Absorb LMS vs. Adobe Captivate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Absorb LMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.N/A
Adobe Captivate
Score 6.9 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Captivate is an elearning authoring and course design tool (or LCMS). It supports mobile HTML5 content. Captivate’s users are commonly midsized businesses to enterprises. Adobe Captivate includes some prebuilt assets as well as customizable workflows.
$33.99
per month
Pricing
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Subscription
$33.99
per month
Student & Teacher Edition
$399
one-time fee
Upgrade
$499
one-time fee
Pereptual License
1,299
one-time fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Considered Both Products
Absorb LMS
Chose Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS did the best job at meeting our overall list of requirements for a LMS. It was also the top contender when it came to a customer service plan and how the support worked. Absorb was a more affordable option that many of the other apps we evaluated.
Chose Absorb LMS
We were very disappointed with D2L and Workday's ability to customize what or how content is shown to users. The platforms can be robust but the onboarding time for new administrators is much longer than Absorb. Workday's current offering (2023) for external learners is …
Chose Absorb LMS
I joined a company already using Absorb so I did not pick Absorb but given the chance- I would pick Absorb over any other LMS I have worked with in my career. Absorb is powerful enough to do what I need it to do, but organized well enough that the features and functions I don't …
Adobe Captivate
Chose Adobe Captivate
Articulate currently has some benefits over Captivate in flexibility and responsive design, but I think these are being addressed in the next version of Captivate. Articulate is also more fiddly. Mac support is important to our users, who are majority Mac users.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
8.8
88 Ratings
8% above category average
Adobe Captivate
9.1
31 Ratings
7% above category average
Course authoring8.372 Ratings8.230 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.776 Ratings9.018 Ratings
Player/Portal9.380 Ratings8.024 Ratings
Learning content9.261 Ratings9.024 Ratings
Mobile friendly6.765 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.783 Ratings9.126 Ratings
Assignments9.572 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management9.767 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration9.585 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics9.283 Ratings9.019 Ratings
Social learning7.942 Ratings10.014 Ratings
Gamification6.538 Ratings8.12 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.759 Ratings00 Ratings
eLearning Content
Comparison of eLearning Content features of Product A and Product B
Absorb LMS
-
Ratings
Adobe Captivate
8.4
1 Ratings
0% above category average
Multi-Lingual Support00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Structured Learning00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Historical Metrics00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Cloud-Based Content00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Automation & Integration00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Small Businesses
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.9 out of 10
iSpring Learn
iSpring Learn
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.9 out of 10
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Axonify
Axonify
Score 9.8 out of 10
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(90 ratings)
8.6
(128 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(6 ratings)
7.0
(9 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(2 ratings)
8.1
(8 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(2 ratings)
1.8
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.9
(2 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.9
(76 ratings)
5.8
(18 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(2 ratings)
2.7
(2 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
5.5
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.7
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Absorb LMSAdobe Captivate
Likelihood to Recommend
Absorb Software Inc.
The learner dashboard is beautiful along with the complete interface experience. It doesn't take long to get accustomed to it. The steps for a user to purchase an ecommerce course is very similar to other popular ecommerce site such as Amazon. This is very advantageous since the general user is familiar with sites like Amazon. The process of using Enrollment Keys is not quite easy and friendly to utilize.
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Adobe
Captivate is well suited for instruction designers who want to build attractive, personalized, interactive, energetic lessons. It's also a good choice for someone who wants to build something innovative because Captivate gives the developer so much control over so many aspects.
But if someone wanted something built quickly, generically and didn't care about holding the viewer's attention, then Captivate might be an expensive tool. That person might be more satisfied with a cheaper and easier to learn authoring tool.
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Pros
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Customer Service - Our CSM, Kirsten Spak, provides friendly, timely and high quality help and has helps us to understand and efficiently use the system.
  • Course Creation - We have been able to create custom courses with a wide range of features, including branding, audio, video and assessments.
  • Reporting - Absorb LMS offers a robust reporting function which allows us to understand our users and meet the needs of our partners when user information is required for their projects.
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Adobe
  • Quickly adding in graphics, text, and interactive buttons.
  • Has extensive variables and branching for additional customization, beyond the competition.
  • Has 360 degree capability which competitors don't offer (I have not used this feature).
  • High degree of customization and personalization.
  • True responsive screen display on all devices, viewable as you are creating the training. This is different than some competitors - some just shrink the screen, but Adobe Captivate allows actually removing or moving or changing items at different screen sizes.
  • If you like Flash, it has Flash output, although it's going away in 2020. Personally, I think this is an outdated technology.
  • Many advanced capabilities. I chose this product due to the capabilities.
  • Comes with assets, templates, people, head shots, and full body—excellent.
  • Adobe Captivate is the authoring tool. It integrates with Adobe Captivate Prime - which I highly recommend if you want to truly take advantage of all of its features in reporting, administration, compliance, and social learning. (I didn't use Prime because you essentially need 100+ students to affordably use Prime.) If you look at my chart of what Captivate is capable of, I can't say that Captivate has a lot of the reporting features because they are part of Prime/SCORM, although, with Captivate's customization, you might be able to do most of them if you are up to it, but I did not.
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Cons
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Wish there was an automated cadence of Sandbox refresh
  • Wish licensing was based on active users not just those added to the system (potentially issue related to our interface)
  • Wish there were more options for administrative bulk uploading capabilities without having to engage Absorb LMS team
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Adobe
  • Clunky interface, it takes a lot of extra clicks to get places compared to other Adobe apps and competitor's eLearning software.
  • Would be nice if it was part of creative cloud, or at least in the group of apps you can add through Creative Cloud.
  • More regular and meaningful updates. Compared to flagship apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Captivate is like the read headed step child. Competitors excel at providing regular updates with clear change documentation. How are we still using Captivate 2019 in 2022?
  • The interface feels like it is still stuck in the 90s, would be nice if it was more modern and better in-line with flagship adobe offerings.
  • Variables and associated menus are a nuisance to work with vs some of the clever drop down and content-sensitive options in Articulate Storyline.
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Likelihood to Renew
Absorb Software Inc.
We have no plans to move away from Absorb at this time. It has all of the functionality we are looking for in a learning management system and we have a lot of info stored in our LMS system for trainings including all of our current and past employee transcripts. It is also getting easier to manager with being able to connect the LMS to ADP to update employee reporting/department/location/etc. We don't have a need or reason to move away from Absorb at this time.
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Adobe
We have hundreds of courses that were created in Adobe Captivate. It will take us a while to convert to Articulate. We'll need a license for another year and/or until Adobe comes out with a true update to the software.
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Usability
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb LMS is easy to use from both a user experience and admin experience. For users, navigating the site to complete assignments or finding courses to develop new skills is very user-friendly. As an admin, the course creation tools walk you through each step simply, but have a ton of functionality to support any of your training needs.
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Adobe
Adobe Captivate does take some getting used to. There are features that are much more convoluted than they need to be, but overall it is a great product with a some excellent features. Being in a pretty small market, Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline dominate the space. They are not the same software, but allow for eLearning authoring. Each has their benefit and their downside, but, for me, Adobe Captivate edges out Storyline.
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Reliability and Availability
Absorb Software Inc.
The customer service team is top notch. They have always been readily available and quick to assist regardless of the day or time of the call
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Adobe
No answers on this topic
Performance
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb LMS's performance is very reliable and consistent. Pages load quickly. Report are generated within a reasonable amount of time (even with significant amounts of data), etc. Nothing seems to slow it down.
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Adobe
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb LMS's client service managers have been extremely responsive, efficient, and available. While we pay for a higher level of support, we have found it well worth the investment. We've been less pleased with the accounting side of the organization, but that has little impact on the delivery of training to our clients and employees.
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Adobe
It is difficult to get in touch with Adobe Captivate support. With a seemingly limited number of resources, mostly outsourced, getting in contact with someone to help troubleshoot an issue is challenging. Typically wait times are long, and the desired path to resolution is to use an existing knowledge base or a self-help guide. It is certainly not a user-friendly experience.
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Online Training
Absorb Software Inc.
I meet and do training with my absorb support every week. and I have all my questions answered! it's great
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Adobe
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
Adobe
I'm only aware of the problems Adobe Captivate had with SumTotal LMS and Upside LMS, requiring extensive contact with both internal and external support staff to fix the problems. We had no problems at all with Articulate.
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Alternatives Considered
Absorb Software Inc.
hands down favorite in look, function, cost and service. Others were close but could not meet our external and internal cases. Our current one (we looked at them again) did not have 40% of the functionality or value, despite the bargain cost, it was not worth it to continue. Only new hires used our LMS for onboarding because they had to; no one went back for more training. With Absorb our classes are more dynamic and targeted.
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Adobe
I think that Articulate360 is more user-friendly and has a cleaner, more updated look. If you can edit a PDF, then you can use Articulate 360. Adobe Captivate may be more challenging for the designer, but it has more features. We chose Adobe Captivate because we want the option to create interactive learning environments. Adobe Captivate plays well with the other Adobe design products including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premier. Additionally, Adoe Captivate is highly compatible with Cornerstone, our preferred Learning Management Systems.
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Scalability
Absorb Software Inc.
This is one of the main reasons we chose Absorb as our LMS. It is a very user-friendly application that is able to be deployed across multiple departments in geographically dispersed locations. It works amazingly well for us.
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Adobe
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Absorb LMS's user-friendly interface and interactive learning features contributed to a 150% increase in learner engagement levels. The platform's ability to deliver engaging content and quizzes enhances employee participation and knowledge retention at retail
  • With Absorb LMS, we are looking to streamline our remote employee onboarding process, and tracking to reduce the time taken for new hires to complete training modules by 30%.
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Adobe
  • Adobe Captivate has allowed our instructors to engage students in ways we never have before.
  • Instructors who have used Adobe Captivate in our organization have reported higher levels of engagement with their courses and their students, theoretically leading to improved assessment of student performance.
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ScreenShots

Absorb LMS Screenshots

Screenshot of a company's unique identity with a training interface that is custom-designed for the brand.Screenshot of a company's image and values with a training interface that is tailored to the brand's specific needs.Screenshot of the course creation workflow, that offer a diverse set of formats, including instructional videos, quizzes, and assessments.Screenshot of Absorb's course details page, accessible from the course catalog dashboard, used to give learners an understanding of the course material.Screenshot of learners' progress insights, used to make data-driven decisions with the reporting capabilities of Absorb LMS.Screenshot of course creation with Create AI Beta.