Ellucian
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you're a large college or university with ERP admins, a multi-year budget, and Banner or Colleague already on campus.
Comparison
Ellucian vs OpenEduCat
Ellucian and OpenEduCat both land on Depends.
OpenEduCat
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy it if you run a school or university that wants admissions-through-fees in one system and has IT capacity for an Odoo-based open-source ERP.
| Compare | Ellucian | OpenEduCat |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Large universities running Banner or Colleague | Schools and universities consolidating admissions-to-fees |
| Who it's not for | Small colleges without dedicated ERP admins | Tutoring centers and micro-schools . spreadsheet territory |
| Privacy | Active CVEs in Banner Self-Service and Advance; a 2019 exploited Banner flaw drew US Education Department alerts; a PowerCampus breach was reported.⁷ | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed. |
| Support quality | Sysadmin threads probe SLAs and escalation pain | No support-quality evidence in sources |
| Public sentiment | Students praise Ellucian Student, while sysadmin Reddit threads debate Colleague support and migration difficulty.² | G2 users rate it 4.6/5 across ~147 reviews, while Capterra's four reviews average a lukewarm 3.8/5. |
| Biggest gotcha | Banner Self-Service XSS CVEs demand a prompt patch cadence before go-live⁷ | Free core, but hosting, customization, and paid tiers drive real total cost.15 |
Pick Ellucian when
- Large universities running Banner or Colleague
- Community college systems
- Schools wanting one vendor for SIS, ERP, CRM
- Institutions with dedicated ERP admin staff
When Ellucian is not a fit
- Small colleges without dedicated ERP admins
- Corporate or K-12 buyers; this is higher-ed only
- Anyone wanting transparent, self-serve pricing
- Teams without budget for multi-year implementations
Pick OpenEduCat when
- Schools and universities consolidating admissions-to-fees
- Institutions with in-house IT or Odoo experience
- Budget-conscious schools wanting open source
- Multi-program institutions outgrowing gradebook tools
When OpenEduCat is not a fit
- Tutoring centers and micro-schools . spreadsheet territory
- Schools needing only attendance and a gradebook
- Teams with no admin or IT staff to run an ERP
- Buyers wanting turnkey SaaS with zero setup
Sources
- Ellucian homepageellucian.comofficial
review
review
- Feedback on Ellucian Colleague . Redditreddit.comreview
review
- CVE-2026-47106 . SentinelOnesentinelone.comsecurity
- CVE-2026-32856 . NVDnvd.nist.govsecurity
- ED FSA security alert on Banner exploitationfsapartners.ed.govsecurity
- Ellucian Advance advisory . SRA Labslabs.sra.iosecurity
- Ellucian Banner data breach draws federal concernavnetwork.comnews
- Ellucian implementation cost guidebscubes.comnews
- Ellucian Experience Tier Sheetellucian.comofficial
- OpenEduCat homepageopeneducat.orgofficial
- OpenEduCat Pricingopeneducat.orgofficial
official