# Top Hat Reviews **Vendor:** Top Hat **Category:** [Digital Learning Platforms](https://www.g2.com/categories/digital-learning-platforms) **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 23 ## About Top Hat Top Hat is the leader in student engagement for higher education. Grounded in learning science and powered by AI, our platform helps educators create interactive, personalized learning experiences that deepen connection and drive student success. Used by 35,000+ instructors at over 1,500 institutions, Top Hat supports learning for more than three million students, turning classrooms into spaces of active exploration and growth. We combine polling and discussion tools with flexible course content, assignments, testing, and analytics. Educators can extend engagement beyond class with interactive, customizable course materials—all in a single platform that integrates with major LMS providers like Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, and Moodle. At the center is Top Hat Ace, our AI-powered assistant that helps educators implement active learning more easily and gives students personalized, on-demand study support tailored to their course materials. ## Top Hat Reviews ### 1. Review for TopHat **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jonnah S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 21, 2023 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** I love how as a new user, it's so easy to navigate. I downloaded it, and have been using it for over 2 years to gain student understanding of topics and test their knowledge through quizzes. Its also one of my favorite platforms for peer reviews, as it then integrates with Canvas and helps me grade students accordingly. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** I think the only thing of concern for me rather than dislike is that it's slightly costly, especially in comparison to competition like clicker. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Making virtual classes more engaging and interactive that helps enhance overall class learning. ### 2. Fantastic software! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vee S. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2023 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** - Very easy to sign up using the code for a particular class/workshop/lecture - Basic allows for free use with vast features to allow for student participation - Top hat allows participants to track the quality of their work, and how it gets better or worse with every class- making students more responsible **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** - Nothing for now really, the website as well as mobile app work seamlessly well. - The only thing I would say is that at times, refreshing is slow and so it takes time for the screen to catch up with live information **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** - It lets me provide my students with quiz questions between classes to test their knowledge of class content. Helps me get an insight into their performances, weak spots and areas of improvements - Also allows me to track participation for allocating participation points at the end of the term ### 3. Top Hat encourages active learning **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andrew H. | Education Specialist, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 24, 2021 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** Top Hat is a great student engagement tool, useful in polling students on the fly or setting up assessments prior to class. The built-in LMS could be useful for tracking student progress, but the free version allows for excellent engagement with a large number of students. Some other polling platforms cap the number of students in the free version, making it difficult to use with large class sizes. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** The LMS might be useful for institutions without their own institution-wide LMS; however, the reliance on the Top Hat LMS to use some of the advanced features makes the whole system somewhat obtrusive and tedious. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** The biggest benefit of Top Hat is the ability to poll large classes during lecture. This allows for greater student engagement and better overall evaluations, as students feel they are receiving active learning. ### 4. Don't use Tophat for courses with a lot of mathematics **Rating:** 1.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eric P. | Associate Professor **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2021 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** The gradebook is great. It is easy to assign questions to students who may miss class. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** There is a bug when creating questions that involve mathematics. The error message says, "Answers cannot contain commas". I have pointed out this bug to them, but the response is "fixing this error is not a priority". This product is not useful for anyone teaching a course with a lot of mathematics. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it to get feedback from my students during lectures. ### 5. Art History with Top Hat **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Neisha P. | Marketing Assistant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** As a student, I found it helpful that you could return at a later time and access course materials like PowerPoints, Review questions and videos. All the information was in one one location. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** Like any software there were glitches and we had to resort back to the old fashion PowerPoint. And then it took 10 minutes for rhe videos to load online. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Top Hat was easy to use and affordable compared to having to purchase a textbook that would just sit on a shelf. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Top Hat is easy to use, very user friendly. It has a convenient dashboard and is accessible as phone apps. ### 6. Easy to use and works consistently **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 19, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** It’s pretty much always up. We’ve only had one downtime, scheduled or unscheduled. Mostly self-supporting, but if not, tech Support is accessible. Web accessibility seems like a priority and developers are responsive. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** Always changing/developing/updating, which is good, but not very helpful to me as a member of the support team for our institution. Makes it difficult to keep up with training/self-help materials and tracking known issues/bugs. For Top Hat itself to keep up, too, since their published documentation is sometimes behind. Also, TH hasn’t been great about publishing organized and standardized release notes, though they started out with no notes published at all, so they’ve made progress. It’s like the original staff/management didn’t realize that clients would want that information available to them; but they’re catching on. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Top Hat is the institution’s centrally supported audience response system, so it’s mainly intended to be a tool to enhance student engagement, which increases students’ academic performance, and both of these metrics are factors in student retention (necessary to keep me in a job). Top Hat also offers an attendance tool, which was sorely needed, as we just had a swipe card system before and it’s only available in a few of the larger lecture halls on campus (no longer the primary vehicle of instruction, so we weren’t able to serve the majority of constituent classes/faculty). Another industry issue is the cost of instructional materials (especially textbooks), which is again related to retention. Top Hat is building a digital content library and has worked very closely with some of our faculty to develop and publish digital course materials that meet the instructional standards and fit the curriculum while offering a lower cost solution to students. This has been a big issue at our institution for several years now and the programs willing to invest the time and subject matter expertise in developing new materials/etexts are definitely benefiting from the collaboration with Top Hat. ### 7. Great way to keep class engaged during lecture **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Monica Z. | Account Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2020 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** The mobile phone option makes it easy to stay engaged while using your laptop for lecture and other parts of the class, especially in a remote setting. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** I think there could be some improvements on allowable graphics. Sometimes it was hard to read a chart that you needed to answer a quick question on. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Top Hat was a great tool that I used while attending the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Business. I took a remote class and this helped to keep the class engaged and keep the lecture flowing. There is a mobile version as well as a desktop version. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Staying more engaged with class lectures, which can be more challenging in a remote setting. ### 8. Review for Tophat **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Clara C. | Adjunct Lecturer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 13, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** I like a lot of features of Tophat! The slideshow sharing, and the ability for students to join the course with an access code makes it very easy for them to access the course. All the slideshows can be saved in Assigned material. Grading is very easy through Tophat, and I really like the geo-location feature in marking the attendance. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** There is a lot of lag sometimes while trying to access the time constrained attendance marker. I have also had issues with its layout for the web version - that's not very user friendly. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** I would say, use tophat's app and try to have an in person form of attendance too every now and then, because the software has acted up at times for me. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have used tophat to manage courses online, mark attendance, and calculate grades of my students. It is an easy to use software, especially if you are using the app. ### 9. A convenient and streamlined way to engage audiences **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lee S. | Medical Student, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** The layout of Top Hat is very straightforward, and really works well in large lecture settings in order to further engage the class and check in with everyone so that they're all on the same page. It's also very simple, which is perfect for making sure students can answer questions quickly within a lecture. In addition, it's a very effective tool for checking attendance when the class or room is too large to fully monitor. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** I feel like the mobile site / app integration could be more smooth, and it was frustrating having to log in through the institutional log-in every time rather than being able to log in and stay logged in to the Top Hat site (although that might've been more due to my institution's policies than Top Hat itself) **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Pilot-test it with your students first to ensure that the layout and features work with your goals for the lecture style you plan on using. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've used this technology as a learner and have considered implementing it as a TA in my own class settings. It works great in large lecture-based classes where you want to make sure the students are still checked in and working with you as you move through the material. ### 10. A modern take on ye olde clicker of the past **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Aqib M. | Engineering & Computer Science Student, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** High ease of use for both student and teachers. App integration to classroom activities was seamless. Even the most old-fashioned (technology-aversive) professor in our department is using it. If the student cannot get to the app for some reason, there's also an option to text their response to a 24/7 mobile bot [this is a much under-appreciated feature]. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** The only thing I dislike is the overall reliance this app has on a phone. What if a student does not have a mobile device? Arguably, that's uncommon these days. Nevertheless, this reliance excludes some young/pre-college kids as well as low-income students. Another case was shown firsthand when we had a student come tell us his phone's battery died in class. Thus, he couldn't sign in on TopHat for the day and, with the burden of proof on us, we excused him. Naturally, this leads a slippery-slope for any students seeking dishonest excusals in the future. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** As a student TA, I have both used Top Hat and administered it. If considering this system as a professor, it is worth making the switch sooner rather than later. Grading homeworks and attendance/participation will be greatly simplified in all regards. If considering this system as a student, your professor may require Top Hat. If you are a freshman, it may be worth buying the year subscription as you don't want to double purchase the single semester card again. Check your future courses for Top Hat use, if possible. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easier grading. Especially for attendance and in-class quizzes. Top Hat is phenomenal for quickly scoring student responses with an in-app administration, answering, and score-reporting (feedback) system. This provides the teacher with a centralized stream of grading data, and it provides the student with a personalized in-app gradebook that lists score histories for each of their TopHat-administered assignments and quizzes. ### 11. Top Hat Is new to us, But has already taken us so far.. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Melissa E. | Director of First Impressions, Real Estate, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** I LOVE the fact that you can customize and more affordable and interactive textbook for the classes you are taking. We all know that textbook prices aren't cheap and can definitely add up so it's really awesome that Top Hat offers the ability to actually afford a textbook that you can CUSTOMIZE to your needs,. Also from what I've heard from one of my professors is that it is easy to create Homework assignments through Top Hat as well. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** I dislike that fact that I don't use it as often because I am no longer a teachers aid at my school, I did not use it often but when I did utilize Top Hat it didn't give me much to dislike. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** I say go for it ! Try something new especially if you are lost in your career choice as a teacher or need some guidance as a student. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** If you are looking to teach in any method, grade, or maybe want some practice as to how it works from a background standpoint then Top Hat is awesome. I feel like it'll benefit tons of new teachers who are just getting a grip on their teaching style as well as students who are trying to save money or need resources on how to excel in school. ### 12. Excellent student experience **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Medha P. | Student, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 10, 2018 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** Great user interface with impressive professor-student interaction. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** It might be on the pricier side especially when a student needs it only for a semester as not all classes seem to use tophat. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Great for students. One of the best learning apps for classes. It's great to answer questions that the professor has asked that are visible to all. There are tons of great features that make classroom activity so efficient and convenient like taking attendance, question polls etc. You can also review lecture materials that the professor can upload. It might be on the pricier side especially when a student needs it only for a semester as not all classes seem to use tophat. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's great to answer questions that the professor has asked that are visible to all. There are tons of great features that make classroom activity so efficient and convenient like taking attendance, question polls etc. You can also review lecture materials that the professor can upload. ### 13. Easy Learning Tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sarah Price M. | Barista, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** This software allowed me to connect with other students and allowed for immediate knowledge check. It was real time and easy to use. The app is accessible through mulitiple devices and worked great as an app on my Android phone and through my web browser on my tablet. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** Kindle didn't have the app in their app store so I had to access it through my browser but it worked fine that way. It was just frustrating not to access an app. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** This allows for great training and classroom management and allows for questions to be asked within a large group without disrupting class ot having to try to physically gain the attention of the instructor. ### 14. Top Hat New Great Alternative to iClicker **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sarit S. | Founder and CEO, Media Production, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** Top Hat is a wonderful tool to use in the classroom and for presentations. The Professor/Presenter can present slides live, ask questions both short answer and multiple choice. Top Hot takes attendance accurately and keeps people engaged throughout. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** Top Hat can glitch during a presentation, although rare, it can be an issue. Overall, Top Hat is a much better alternative to iClicker. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Top Hat benefits both the presenter and the classroom by creating an engaging immersive experience. ### 15. USed this in multiple college classes **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** The remote access to it via smartphone. You can use it to claim attendance away from lecture as well as any other bonus points. You can ditch lecture and just use that as a way of saying you were in class. The professor wont know and you can just sleep after using it. The best reason is because of the versatility. I can use it with my smartphone and internet, meaning I can use it anywhere I want. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** The inability to know when a question in being presented. You have to have a friend tell you about the question first or know when the question will be online. IF you dont you can easy miss the question and not answer it on time. I also dislike how professors can track where someone is using it from. If i am using it from home, the professor can track my IP address and not give me credit. If Top Hat can eliminate that function that it will make this software highly popular amongst college students. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Its not to use since you can claim attendance away from lecture. Treasure it! **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to remotely use the software to link people wherever they are. You can easily stay in bed while answering the question. It allows you the comfort while claiming attendance points. I also realized you can use one remote for a long time as it works for a while or you can just use your smartphone with the app installed and it will work via wifi. ### 16. one of the better clicker programs around **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** As an instructional designer, I love how Top Hat can bring interactivity to modes that might easily be passive, like lectures. As a tech support professional, I can appreciate how hands-on Top Hat is with their customer support. I like that Top Hat provides a hardware option for students rather than relying solely on smartphones. We have a diverse student population that does not always have the newest technology so the hardware is a reliable feature. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** There is not a whole lot to dislike about Top Hat. I guess the hardware options could be better/cheaper. I have not encountered any truly negative aspects to the tool. Support is easy, we get very few help desk tickets for Top Hat support. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Instructors use Top Hat in the classroom for lecture interaction and some types of assessment. I support the tool as part of the Instructional Technology Support team, so I can say that from that perspective Top Hat has been a better solution than our previous technology, which required more hands on support from both our team and the classroom tech team. ### 17. TopHat for Interactive Med School Cirriculum **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** Students only need an access code and can later view slides/questions for class discussion. Also serves self-directed learning well, as instructors may create interactive readings with video links and self-asessment questions. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** It would ideal to be able to distinguish between small group/team and individual responses to in-class questions. This is not a criticism, but I recommend that this be implemented more widely in higher education. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Highly recommended for pre- and in-class activities/assignments. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Satusfies need for active learning modules. Self-directed learning, interactive learning, quizzing. ### 18. TopHat is a great interactive application for multiple learning platforms. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** I liked being able to answer questions in my college courses from the tap of my phone and was able to go back through the questions to review before tests. It was also nice being able to check- in for attendance through this application. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** There is nothing in particular that I disliked, besides the occasional glitches that the application would have. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Use it ! **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is very helpful with classroom settings and I feel that it could be integrated in businesses as well to ask questions and get opinions. ### 19. Useful for class **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 15, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** We use top hat as an interactive system during class time for Q&A at USC. It is very useful because it speeds up question collection time and the interface is easy to navigate as well. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** There is nothing I dislike, the platform has helped our coursework a lot **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** We did many polls in class through tophat and it’s always nice to have a direct view of the results right after the votes. ### 20. Could use some improvements **Rating:** 1.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2018 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** TopHat is a good program for collecting instant feedback from students in a large classroom setting **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** Other technology can be used to achieve the same results as Top Hat, including iClickers and software that the university already utilizes, in order to lessen costs for students. Top Hat can be difficult to navigate when large amounts of content are added to a class, so this is not the best platform for providing material for at-home studying and quizzes. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Explore other options that are available that can be used to achieve the same academic goals while also minimizing cost incurred for students. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Taking attendance, asking in-class questions with automatic grading ### 21. Good experience, useful for assessment **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** TopHat is fairly easy to use, and it provides real-time assessment capabilities in the classroom. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** It can be glitchy sometimes, and students sometimes struggle with the sign-up process. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** TopHat allows for real-time assessment in the classroom. As a result of this capability, instructors can see how students are handling the material and learning as classes progress. ### 22. Great for Education and Efficacy **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2019 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** This interactive tool allows rapid feedback and promotes improved classroom activities. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** I think that the classroom code is a bit of a nuisance. There has to be a better way for stratifying groups. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** In my educational setting, this tool is used often for attendance, feedback, and gauging student progress during small group discussions. ### 23. Educational Software Application For Higher Education and Professors **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 13, 2018 **What do you like best about Top Hat?** Whether you are running courses or taking them it offers an easy to use application. Profs tend to spend a lot of time in admin based tasks and Top Hat can help mitigate this and allow educators to focus on teaching and getting good grades for students. **What do you dislike about Top Hat?** The admin interface although good, could so with more tool tips. I find it helps a lot with homework and assignments. **Recommendations to others considering Top Hat:** Sign up test it out, if you are an educator it will help with running classes. **What problems is Top Hat solving and how is that benefiting you?** Facilitate taking attendance very easily, it would be good to take more classes remotely and help students who can't always come to class. ## Top Hat Discussions - [Does Top Hat use camera?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/does-top-hat-use-camera) - [Is Top Hat an LMS?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-top-hat-an-lms) - [Can you cheat on Top Hat?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/can-you-cheat-on-top-hat) - [What is Top Hat Software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-top-hat-software) - [View Top Hat pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/top-hat/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-13+21%3A34%3A31+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=37af89ef-9115-4928-baec-3fe1f7a78b84&secure%5Btoken%5D=ff931dc07307bb0c0c3b83f09ccec8860cca036efba5780dc0a8c914fa51ac69&format=llm_user) ## Top Hat Features **Assessment** - Assignments - Grading **Training & eLearning** - Content Creation - Content Libraries **Learning Content** - Pre-made Content - Aligned to Standards - Multimedia Content - Gamification **Generative AI** - AI Text Generation - AI Text Summarization **Platform Additional Functionality** - Mobility - Task Management **Personalization** - Personalized Learning Paths - Adaptive Learning - Assessments **Agentic AI - Course Authoring** - Adaptive Learning - Natural Language Interaction **Platform Basics** - Reporting - Interoperability **Reporting and Analytics** - Analytics - Integrations **Platform Content** - File Sharing - Content Library - Interactive Content - Mapping - Policy Management **Agentic AI - Digital Learning Platforms** - Cross-system Integration **Platform** - Customization - Integration APIs - Internationalization - User, Role, and Access Management - Performance - Mobility - Reporting - Dashboards **Platform Data** - Visualization **Platform Features** - Remote Computer Monitoring - Website & Application Blocking - Teacher/Student Screensharing - Interactive Quizzes - Presentation Building - Instant Messaging - Student Assignment Distribution - Student Assignment Collection - Progress Reporting - Shared Content Libraries ## Top Top Hat Alternatives - [Canvas LMS](https://www.g2.com/products/canvas-lms/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,730 reviews) - [Litmos](https://www.g2.com/products/litmos/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (680 reviews) - [TalentLMS](https://www.g2.com/products/talentlms/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (750 reviews)