Adobe Captivate vs. Saba Cloud (legacy)

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

Our organization uses Saba Cloud primarily to manage all types of learning systems or staff training empirically. In addition, it provides us with a quick test-based follow-up to the trainees. We use Saba Cloud to train our clientele in a professional manner with respect to our worldwide online service. With this tool we are able to enhance the customer experience with the organization. Similarly, our organization uses Saba Cloud to monitor the performance and effectiveness of our employees and customers after having access to all the information provided by the application to subsequently make learning and development reports.

Incentivized

• 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 Personally, I think this is an outdated technology.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

• Skills Management - Saba has allowed us to set specific expectations for employees based upon their role, and this has clarified the skill requirements for employees.
• Goal Management - With Saba, managers can easily create goals aligned up to senior leadership, and then work with their direct reports to create supporting goals.
• Learning Management - Using Saba's built-in Smart Lists, assigning compliance training is a simple process that used to be a challenge in our former LMS.

Incentivized

• 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

• Saba continues to improve their reporting and analytics. While it is much improved over previous versions, it can be improved.
• Release Notes for system updates need to be delivered to admins farther in advance of the update in order to prepare properly.

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

Typically customers that acquire a Saba solution rarely move away. There are reasons and "legends" behind this. The investment is significant. Time and money are required to make the engine go smoothly. But once it runs at full capacity, it doesn't stop! Professional Services are extremely competent and able to close implementation gaps quickly.

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

As someone who creates classes and is also a learning administrator in the system, I have run into some issues with the system's capabilities for my needs. I am not a fan of having to use Adobe Captivate to download a PowerPoint presentation into the system, as my training sessions are much more than a glorified PowerPoint. Our organization has yet to turn on Saba Meetings, which may help with these limitations.

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

For the times that we have used the support provided by Saba, it has been a very pleasurable experience for our department. Part of our package with Saba includes a specified number of hours of "training" time with Saba. During these meetings, we have shared our desires of the product and the support personnel have either shown us how to accomplish our task or they have taken our requests to their developers to look at future enhancements. Overall, very pleased with the support.

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

Was not involved with integration.

Incentivized

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

We had extensive reviews with a plan of what we needed and must have out of the system, including custom learning paths and tracking inside our HRIS system to grant permissions and positions based on completed learning certifications and courses. We weighed each option and chose based on the one that met the most of the must-haves.

• 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

• This may seem small but with 90% of our workforce not at our main facility just the fact that since July 1, 2021, we have had over 18,956 compliance-related training completed by our staff. Do the math the ROI is wonderful.

Incentivized