--- title: Sakai Reviews meta_title: 'Sakai Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 99 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Sakai works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 3.7 review_count: 99 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-17' parent_category: name: Education url: https://www.g2.com/categories/education --- # Sakai Reviews **Vendor:** Apereo Foundation **Category:** [Learning Management Systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/learning-management-system-lms) **Average Rating:** 3.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 99 ## About Sakai Sakai is an open-source Learning Management System (LMS) designed to support teaching, learning, and collaboration in educational settings. Developed by a global community of academic institutions and organizations, Sakai offers a flexible and scalable platform that empowers educators to create engaging and effective online learning experiences. Its comprehensive suite of tools facilitates course development, assessment, communication, and system administration, making it a robust solution for institutions seeking a customizable and user-centric LMS. Key Features and Functionality: - Course Development and Delivery: Sakai enables instructors to create and organize course content, including text, multimedia resources, quizzes, and assignments, into structured lessons or modules. It supports conditional release of materials, allowing educators to control access based on specific criteria. The platform also offers tools for uploading, storing, and sharing files, enhancing resource management. - Grading and Assessment: The system provides advanced grading and assessment capabilities, including support for high-stakes testing, formative assessments, online assignments, and rubric-based scoring. Instructors can collect student submissions and offer detailed feedback efficiently. - Communications and Collaboration: Sakai offers a variety of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools, such as messaging, discussion forums, social connections, and collaborative workspaces. These features facilitate effective interaction and teamwork among students and instructors. - System Administration: The platform includes powerful administrative tools for managing courses and users. Its configurable system of roles and permissions allows institutions to tailor the platform to their specific business processes. - Integration with External Applications: Sakai supports integration with third-party applications through the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) specification and offers an extensive API for developing deep, native integrations. Primary Value and User Solutions: Sakai addresses the need for a flexible, scalable, and customizable LMS that supports diverse teaching and learning methodologies. By providing a comprehensive suite of tools for course development, assessment, communication, and administration, Sakai empowers educators to create engaging and effective online learning environments. Its open-source nature ensures that institutions have control over their learning platform, allowing for continuous improvement and adaptation to emerging educational needs. Additionally, Sakai's commitment to accessibility and user-centered design ensures an inclusive learning experience for all users. ## Sakai Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **ease of use and functionality** of Sakai, facilitating smooth navigation for both teachers and students. (1 reviews) - Users find Sakai's **ease of use** exceptional, making navigation and integration seamless for teachers and students alike. (1 reviews) - Users commend the **easy setup** of Sakai, allowing seamless integration for students and efficient operation for teachers. (1 reviews) - Users find the **navigation ease** of Sakai incredibly helpful, facilitating smooth operation for both teachers and students. (1 reviews) - Users find Sakai to be a **user-friendly platform** , simplifying navigation and enhancing the overall teaching experience. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users face **navigation issues** with Sakai, leading to confusion about accessing student feedback and assignment returns. (1 reviews) - Users find the **user experience lacking** , as students struggle to locate feedback on their assignments easily. (1 reviews) ## Sakai Reviews ### 1. Great Learning Management System **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mandy H. | T, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 30, 2025 **What do you like best about Sakai?** Sakai is a very straightforward learning management system. The navigation / tools on the left-hand side make it easier for us, as teachers, to operate and navigate the system, while providing educated assistance to our students. The ease of use and functionality is top-notch. The system is easy to implement for students. It is very easy to get students integrated into the system when they begin a course. They are able to access their log-ins and support rather rapidly. I have not had to use customer support to attest to the good or bad of that aspect, however. I utilize Sakai daily, and I have run into very little problems over the almost 10 years I have used it. Their customer support is easily accessed, though. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** There is not a more simple way to see the view of the students. A lot of students complain that they can't see the feedback when we return assignments to them. Due to this, I cannot tell if they just aren't navigating properly or if the return feedback is in an obscure location. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Sakai basically solves the problem of providing a platform for online classes and websites. It makes it easy for students to work together, virtually, as well as giving multiple teachers access to supporting students. ### 2. Great platform with a couple bugs. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2022 **What do you like best about Sakai?** I love the tools access on the left-hand side of the screen that allows professors to create multiple folders and upload different resources. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** When submitting assignments using the textbox, it is never automatically saved and you cannot open it in two windows at one time (even if you need to access a different class). **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allowing one place to access all of my classes and very easy to use. ### 3. Great LMS **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in E-Learning | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 04, 2022 **What do you like best about Sakai?** Easy to use and a straightforward learning management system **What do you dislike about Sakai?** Not a ton of integrations to choose from **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Collaborating with other students and getting all classwork done online ### 4. Sakai: Successfully does everything, but isn't good at anything **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 30, 2021 **What do you like best about Sakai?** Sakai has a lot of features and works fine for many applications. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** Unfortunately, the interface is very clunky and often very buggy as well. It doesn't have good support and generally it just doesn't do anything it sets out to do very well. **Recommendations to others considering Sakai:** It works for most things that you needed to do but it doesn't do anything very well and there are better platforms out there. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows me to upload homework assignments and view class schedules. ### 5. User friendly experience **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Sakai?** The entire interface of Sakai/Laulima is very intuitive and straightforward. The title of each function exactly demonstrates its purpose. The drop-down menus are self-explanatory. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** The interface can use some improvement on its appearance. Currently, the looking of the LMS is very simple and not even pretty. **Recommendations to others considering Sakai:** This platform is very easy to customize. So it is better for users to have in mind a plan before starting using it. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using Sakai/Laulima as the main format of teaching delivery in my courses. So it is the official learning management system, and it serves its purposes successfully. ### 6. complete and advanced online community **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Amanda Y. | English Second Language Teacher, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 26, 2019 **What do you like best about Sakai?** It has a complete and advanced online community, which collaborates to be completely useful. The community has developed a responsive user interface and is working to comply with all Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** Sometimes you have to wait until the money and resources are available to work on the project that you consider important. In the four years that I have been involved, the community has always found a way to find the resources needed to make updates. **Recommendations to others considering Sakai:** look for information talk to other universities and companies that use Sakai, to find out what their experiences have been. You will find a Sakai community that will be happy to help you learn more about open source products. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** In general our university uses this system, We examined several LMS available in 2012, and our faculty liked Sakai more. Simply because it is easy to use, accessible, reliable and contains excellent tools that we need to provide online, hybrid and face-to-face courses in an uncomplicated way. ### 7. Sakai- University of Hawaii Laulima **Rating:** 1.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** jane l. | research assistant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 01, 2019 **What do you like best about Sakai?** Sakai works for University of Hawaii by having different tabs for resources, syllabus, modules etc. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** Sakai does not allow students to open new folder into new tabs. If it is clicked to open as a new tab, the same exact tab duplicates and will not open the page that it was clicked into. Copying and pasting is very difficult and it will not offer and typo suggestions **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Problems that arise with Sakai is "downtimes" occurring too often, it always has a downtime every night from 3-4 am. ### 8. An Excellent Tool for Supplementing Classes **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 26, 2019 **What do you like best about Sakai?** Sakai features a wide variety of built-in tools to help build out an online hub for classes. Tools like grade entry, file storage, homework assignments, and more can make a classroom website accessible for both students and teachers. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** While the user-end of the website is relatively intuitive, it can sometimes be tricky to make the site do what you want it to. In general, you can make it work once you give it enough elbow grease, but it certainly isn't perfect in this regard. **Recommendations to others considering Sakai:** This tool can greatly enrich and improve user experience in the long run! Having this kind of accessible platform for students can increase interaction and drive engagement with students. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Online class websites for academic courses, as well as team-based pages for projects that would benefit from an online hub. ### 9. Sakai: an effective tool for low-cost classroom management **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 25, 2019 **What do you like best about Sakai?** Integrated calendars for students and integrated plagiarism checks help students maintain pace in completing assignments while helping instructors keep students accountable. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** Sakai can be difficult to use when uploading a new class workspace. **Recommendations to others considering Sakai:** Make sure your student database jives well so your whole class appears in your list. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Open feedback for assignments and document notation helped me communicate necessary improvements to students. ### 10. Sakai Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2018 **What do you like best about Sakai?** The best feature is the organization of the website. I like how there is a favorites tab that has your favorites appear in the top. Also, the ability to go back to previous classes was very nice and helpful. **What do you dislike about Sakai?** The user interface was a little buggy. To organize favorites, it was difficult, but once organized, it was ready to go. **Recommendations to others considering Sakai:** Haven't used any other programs other than Sakai during my time at school, but there wasn't anything to complain about while using this program. The only problem that occured whilst using this program was when the Rutgers University's network got hacked into, and the website couldn't be reached. Other than that, the ability to view previous classes and all the workload involved was a huge plus. The gradebook, dropbox, assignments, resources, and all those miscellaneous tabs that came with every class was very useful. The announcements feature that they had to add to the extra awareness on top of emails being sent by the professors were a huge plus. **What problems is Sakai solving and how is that benefiting you?** Organization and ability to go back to previous work. ## Sakai Discussions - [What is Sakai used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/sakai-what-is-sakai-used-for) - [Does Sakai have an app?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/does-sakai-have-an-app) - [How much does Sakai cost?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-much-does-sakai-cost) - [Who uses Sakai?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/who-uses-sakai) - [What is Sakai used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-sakai-used-for) - [View Sakai pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/sakai/reviews/sakai-review-4280569?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-20+09%3A54%3A28+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=d0f52562-a4b2-4c55-90dd-76455160eff5&secure%5Btoken%5D=64edfdcd14064c2c37e7d5ade544ce24a90b59d73ba252d33e40468ec6e8e629&format=llm_user) ## Top Sakai Alternatives - [Canvas LMS](https://www.g2.com/products/canvas-lms/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,732 reviews) - [Blackboard](https://www.g2.com/products/blackboard/reviews) - 4.0/5.0 (1,016 reviews) - [Moodle](https://www.g2.com/products/moodle/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (431 reviews)