Adobe Captivate vs. ON24

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Captivate
Score 6.3 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
ON24
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
ON24 is an intelligent engagement platform, that enables customers to continuously engage audiences with AI-powered, hyper-personalized webinar, virtual event and content experiences.N/A
Pricing
Adobe CaptivateON24
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
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe CaptivateON24
Free Trial
YesNo
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 CaptivateON24
Considered Both Products
Adobe Captivate
ON24
Chose ON24
In the end, it boiled down to video quality and ease of use. The video had to be in HD and stay in sync, plus it had to be easy for a contractor to sign in and participate. ON24 gave me the ability to customize the user experience. I could pre-set the user dashboard, but they …
Chose ON24
ON24 provides the most flexibility, options for customization, ease of use, and best reporting platform for external, consumer-facing lead generation events. It's too bloated and expensive for basic video streaming or internal training, where some of the other options would …
Features
Adobe CaptivateON24
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
9.1
31 Ratings
6% above category average
ON24
-
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 Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
8.4
1 Ratings
1% below category average
ON24
-
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
Online Meetings / Events
Comparison of Online Meetings / Events features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
-
Ratings
ON24
6.1
412 Ratings
30% below category average
Calendar integration00 Ratings7.8355 Ratings
Meeting initiation00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
Integrates with social media00 Ratings2.02 Ratings
Record meetings / events00 Ratings6.7394 Ratings
Slideshows00 Ratings6.7391 Ratings
Event registration00 Ratings6.7388 Ratings
Online Events Collaboration
Comparison of Online Events Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
-
Ratings
ON24
7.4
415 Ratings
9% below category average
Live chat00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
Audience polling00 Ratings7.3376 Ratings
Q&A00 Ratings7.9412 Ratings
Online Events Security
Comparison of Online Events Security features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
-
Ratings
ON24
8.3
383 Ratings
2% below category average
User authentication00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Participant roles & permissions00 Ratings8.4373 Ratings
Confidential attendee list00 Ratings8.5356 Ratings
Online Events Marketing
Comparison of Online Events Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
-
Ratings
ON24
7.6
389 Ratings
8% below category average
Branding options00 Ratings8.5381 Ratings
Integration to Marketing Automation00 Ratings7.5334 Ratings
Attendee list export00 Ratings6.737 Ratings
Virtual Event
Comparison of Virtual Event features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
-
Ratings
ON24
7.0
41 Ratings
13% below category average
Email marketing00 Ratings6.037 Ratings
Audience engagement00 Ratings7.541 Ratings
Event analytics00 Ratings7.641 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe CaptivateON24
Small Businesses
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Whova
Whova
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Cvent Event Diagramming
Cvent Event Diagramming
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Infosec Skills
Infosec Skills
Score 9.9 out of 10
Cvent Event Diagramming
Cvent Event Diagramming
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe CaptivateON24
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(128 ratings)
8.2
(458 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(9 ratings)
7.3
(43 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(8 ratings)
6.9
(27 ratings)
Availability
1.8
(1 ratings)
7.0
(209 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
2.7
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
5.8
(18 ratings)
5.9
(32 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
4.3
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.7
(2 ratings)
1.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
5.5
(1 ratings)
2.7
(5 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.6
(2 ratings)
1.0
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
7.9
(228 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
1.0
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe CaptivateON24
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
ON24
I find that ON24 caters for all types of organisations, having it allows for more choice/options. The experience around virtual events if fantastic and the ON24 team is constantly improving the platform. If you want to run a virtual events programme where you want to generate leads and track engagement, then ON24 is the platform for you
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
ON24
  • Registration pages are easy to build and look clean
  • Console (audience view) offers many tools to use for presentations and to engage the audience
  • Reporting and analytics are robust and provide detailed reports that help us process attendees in our marketing database
  • Support team and responsive and helpful
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
ON24
  • There was a recent update within the past year where the UX designer or developer thought it would be best to wide all titles from the audience view until they placed their mouse on top of the window. That was the worst mistake, as we have a moderator script where we tell the audience what each of the tool bars are and they can’t grasp what the tool is without putting their mouse there. From an accessibility standpoint point, it’s back to 1999 when there was no laws about accessibility.
  • Number one above is a major pain point.
  • ON24 needs to do a better job of introducing features and soliciting feedback from their customers vs making a high impactful change like #1 described above.
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
ON24
ON24 is everything we expected and everything we needed. It's simple to use, extremely customizable, and scales very easily. The integration to our CRM makes ON24 major lead generator for our sales team from our established webinars series. We can automate lead delivery to our sales team as well. If anything, we will look to expand our partnership in the future.
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
ON24
97% of our attendees say it is the best trainings they have every attended. But they other 3% have a horrible experience (while watching the event live) interesting fact. On24 uses two different encoders for live vs OnDemand. I have never had issues with the On-Demand experience. My only complaints come during live events
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Adobe
No answers on this topic
ON24
ON24 is always available when I have a question about a new feature, if I'm having issues during a live webinar, or if I'm having issues with a webinar on the backend. Our client support specialist, Heather Haines, has always been incredibly consistent with getting me the answers I need when I need them.
Read full review
Performance
Adobe
No answers on this topic
ON24
Sometimes (it may be my computer) i cant login to ON24. I create a new PW and then i still cant get in. I clear cache/try new browser etc. and nothing works. I come back in a few hours and its like the problem never existed, its the strangest thing. Outside of that everything works pretty seamless. We've ran into a few bumps with Marketo talking to ON24 and passing reg through but have that figured out now. Not being able to be on a VPN when connecting to webcam on the presenter side does cause issues for our government speakers.
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
ON24
ON24 support is really good with the 24/5 support chat line, where someone actually responds within 30 seconds. The customers success team is also really good and our rep is very helpful with all our questions. Whenever we have more technical questions, she will bring on a IT designer or a tech specialist on our calls for additional comments and help.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
ON24
Most points of relevance were covered as far as I can remember.
Read full review
Online Training
Adobe
No answers on this topic
ON24
On24 has amazing ON-Demand trainings that you can use at anytime and they walk you through step by step on different topics/ they are always updating and innovating and putting out new trainings. I would highly reccomend the trainings and reading the documents they have created. They also do live webinars on a rolling basis that are filled with so much knowledge and Information
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.
Read full review
ON24
We had a few training's, which were broken up, and focused on specific areas of how to use the platform. Mostly though, a lot of it is just dedicating your time to learning and exploring what the possibilities are for enhancing your webinars
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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
ON24
From what I've seen, ON24 is built specifically to meet the needs of event marketing (or marketing generally), versus the other platforms which are more about simply providing a mechanism to hold virtual meetings. The integration with sales and marketing systems is really valuable. I don't know about pricing differences, but if the competitors were comparable, I would still select ON24.
Read full review
Scalability
Adobe
No answers on this topic
ON24
The ON24 platform is straightforward to use and train clients on, which is a huge plus. Clients appreciate its features and simplicity. Internally, we receive valuable analytical data from webinar events, enabling the organization to make data-driven decisions. This helps us optimize strategies and drive success for B2B businesses effectively.
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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.
Read full review
ON24
  • We get a lot of MQLs from our webinars. The integration with SFDC is a game changer over platforms that don't offer that integration.
  • The addition of emojis and chat to our event consoles has greatly increased our engagement.
  • We love marketing the fact that on-demand viewers can still submit questions and we'll answer them by email. Who else can say that?
  • We would like to be able to make changes to all console elements after events have taken place. Sometimes stuff just needs to be updated.
  • As we improve our audience segmentation, we are looking forward to the segment customization options that are now available on the console.
  • The webinars ON24 sponsors provide us with some great ideas for improving our overall strategic marketing.
Read full review
ScreenShots

ON24 Screenshots

Screenshot of Red Whale creates webinar series, Deep Dives, to engage General Practitioners.Screenshot of SAP Concur takes its customer activation workshops virtual with ON24.Screenshot of Atheanhealth broadcasts an authentic conversation with industry thought leaders to its audience.Screenshot of SAS creates webinar series, Analytics in 20, to education product best practices in short amount of time.Screenshot of NVIDIA creates always-on content library filled with webinars with ON24 Engagement Hub, segmented by different languages and geo-locations.Screenshot of ADP, using ON24 Target, creates personalized landing pages to encourage and accelerate ADP benefit enrollment.  This resource page has on-demand webinars, help articles and ways to immediately enroll.