This article describes the peculiarities of the students’ and teachers’ perception of distance learning among. The study was conducted on a sample of Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (n=80). In order to study the views about distance learning the authors developed and used a questionnaire which included general/special and alternative questions relevant to the topic of traditional and distance learning. In general, even having a positive perception of distance learning experience, the respondents (especially teachers) still rated the quality of traditional education more highly than distance learning. Among the disadvantages of distance learning teachers identified the rigidity of the teaching material while the students pointed out unwanted distraction and the problem of self-organization. In both groups of respondents, the following common disadvantages were named: limited ways of obtaining practical skills; inattention to individual traits of a student; dependence on technical means; the poor quality of teaching/learning materials and lack of assessment of what students have learned. Thus, summing up, all the problems of distance learning noted by the respondents can be conditionally divided into two blocks - organizational-regulating and psychological-pedagogical. Among the merits of this form of learning, students and teachers have allocated the opportunity to learn, without leaving home, accessibility for people with disabilities.