculty create courses where students feel connected, supported, and motivated to participate. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Work-To-Do widget has been problematic. Students often complain that it doesn’t accurately reflect their work, which leads to frustration for both them and their instructors. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like how D2L Brightspace is well-organized and easy to navigate, making it simple to access course materials, assignments, and grades in one place. The clear layout helps me stay on track with deadlines, and the ability to submit assignments and receive feedback directly on the platform is very convenient. I also appreciate the announcements and calendar features, which keep me updated and help me manage my time effectively. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One downside of D2L Brightspace is that it can sometimes be difficult to navigate, especially when course layouts vary between instructors. This inconsistency can make it harder to quickly find assignments or important information. Additionally, the platform can occasionally be slow or glitchy, which can be frustrating when trying to access materials or submit work on time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love how D2L Brightspace often gets updated and takes into account user feedback to provide the most flexible and easy-to-use platform. The user and course management features are my most used, and D2L Brightspace makes everything easier to handle on the administrative side. Managing enrollments, roles, and permissions is very straightforward, reducing time and errors. The initial setup was very, very easy too. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The data hub and data sets are the biggest headaches. I would love access to the full database instead of the CSVs provided by D2L. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I appreciate D2L’s dedication to helping learners access engaging content. D2L Brightspace is a well-developed, easy-to-use platform with features that support engaging, personalized learning experiences such as Creator+ with H5P as well as intelligence agents that can help you automate assignment release and communications or follow-up. In addition, they have added Lumi the AI product that can suggest ways to develop your content, and can be set up as a chat bot to help both learners and content builders. . There are dozens of third-party products that can be integrated which can further support and personalize learning, making it more impactful.

Brightspace, in my experience, out performs any other system. They use a continuous delivery of updates and utilize research and extensive testing before releasing it in the live platform.

D2L Brightspace places a strong emphasis on accessibility ensuring their product provides the greatest access for anyone that wishes to learn. They also have an exceptional Community and Learning Center, so both learners and course builders understand how to interact with the platform. They take it a step further by providing access to supportive, knowledgeable Customer Success and Account Managers who help empower successful implementation and guide continuous improvement.

Without a doubt D2L Brightspace has provided us the most economical platform with the greatest level of functionality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

New users, primarily content builders, may be overwhelmed by all the available options and features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really appreciate how D2L Brightspace allows us to provide highly visual content on a very user-friendly platform, which is crucial for our courses tailored for Deaf adults and Irish Sign Language learners. The intelligent agents in Brightspace lift a huge burden from our Deaf teachers by facilitating a vast range of automated communication in a written language. The initial setup was straightforward, with thoughtful discussions of our needs and helpful onboarding training, allowing us to independently develop our courses. I also value that D2L seems responsive to feedback and committed to ongoing development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Because a lot of our course assessments are video-based, it would help us enormously if D2L Brightspace facilitated a preview option - rather than having to download - video files that have not been recorded directly via the platform, i.e. video files that have been uploaded or drag-and-dropped from a source outside of D2L Brightspace. Also, because so much of our content is video-based, if D2L Brightspace had an in-built DRM to protect videos from being downloaded by learners, that would be great. User permissions can restrict download permissions of all other content formats, but video is still highly vulnerable even with the download permission disabled. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really appreciate how D2L Brightspace saves us time, especially with the archiving process our LAMP program was using. Our LAM was able to efficiently archive around 2,000 courses from 2022 through APIs, which would have taken a much longer time if done manually. It's also great that It is great he can test processes in a test environment before implementation. We learn a lot from our LAM, which helps keep us focus on our tasks and makes the whole process easier and more efficient. I find the assignments tool very helpful for instructors to collect necessary assessments to demonstrate learning objectives and having the rubric feature attached to assignments is very easy to use. Additionally, the integration with tools like Office 365 and Panopto really enhances our system. The Office 365 integration works well for submitting electronic files from OneDrive, and Panopto allows recorded sessions to be easily integrated and accessible for students, even including comprehension quizzes that link directly to the Brightspace grade book. Altogether, with third-party tools support through LTI 1.3, Brightspace serves as a great addition to our educational environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some of the features like integrating third-party tools, especially with Copyleaks, are tricky. Right now, students have to submit their assignments twice—once to the Copyleaks assignment and then again to Brightspace. We're working both with Copyleaks and D2L to make this integration seamless so instructors can use Copyleaks within the existing assignment tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like best about D2L Brightspace is that it strikes a good balance between structure and flexibility. Features like release conditions, intelligent agents, completion tracking, and awards allow instructors to build more intentional and interactive learning experiences, while still giving institutions enough control to maintain consistency across courses. From an administrative perspective, it is also highly configurable, which makes it useful for managing different roles, permissions, and automated processes at scale. I also think D2L does a strong job with accessibility and support resources, especially through the D2L Community. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I dislike most about D2L Brightspace is that some of its workflows can feel overly complex and unintuitive, especially for new instructors or administrators. There are many powerful features, but important settings are often buried several layers deep, which can make troubleshooting time-consuming and frustrating. The gradebook in particular can behave in ways that are difficult to interpret, especially when release conditions, bonus items, pass/fail schemes, or final grade calculations interact with each other. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I appreciate how D2L Brightspace adapts to different screens, whether mobile or desktop, which allows students to access the LMS on the go. The assignments and content display in a readable format on phones, not just desktops. I also value the community users PIE items feedback process, which keeps D2L Brightspace improving in meaningful ways that matter to our institution. D2L works to make big impacts, like the upcoming mediaspace. The initial implementation was smooth, and the team was responsive and guided us through the process, unlike other implementations where I often felt like I had to guide it myself. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's not as 'open' or customizable as we'd like. Not every field has an API (like attendance) and there are limits to how much we can customize like custom fields, etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One of the strongest upsides to D2L Brightspace is the intuitive student experience. From the student perspective, they have a very intuative interface that takes them right into the learning with minimal fuss preventing them from getting right to the learning. The implementation team was very helpful, but it was also challenging for us as we were implementing right as they crossed over to a new data platform. From the customer support standpoint D2L walked with us hand-in-hand across implementation and into the frontier of CBE. For the most part, D2L's heavy use of LTI functionality allowed us to integrate many of the tools we were already using in other systems. The system is used on a daily basis by students and weekly by faculty. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The administration of the D2L platform is kind of a chore. There are so many differentiated parts and the integration and implementation of new tools can be very burdonsome. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.