Training magazine announced the winners of its 2026 Training Magazine Network Choice Awards on September 29 — the only crowd-sourced solution provider awards in the Learning and Development industry, decided entirely by customers, learners, end-users and thought leaders rather than a judging panel or paid submissions.

The results give HR and L&D leaders a peer-derived shortlist at a moment when many are re-evaluating their training stacks. Voting ran online from April 28 to June 30, 2026, and drew 11,692 votes from 2,207 unique respondents across 296 companies. Voters could ballot in as many of the seven award categories as applied to them, with one ballot per voter per category; multiple employees from the same company could participate. Winners were determined by a combination of total votes and a weighted average effectiveness score, which is why categories have uneven numbers of winners.

A new category signals where training delivery is heading

The most consequential change this year is structural: Training added an Immersive & Spatial Learning Technologies category, joining Authoring & Learning Design Tools, Custom Content Development, Gamification and Game-Based Learning, Leadership Development, LMS, and Measurement & Assessment. The new category's debut reflects growing buyer interest in VR, simulation and spatial computing tools as viable delivery channels — and it produced a short winner list: d'Vinci Interactive, ELB Learning, Facilitate, Simsola AI, Skillwell and TechSmith Corporation.

For HR teams weighing vendor consolidation, the pattern across categories is worth noting. A handful of providers — notably ELB Learning, Cornerstone, The Bob Pike Group, D3 Training Solutions and Syneos Health Learning Solutions — appear as winners in four or more categories, signaling cross-category footprints. Others, such as Articulate in authoring tools or Docebo, Absorb LMS, Degreed and Litmos in the LMS category, won on the strength of a single focused capability.

What buyers actually voted on

The award structure matters for interpreting the results. Training compiled the alphabetical nominee lists from its own industry data and research, including providers that have and have not done business with the magazine or its affiliates, and voters could also write in a preferred product not on the list. That openness, combined with the effectiveness weighting, means the winners reflect perceived real-world performance rather than marketing spend — though a vendor's absence is not evidence of weakness, given that write-in volume and category applicability varied.

The headline winner lists include familiar enterprise names alongside specialists:

• Authoring & Learning Design Tools: 360 Learning, 7taps Microlearning, Adobe, Articulate, Cornerstone, iSpring, Panopto, TechSmith, Vyond and others, including microlearning and AI-era entrants such as Mindsmith.
• Leadership Development: the largest category, with Blanchard, Center for Creative Leadership, DDI, Dale Carnegie, Franklin Covey, Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, Kotter, LinkedIn Learning, NeuroLeadership Institute, Udemy and more.
• Measurement & Assessment: a tight field of DDI, Gallup Strengths Finder, Everything DiSC, Extended DiSC, ROI Institute, Talogy, The Myers-Briggs Company, Center for Creative Leadership, Crucial Learning, ELB Learning, HRDQ and Syneos Health Learning Solutions.
• LMS: 24 winners spanning Cornerstone, D2L, Degreed, Docebo, Absorb, LearnUpon, Litmos, Bridge, BizLibrary and Instructure (Canvas).

Questions for HR buyers

For people-operations leaders, a crowd-sourced ranking is a starting point for due diligence, not a substitute for it. The effectiveness scores come from self-selected voters who chose to participate, and the methodology allows multiple ballots from a single employer. The more useful data point may be category breadth: if a provider wins across authoring, content development and measurement, procurement teams can ask whether a consolidated relationship would reduce integration cost or simply concentrate risk.

"We congratulate these outstanding training solution providers for their exceptional customer service and innovative approaches — and for leading the way in advancing modern training," Training magazine Editor and Publisher Lorri Freifeld said in the announcement. "Their dedication to excellence inspires the industry and drives the future of learning and development."

Training drew its voting base from the more than 100,000 active members of Training Magazine Network, its interactive social learning community. The full winner directory is posted at www.trainingmagnetwork.com/choice_awards/2026. With immersive and spatial learning now formally on the awards map, HR and L&D leaders should expect next year's cycle to test whether VR- and simulation-based vendors can scale from a six-name field into mainstream training budgets.