Pearson VUE vs Respondus LockDown Browser - Different Markets, Different Locks

Pearson VUE and Respondus serve almost no overlapping students: Pearson VUE administers IT and professional certifications (Microsoft, Cisco, AWS), while Respondus locks down LMS-based university quizzes. Comparing them is mostly about choosing the right context, not picking a winner.

Pearson VUE delivers exams via OnVUE (a downloadable Mac app with a live human proctor) for the home-proctored variant. Respondus delivers exams via LockDown Browser (a Chromium fork that integrates with your university LMS) for the auto-graded variant. They use different launch flows, different proctoring models (live human vs ML-only), and serve completely different markets. The macOS capture pipeline both rely on is identical: ScreenCaptureKit, with the per-window privacy flag honored. So the overlay is invisible to both, but you would never use both for the same exam.

Almost none. They serve different test sponsors. If your exam launches a Pearson VUE app, that's OnVUE. If it asks you to install LockDown Browser through your LMS, that's Respondus.

For an on-screen overlay, no - both see only what the capture API gave them, which excludes the flagged overlay region.

It enumerates running processes; Fracture uses a per-build randomized innocuous bundle name (SystemDiagnostics, NetworkService) so it does not appear as "Fracture".