Adobe Captivate vs. iSpring Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Captivate
Score 7.1 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
iSpring Suite
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
iSpring Suite helps users build courses that are mobile-ready and adaptive. It’s integrated with PowerPoint, so users can create the…
$470
per year per user
Pricing
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
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
Academic. iSpring Suite
$470
per year per user
Freelancers. iSpring Suite
$490
per year per user
Academic. iSpring Suite Max
$670
per year per user
Freelancers. iSpring Suite Max
$690
per year per user
Business. iSpring Suite
$770.00
per year per user
Business. iSpring Suite Max
$970.00
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAcademic, non-profit, government and volume discounts are available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
Considered Both Products
Adobe Captivate
Chose Adobe Captivate
We are looking for easier templates, automated features, simulations, interactivity activities, and collaboration features.
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.
Chose Adobe Captivate
Captivate for us is another tool, overall is slower than the competition but it has a version specifically for the Macs we used, it's a very powerful tool that matches the competition apps.
Chose Adobe Captivate
Adobe Captivate has so many features and advantages that other competitors don't have. That is why I chose it. Captivate authoring can be purchased monthly - LOVE that! Captivate is by far the best solution for small business on a limited budget.

I think if you are a larger …
Chose Adobe Captivate
We actually use both programs. They both have some advantages over each other.
iSpring Suite
Chose iSpring Suite
Therer are several other interactive video creation tools out there, such as Camtasia, Adobe Captivate and even PowerPoint on its own, but none of them come close to offering the galaxy of features that is served up by iSpring Suite, and it's the easiest to learn and use with …
Chose iSpring Suite
I chose iSpring because of its minimal learning curve and all its automated features.
Chose iSpring Suite
iSpring is superior in ease of use and speed of development.
iSpring is easier to learn and implement.
iSpring has the best support of any tool I have used.
Chose iSpring Suite
iSpring Suite is easier to use, as robust, but in a format that makes it easy to share with customers.
Chose iSpring Suite
iSpring Suite is much easier to use. It is compatible with all other systems we are using for learning.
Chose iSpring Suite
So much easier to get up and running. The video editing I think is better. The only thing I think was better in Captivate was the graphics and clip art.
Chose iSpring Suite
iSpring is much more user-friendly and converts items much cleaner, faster, and easier.
Chose iSpring Suite
Producing e-learning is a member service, and not a core objective of our association, so we have a small staff and a limited budget. iSpring Suite costs less than other premium products that build e-learning. It's much easier to learn how to use. We can also take PowerPoint …
Chose iSpring Suite
We found that the price point comparison was vastly different from some competitors. iSpring is a relatively cheap authoring tool but delivers so much capability for the price. It may not have the capability of some other tools, but it also has a very small learning curve, …
Chose iSpring Suite
Slightly cheaper, maybe not so powerful but easy to use straight away on day 1. We had to make a quick decision and so didn't have time or resources to test and compare products. We looked at reviews and decided to try one on a free trial basis. It worked well so we bought it.
Chose iSpring Suite
Articulate 360 offers Storyline in their suite, which is a much better tool for customized and advanced e-learning development, iSpring could compete with them in the field of responsive authoring tool (iSpring Page) and tools for stakeholder's reviewing.

Considering conversion …
Chose iSpring Suite
During the pandemic, iSpring seemed the most understanding of the difficulties facing the education industry and they made their SasS products either a) reasonably priced or b) extended the period of time over which one could receive the education discount. It was simply a …
Chose iSpring Suite
Learning and using iSpring Suite was infinitely easier than Captivate. It is much more intuitive and is an add-on to PowerPoint. From my experience, converting a PowerPoint into an eLearning course was much simpler with iSpring and the resolution of the finished eLearning was …
Chose iSpring Suite
The main advantage of iSpring over its competitors is the speed with which you can create a SCORM course with it. With the use of Powerpoint as a base program, everything is very easy and fast to design. In our case, customers needed to virtualize a lot of content from their …
Chose iSpring Suite
We selected iSpring Suite specifically for the 100% HTML5 content. While Captivate and Presenter may offer more interactive features, they still rely somewhat on Flash elements (or used to anyway). When we tried out iSpring Suite for the first time, the cost and time savings …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
9.4
30 Ratings
10% above category average
iSpring Suite
-
Ratings
Course authoring10.029 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal8.023 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content9.023 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications10.025 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning10.014 Ratings00 Ratings
Gamification9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
Small Businesses
iSpring Suite
iSpring Suite
Score 9.4 out of 10
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Articulate 360
Articulate 360
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(127 ratings)
9.3
(57 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(9 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(7 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Availability
1.8
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.8
(18 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.7
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Configurability
5.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe CaptivateiSpring Suite
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
This is one of the best authoring tools in the market. As a strong user of most of them, we ran across iSpring Suite years ago when the product was still evolving. Who would have thought that having these tools embedded inside PowerPoint would make such an impact? There is nothing I can't do with iSpring Suite that others claim is unique to their authoring products, and some things that I can do even better.
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
  • iSpring integrates with PowerPoint extremely well and enables the user to develop training in PowerPoint with ease.
  • iSpring characters are fantastic. They continue to add more regularly features regularly.
  • The voice recording and ability to integrate music is a very easy process.
  • Customer service is fantastic. They are quick to respond and their training is easy to follow.
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
  • Adding audio narration to interactive slides is easy, but still perhaps a bit repetitive/clunky
  • The way you add playlists works well, but wish it was "project/course specific", instead of carrying over from project to project. Easy to delete playlists, tho.
  • If you have a common set of learner resources to make available over many courses, you must manually add the URLs and/or PDFs manually each time. Would be so nice to be able to create a "reference list" and import it to each course with a click or two. This is the most annoying thing I can think of about iSpring.
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
I would give it 10 but I also like to try new solutions.
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
The software integration was appealing to our department--particularly to the faculty who had not, prior to the pandemic, taught online--because it integrates with an already known entity: PowerPoint. Furthermore, iSpring's assessment builder with its wide variety of questions is extremely easy to use--basically plug and play--for any level of comfort that a faculty member has in terms of online teaching.
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
I had a difficult issue where iSpring just stopped working. It turned out to be a Microsoft Windows/Office issue. The iSpring Support team continued to contact me until we got the issue resolved. A support team that does not wait for the customer to call back is EXCEPTIONAL. I can not think of any other vendor that was this devoted to finding a solution! My compliments to "Dana" and the rest of the iSpring support teasm!
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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.
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iSpring Solutions, Inc
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
iSpring Solutions, Inc
Therer are several other interactive video creation tools out there, such as Camtasia, Adobe Captivate and even PowerPoint on its own, but none of them come close to offering the galaxy of features that is served up by iSpring Suite, and it's the easiest to learn and use with affordable price tags
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.
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iSpring Solutions, Inc
  • We allow potential customers to sample training and feedback is our offerings differentiate us from our peers.
  • Having the ability to offer an accessible training catalog and self-enrollment is also something our customers comment on positively.
  • The training developed in iSpring has allowed our customers to prepare for further interaction with our processes and projects on their own timeline, and has positively impacted the ease with which we are able to execute project rollouts.
Read full review
ScreenShots

iSpring Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of iSpring SuiteScreenshot of the customizable course player — the layout can be changed as desired.Screenshot of Role-playsScreenshot of InteractionsScreenshot of Online collaboration toolScreenshot of 89,000+ course templates and images for faster course creation