Adobe Captivate vs. Trainual

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
Trainual
Score 6.7 out of 10
N/A
Trainual is a modern training manual for growing businesses. It provides one simple tool that aims to help users centralize processes and policies, automate onboarding and training, and build a foundation to scale faster. The vendor says Trainual is designed for small to medium sized businesses that are growing quickly and eager to document systems and processes, define step-by-step workflows, eliminate grey area between roles, and ensure that training happens consistently, every…
$119
per month
Pricing
Adobe CaptivateTrainual
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
Pro
$119
per month
Premium
$179
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe CaptivateTrainual
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
Features
Adobe CaptivateTrainual
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Captivate
9.4
30 Ratings
10% above category average
Trainual
9.4
9 Ratings
14% above category average
Course authoring10.029 Ratings9.48 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.018 Ratings9.48 Ratings
Player/Portal8.023 Ratings9.68 Ratings
Learning content9.023 Ratings9.59 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications10.025 Ratings9.59 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics9.018 Ratings9.16 Ratings
Social learning10.014 Ratings8.66 Ratings
Gamification9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly00 Ratings9.67 Ratings
Assignments00 Ratings9.48 Ratings
Compliance management00 Ratings9.68 Ratings
Learning administration00 Ratings9.37 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe CaptivateTrainual
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Enterprises
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe CaptivateTrainual
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(127 ratings)
9.7
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
1.8
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.8
(18 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.7
(2 ratings)
-
(0 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 CaptivateTrainual
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
Trainual
We have offices set around the world, and hiring new team members in certain countries makes it a bit difficult, especially now to fly out or fly in to help get them situated and fully trained. This really helps close the gaps in between the distance and training. Makes onboarding a heck of a lot easier.
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
Trainual
  • Tracks progress for training.
  • Easily determines a new hires competency in handling tasks on their own.
  • Houses all of our documents and videos in one location versus several.
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
Trainual
  • The subject organization could use work! It's just jumbled and needs folders.
  • It's very cumbersome to have to click back and forth to subjects when you are within a task. I wish there was a larger side bar that could show ALL subjects, topics, and tasks in one glance with drop-down menus.
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
Trainual
No answers on this topic
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
Trainual
No answers on this topic
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.
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Trainual
During the entire sales process, the Trainual team was great to work with. After the sale, their onboard process was top notch as well and was very quick to answer any questions and actually were open to customizing the platform to meet our specific needs. They have been great this entire time.
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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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Trainual
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
Trainual
  • This is our first time using anything like this!
  • Previously we just wrote task items in shared Google documents. It was the best of what we could do at the time, but this is a whole different world, and we love it! Being able to integrate quizzes and photos and interactive video is excellent!
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.
Read full review
Trainual
  • Saves time for the team for training
  • The fact that everything is in one location is really good!
  • Allows us to edit and change and adjust as the business does
  • Keeps us flexible and not cemented to a way of doing things
Read full review
ScreenShots