Cognaxa vs the incumbents.
An honest side-by-side against Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, and Brightspace. We only claim what we ship today, and we only mark a competitor "no" when the gap is publicly documented or commonly reported by switching customers.
| Feature | Cognaxa | Canvas | Blackboard | Moodle | Brightspace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | |||||
PostgreSQL Row-Level Security tenancy Tenant isolation enforced at the query planner, not middleware. | |||||
Single codebase multi-tenant | Partial | Partial | |||
Cloud-native, containerized deploy | Partial | ||||
On-prem / private cloud option | Enterprise | ||||
| Security & Compliance | |||||
Database-level tenant isolation (RLS) Enforced at the query planner — not application middleware. | |||||
Two-factor authentication | Partial | ||||
Activity audit logging | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | |
HECVAT higher-ed security assessment Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Tool (v4.16 Lite completed and downloadable). | v4.16 Lite | ||||
| Assessment & Proctoring | |||||
Native AI proctoring (no third-party iframe) In-browser WebAssembly face detection and audio anomaly. Zero third-party iframe crashes or per-seat vendor add-on fees. | |||||
Server-synced exam timer (anti clock-tamper) | Partial | Partial | Partial | ||
AI essay grading with confidence scores | Partial | Partial | Partial | ||
IELTS-style speaking / listening assessments | |||||
| Integration | |||||
Public REST API + webhooks | Partial | Partial | |||
| Operations | |||||
Published uptime status page | 99.99% | 99.9% | Partial | 99.9% | |
Direct founder-to-customer escalation | Partial | ||||
Want to see exact dollar savings vs Canvas & Blackboard?
Our ROI calculator models software license consolidation, elimination of per-exam proctoring markups, and faculty hours recovered.
Expert-guided migration
Migrate off Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle with founder-led engineering support. Timelines are scoped to your exam calendar, integration footprint, and pilot scope.
Securely transfer Canvas .imscc, Blackboard .zip, or Moodle .mbz dumps to our staging environment.
Our engineers map your historical data to Cognaxa, preserving learner attempts, certification records, and score history.
We verify every module and assessment for visual fidelity before your organization flips the switch.
Considering a switch? See the Cognaxa migration playbook →
Have a specific comparison question?
If there's a capability or deployment requirement you're weighing that isn't in this matrix, ask us — our founding team will scope it directly with your engineers.