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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Adobe Captivate

    Score5.9 out of 10
    N/AAdobe 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

    Adobe Connect

    Score6.7 out of 10
    N/AAdobe Connect is a web conferencing platform that enables users to create presentations, online training materials, and learning modules. The product is entirely Adobe Flash-based and has several add-ons for customizing its software to suit each users’ unique needs.

    $50

    per host/per month

    Pricing
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
    Editions & Modules
    Subscription
    $33.99
    per month
    Student & Teacher Edition
    $399
    one-time fee
    Upgrade
    $499
    one-time fee
    Pereptual License
    1,299
    one-time fee
    Meetings
    $50
    per host/per month
    Webinars & Learning
    $130
    per host/per month
    Small Meetings
    Free
    Forever free for up to 3 participants
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    Chose Adobe Captivate
    SWAT (internal LCMS) - more flexible but not common to many and difficult to keep up to date Adobe Connect - great for webinars and online classes with live instructor.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Captivate
    Although Articulate Storyline is more user friendly, Adobe Captivate has more functionality and options to choose from when designing an eLearning course. Articulate Storyline's interface is similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, so if you have experience with that program, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Captivate

    Captivate is more full-featured than Snagit (which is the most limited), Adobe Presenter Video Express (which is probably the next most limited), or Camtasia (which is probably the most direct competitor that I'm at all familiar with). While I have a limited familiarity with …

    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Captivate
    I have not used any other products in this space.
    Incentivized
    Adobe
    Chose Adobe Connect
    Adobe Connect is better. Connect allows us to customize the meeting space. It allows us to keep a running record of items discussed.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Connect
    Significantly more customization.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Connect
    Actually, it was the other way around....we were using Adobe Connect, company-wide, then switched over to Zoom, mostly, I think, as a cost-cutting measure. But some Learning & Development folks campaigned to be allowed to retain some Adobe Connect licenses (for example, one L&D …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Connect
    While this is different for every business, for us it was the tracking, reporting, and content management that offered us what we needed initially. We also needed the flexibility of integrating telephony services later on. We also liked that we could add additional seat …
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    87%
    Would buy again
    75 Answers
    76%
    Would buy again
    25 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    92%
    Delivers good value for the price
    69 Answers
    83%
    Delivers good value for the price
    20 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    84%
    Happy with the feature set
    72 Answers
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    29 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    48 Answers
    77%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    17 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    53 Answers
    82%
    Implementation went as expected
    18 Answers
    Features
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
    Learning Management
    Comparison of Learning Management features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    9.1
    31 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Adobe Connect
    -
    Ratings
    Course authoring8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
    Course catalog or library9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
    Player/Portal8.024 Ratings00 Ratings
    Learning content9.024 Ratings00 Ratings
    Progress tracking & certifications9.026 Ratings00 Ratings
    Learning reporting & analytics9.019 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social learning10.014 Ratings00 Ratings
    Gamification8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    eLearning Content
    Comparison of eLearning Content features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    8.4
    1 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Adobe Connect
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-Lingual Support7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Structured Learning10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Historical Metrics8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Cloud-Based Content10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation & Integration7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Performance & Compatibility of Online Events Software
    Comparison of Performance & Compatibility of Online Events Software features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    -
    Ratings
    Adobe Connect
    7.7
    66 Ratings
    3% below category average
    High quality audio00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
    High quality video00 Ratings7.065 Ratings
    Low bandwidth requirements00 Ratings6.855 Ratings
    Mobile support00 Ratings9.042 Ratings
    Screen Sharing
    Comparison of Screen Sharing features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    -
    Ratings
    Adobe Connect
    7.5
    65 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Desktop sharing00 Ratings7.065 Ratings
    Whiteboards00 Ratings8.055 Ratings
    Online Meetings / Events
    Comparison of Online Meetings / Events features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    -
    Ratings
    Adobe Connect
    5.6
    66 Ratings
    37% below category average
    Calendar integration00 Ratings6.042 Ratings
    Meeting initiation00 Ratings5.057 Ratings
    Integrates with social media00 Ratings4.029 Ratings
    Record meetings / events00 Ratings6.061 Ratings
    Slideshows00 Ratings7.052 Ratings
    Online Events Collaboration
    Comparison of Online Events Collaboration features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    -
    Ratings
    Adobe Connect
    6.7
    65 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Live chat00 Ratings7.063 Ratings
    Audience polling00 Ratings7.056 Ratings
    Q&A00 Ratings6.053 Ratings
    Online Events Security
    Comparison of Online Events Security features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    -
    Ratings
    Adobe Connect
    8.4
    61 Ratings
    4% above category average
    User authentication00 Ratings7.953 Ratings
    Participant roles & permissions00 Ratings8.061 Ratings
    Confidential attendee list00 Ratings9.348 Ratings
    VoIP system collaboration
    Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect
    Feature
    Adobe Captivate
    -
    Ratings
    Adobe Connect
    6.5
    1 Ratings
    12% below category average
    Video conferencing00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Audio conferencing00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Video screen sharing00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Instant messaging00 Ratings3.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
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    Score9.2 out of 10
    ClickMeeting
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Renaissance myON
    Score10 out of 10
    JioMeet
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    A Cloud Guru (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    Webex Meetings
    Score8.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (128 ratings)
    5.5
    (94 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (9 ratings)
    10.0
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (8 ratings)
    8.5
    (38 ratings)
    Availability
    1.8
    (1 ratings)
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.8
    (18 ratings)
    7.5
    (31 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    2.7
    (2 ratings)
    7.9
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.6
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe CaptivateAdobe Connect
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    Adobe Connect is wonderful for repeatable branded learning experiences or webinars. They allow for creating an event with a series of similar layouts. The ability to alter these are easy, and duplicating layouts makes for fast alterations. Changing between layouts also creates visual interest as learners see things shift. Adobe Connect also is great for accessibility, the captions allow for resizing and placing the captions in various sections. The recordings also can have a searchable transcript to get to the information you want fast. Adobe Connect allows for running fun games/events as well, there are lots of apps that make the experience unique, and allows for managing content on screen as you'd like.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    • It's a quick method to exchange files, file, documents, and videos from a web app. Real-time conversation, and screen-sharing are all supported. It has a highly user-friendly interface. It is really simple to assist the teams.
    • Even team engagements is beneficial since it allows them to share their expertise with others, and the big benefit is the security of the rooms' access is fairly simple to manage.
    • The interface, which include features like notes, chat, pods, etc. When we're trying to gather rapid and exact information, simplify our work as much as possible.
    • Adobe Connect's features since they allow team members to express their ideas during meetings without causing disruptions, thereby bypassing the current international boundary of distance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    • Nonetheless, Adobe Connect lacks the engagement monitoring, which can be critical for the management to oversee.
    • Besides, Adobe Connect has no certification management, which is essential in the current education or training field.
    • Lastly, Adobe Connect has no offline editing tool, hence, when the internet connection is not there, many things can not be conducted effectively.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    The longer you use Adobe Connect, the longer you are likely to use it. Because you can build more and more resources over time, creating rooms that you re-use, recorded content you can repurpose, and tools that form the basis of ever increasing productivity, the more you use Connect, the more productive you become. Unlike competing products where, with every meeting you essentially start over -- setting up your resources for each meeting -- in my Connect rooms, I have highly tuned tools to accomplish my knowledge transfer goals. When I want to conduct another session - I send a link out to the appropriate room and instantly we are all focusing on getting a job done together. This ability of Adobe Connect to make you productive at an ever quickening rate is a competitive advantage
    Read full review
    Usability
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    I gave it a 6 because it does have lots of functionality, has a strong brand and reputation following, etc. but it does have its glitches and experiences with low bandwidth issues. I believe it has more features than my organization fully leverages, so some of those pieces haven't been explored yet. But there are opportunities for improvement in their online resource support, stability at high usages as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    The customer support of Adobe connect is professional and well-skilled for resolving our minor and major issues. Moreover, it has almost all the features that will provide you a secure connection, with people across the world. Education institutes can also implement this software. On the basis of its quality and technology, I will surely advise you to try it once.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Adobe
    No answers on this topic
    Adobe
    The ability to have most of the functionality of a full LMS at a fraction of the cost is huge. I can create manage and deploy both synchronous and asynchronous training based on the situation and all of my training is tracked through a series of easily created reports
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    Prices do not seem to vary much among resellers of the Adobe Connect hosted license; the only price variation you're likely to find are among the audio providers. When implementing, you may also wish to look into expanding the amount of storage you are allowed on the server to avoid any problems later on as your library of files starts to build up
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    Actually, it was the other way around....we were using Adobe Connect, company-wide, then switched over to Zoom, mostly, I think, as a cost-cutting measure. But some Learning & Development folks campaigned to be allowed to retain some Adobe Connect licenses (for example, one L&D area had literally over 250 room layouts that their course facilitators could just jump into and use to deliver a course on short notice), which also allows some of us to continue to publish Presenter and Captivate modules to the Adobe server. (But, even those of us who still have Adobe Connect licenses use Zoom for most regular business meetings.)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Adobe
    • Save on time - our instructors and people that use the platform can teach more classes and more often than in-person training and time traveling.
    • We cut down on spending. When we offer training using Connect - we do not have to spend on meals, hard copy materials, and reserving a venue to deliver training.
    • We increase our training sales significantly but offering Connect as an alternative - any unforeseen cancellations to a public class can result in transferring to a remote online Connected class.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots