Trellis vs Frontline Education: Comparing Teacher Feedback Tools

What Frontline Education offers

Frontline Education is one of the most established names in K-12 edtech. Their platform spans the full talent management lifecycle: recruiting and hiring, absence and substitute management, professional growth planning, and formal evaluation management. For large districts that need a single vendor to handle HR workflows alongside teacher evaluation, Frontline provides a comprehensive solution.

Frontline's evaluation module allows districts to configure rubrics, schedule formal observations, and track compliance across schools. Their reporting capabilities are strong, giving central office leaders visibility into evaluation completion rates and aggregate data. Many districts have used Frontline for years, and the platform integrates with their existing HR and payroll systems.

Where Frontline is strongest is in breadth. If your district needs a unified system for managing teacher evaluations alongside hiring, absences, and professional learning credits, Frontline's all-in-one approach can reduce the number of separate systems you maintain. Their scale and longevity in the market also mean strong support infrastructure and familiarity among district administrators.

What Trellis offers

Trellis is built around a specific problem: school leaders want to give more feedback but don't have the time to turn rough observation notes into polished, actionable write-ups. The platform uses AI to bridge that gap. Leaders can capture observations through typed notes, document uploads, or audio recordings, and Trellis generates feedback drafts aligned to chosen instructional frameworks.

A key distinction is that Trellis is intentionally non-evaluative. Rather than serving as a formal evaluation system tied to HR decisions, Trellis focuses on the informal, growth-oriented feedback that research shows has the greatest impact on teaching practice. The platform's positive-first approach surfaces strengths before growth areas, and the ToneBoost feature adjusts language to match what each teacher needs.

Trellis supports major frameworks including Danielson, Marzano, CSTPs, and UDL, as well as custom rubrics. Longitudinal teacher growth profiles help leaders track development over time, moving beyond point-in-time snapshots. On the security side, Trellis holds SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA, and FERPA certifications, with role-based access controls and full audit logging.

Key differences at a glance

The table below summarizes how Trellis and Frontline Education compare across the areas that matter most for teacher observation and feedback workflows.

Where Trellis stands out

• AI-powered feedback generation that turns rough notes into polished, framework-aligned write-ups in minutes instead of hours
• Flexible observation capture including audio recording, so leaders can stay present during classroom visits
• ToneBoost feature that adjusts feedback language to match what each individual teacher needs
• Non-evaluative design that keeps informal feedback separate from formal HR evaluations, building trust with teachers
• Longitudinal growth profiles that show teacher development trajectories over time
• 95% teacher satisfaction rate, reflecting a positive-first feedback approach

Which is right for you?

The right choice depends on what problem you are trying to solve. These are genuinely different tools built for different purposes, and many districts could benefit from both.

Choose Frontline Education if your primary need is a comprehensive talent management system. If you need a single platform to manage hiring, absences, professional learning credits, and formal evaluation compliance, Frontline's breadth is hard to match. Districts that prioritize having one unified HR system and need strong compliance reporting across all schools will find Frontline well-suited to that goal.

Choose Trellis if your primary need is helping leaders give more frequent, growth-focused feedback to teachers. If you already have evaluation workflows in place but want to increase the quantity and quality of informal observations and coaching conversations, Trellis fills that gap. Leaders using Trellis report saving over 500 admin hours per site and completing five times more observations than before.

It is worth noting that Trellis and Frontline are not mutually exclusive. Some districts use Frontline for formal evaluation management and compliance while using Trellis for the day-to-day observation and feedback workflow that happens between formal evaluation cycles. The two tools serve complementary roles in a complete teacher development strategy.