Adobe Captivate vs. ProProfs LMS Software

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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Well-suited for:

• Teachers who want to give their quizzes to many students (not just through their own university's LMS).
• Teachers who don't need something to dazzle their students.

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• 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 Personally, I think this is an outdated technology.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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• Our larger projects are easy to manage now.
• Easy video uploading helps us to entice the learners.
• I love the fact that I can access the development and performance tracking within the same platform.

• 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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• ProProfs is very bland-looking, rather Web 1.0. They have a very limited-number of templates, and they are not customizable. If the company is making any money, I think they should try to make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
• ProProfs quizzes are not responsive to devices. A quiz looks exactly the same on an iPhone as it does on a computer screen. Students live in a world where everything they access online is customized to the device they use, but a ProProfs quiz will have small type on an iPhone, and won't allow a zoom by pinching.
• Uploading images, audio, and video when making a quiz is a time-consuming task. Takes a lot of clicks. And there's no way to see your own library of uploaded stuff, so when you want to use a previously-uploaded image, you can't just find it in your account and attach it, you have to upload the same image every time. It's tedious.
• Other LMSs I've used in the past year, like BookWidgets and iSpring Quiz Maker have a good deal more variety of question types than ProProfs. For example, you can't touch, drag and drop an answer on a blank from a word bank with a ProProfs quiz. Matching-type questions in ProProfs are limited to drop-down menu choices or radio buttons. There's no HTML5 magic at work.
• ProProfs support is not bad (response within a day), but they can't explain frequent glitches that occur. Example: Nearly every time a class takes a quiz, there's ONE student who presses "submit" and their answers don't get submitted; instead, the loading circle just keeps rotating and the student panics, and then the student has to press refresh on their web browser, and --sometimes, but not always-- all their responses are erased and they have to take the quiz again. And there's nothing that a teacher can do. It's dreadful. Tell ProProfs about it, and they dodge the bullet because I wasn't able to give them enough info they required (e.g. what kind of phone?, what kind of OS?, what version?, was the device facing North?, etc).
• ProProfs UI has not changed significantly in the 4 years I've been using them. I get the feeling that they're not trying hard enough.

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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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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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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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ProProfs deserves the best of the best ratings. It makes learners the prime focus of every step of learning, and that’s the greatest thing about it. Besides, arranging and putting different relevant content together is a walk in the park. Everything is so straightforward. If you look at the customization options, they are equally amazing.

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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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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Since the tool is built for enterprise training programs and is incredibly easy to use, I’d say it is highly recommendable.

• 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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• ProProfs irons out all the hurdles to efficient and effective training.
• We see greater engagement and assignment completion rate with trainees.
• Room for customization gives a sense of ownership to us.