Course Authoring Tools

TrustRadius Top Rated for 2023

Top Rated Products

(1-3 of 3)

1
Tovuti LMS

Tovuti's cloud-based learning management system (LMS) gives users tools to create, deliver, and track the effectiveness of eLearning programs. It helps users to create engaging interactive courses in minutes with Tovuti's interactive modules and a course creation suite. Users can…

2
Articulate 360

Articulate 360 is an e-learning course development subscription offering. It includes every Articulate authoring tool, including the latest version of Storyline and Rise, a web-based app for creating inherently responsive courses. The vendor offers a 30-day free trial.

3
Absorb LMS

Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.

All Products

(1-25 of 128)

1
Adobe Learning Manager

Adobe Learning Manager is a Learning Management System developed by Adobe Inc. that offers personalized learning at scale to employees, partners and customers alike. Compliant with GDPR guidelines, SOC2 TYPE 2 and FedRAMP Certifications, Adobe Learning Manager integrates with Adobe…

2
Articulate Storyline

Articulate Storyline is a learning content creation platform. It provides prebuilt and customizable content, along with gamification capabilities. Articulate emphasizes user-friendliness, including mobile accessibility. It is offered on a perpetual license.

3
Articulate 360

Articulate 360 is an e-learning course development subscription offering. It includes every Articulate authoring tool, including the latest version of Storyline and Rise, a web-based app for creating inherently responsive courses. The vendor offers a 30-day free trial.

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4
iSpring Suite

iSpring Suite helps users build courses that are mobile-ready and adaptive. It’s integrated with PowerPoint, so users can create the content in the familiar PPT interface without spending time on specific training. The toolkit supports the creation of professional courses, video…

5
Absorb LMS

Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.

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6
D2L Brightspace

Brightspace is an academic and corporate learning management platform. It provides core e-learning features, as well as mobile accessibility and granular personalization and analytics insights.

7
Tovuti LMS

Tovuti's cloud-based learning management system (LMS) gives users tools to create, deliver, and track the effectiveness of eLearning programs. It helps users to create engaging interactive courses in minutes with Tovuti's interactive modules and a course creation suite. Users can…

8
iSpring Learn

iSpring Learn is an LMS for automating corporate training and improving employee performance.The system aims to enable users without technical skills to launch eLearning in one day without training. To start training with the platform, administrators upload learning content, assign…

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9
Articulate Studio

Articulate Studio is a PowerPoint plugin used to develop elearning course content. It includes assessment, on-screen recording, and interactions integrations.

10
Kajabi

Kajabi is a web hosting platform for online learning or membership websites, featuring landing pages and support for email marketing, video hosting, and codeless web building tools.

11
Thinkific

Thinkific headquartered in Vancouver provides their system for online course and content creators to distribute their lessons to unlimited students, featuring content schedule distribution, some marketing features, certifications, as well as quizzes and surveys.

12
ProProfs LMS Software

ProProfs LMS is a learning management system software that is designed to help instructors create and deliver online training courses. The LMS offers both businesses and educational institutions comprehensive training solutions by allowing them to create online courses, complemented…

13
Rise

Rise, from Articulate Global, is a web-based system for course creation and learning, featuring a library of imagery and a collection of modular, customizable lessons on business topics relevant to every employee that can be mixed with the user's own content to develop custom courses…

14
Top Hat

Toronto-based Top Hat offers their higher education teaching apps, comprising Top Hat Classroom supporting flipped classroom and gamified lessons, Top Hat Textbook for delivering course content, Top Hat Assignment for customizable quizzes and graded tasks or homework, and Top Hat…

15
GoSkills

GoSkills is an online learning platform that helps teams of all sizes learn, share, and grow together.Through its learning management system (LMS), teams can create, manage, and track all their training in one central place. Key features include:Course assignment to an entire organization,…

16
Gnowbe

Gnowbe headquartered in San Francisco offers their mobile micro-learning application, for adult education.

17
Eurekos

The Eurekos LMS makes it easy to deliver product training that retains more customers and transforms partners into advocates.

18
Edtch.

Edtch. is a SaaS LMS with build-in course editor to power corporate training and certification platform. Users can create interactive and mobile-friendly online lessons to upskill colleagues and customers.

19
Cengage WebAssign

WebAssign by Cengage is an online learning solution designed to deliver online homework and secure testing, plus eTextbook and study resources for students. WebAssign enables faculty to customize the learning experience to meet any teaching style and encourage students to develop…

20
Poodll
0 reviews

Poodll is a small company that makes tools for language teachers on Moodle. It features audio and video assignments and quizzes, as well as auto graded speaking solutions and vocabulary learning tools that support multiple languages and allow the teacher to create their own activities.…

21
Near-Life CREATOR

Near-Life CREATOR is a platform that lets educators, learning professionals and other content creators make interactive video, VR and gamified content, so they can share immersive learning experiences that are more engaging, more memorable and more impactful. It helps users to…

22
Vasto
0 reviews

Vasto provides a cloud-based platform incorporating a Training Management System, Learning Management System, E-Learning, E-commerce and regulatory needs. It is presented as ideal for short course providers through to certificate and diploma courses. With a built-in Learning Management…

23
Loree
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Loree is designed to enable educators, learning designers, and independent organizations to build entire pages in minutes, giving precious time back to focus on educating students. It is built so that users with zero coding experience can create customized, accessible, and engaging…

24
mAuthor
0 reviews

mAuthor by Learnetic is a combination of an authoring tool and a cloud-based e-development platform. Addressed directly to publishers, it allows the creation of accessible, WCAG-compliant resources, fully interactive e-content supporting adaptive learning and the Big Data system.…

25
EasyProf
0 reviews

EasyProf ® is an authoring tool that allows users to create interactive multimedia courses, from Itanova (Innovative Training Academy SAS), owner of EasyProf ®, is a software company specialized in the development and implementation of global multimedia solutions for corporate knowledge…

Course Authoring Tools TrustMap

TrustMaps are two-dimensional charts that compare products based on trScore and research frequency by prospective buyers. Products must have 10 or more ratings to appear on this TrustMap.

Learn More About Course Authoring Tools

What are Course Authoring Tools?

Course Authoring Tools allow users to create and deploy customized interactive educational content. Course Authoring Tools let users create, share, run, and manage eLearning assets such as video, audio, tests, quizzes, surveys, graphs, assignments, and more for training, education, and performance measurement purposes. Course Authoring Tools can also offer gamification tools, branding options, and centralized file storage. Course Authoring Tools are flexible, and as such they can create content for both corporate and traditional education settings.

Course Authoring Tools are highly customizable, making them an efficient and effective way to provide personalized and branded training, onboarding, and examinations. Course Authoring Tools easily deploy eLearning content to learners, customers, and stakeholders as needed, allowing users to share documents, data, and assets with them. Finally, Course Authoring Tools analyzes course performance data, collects user feedback, and observes learner behavior, which allows authors to dynamically and continuously improve the eLearning process.

Course Authoring Tools and eLearning Content Providers have similar features and to some degree are discussed interchangeably. However, there is a major difference between them. Course Authoring Tools provide a toolkit that allows users to create complex, interactive content tailored to the needs of their organization. eLearning Content Providers offer prebuilt libraries of content designed to serve industry-specific training and education without providing robust user course creation tools.

Course Authoring Tools Features

The most common Course Authoring Tools features are:

  • Course and content creation features
  • Test, assignment, and evaluation tools
  • Learning reports and analytics
  • Survey construction, deployment, and analysis
  • Virtual classroom software
  • Integration with Learning Management Systems
  • Automated translation and localization services
  • Student and author collaboration tools
  • Learner participation, engagement, and performance reporting
  • Audio, video, animation, and image hosting, editing, and exporting
  • Gamification, simulation, and branching interaction tools
  • Folder and file import, export, and management
  • Multi-device and multiplatform support
  • Course and content templates
  • Integrated design guidance
  • Integrated e-mail management
  • Text to speech conversion
  • User access management
  • Single sign-on integration
  • API integration
  • User support, product tutorials, and knowledge bases
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Cloud, web, and on-premises deployment

Course Authoring Tools Comparison

When choosing the best Course Authoring Tools for you, consider the following:

Standalone software vs. LMS integration. Depending on the type of content you create, how frequently you create content, and the volume of assets you manage, you may find that a standalone Course Authoring Tool may be more beneficial than one that acts concurrently with Learning Management System (LMS). Standalone software grant more authoring control to the user, making it useful for experienced course authors or authors who need to focus on specialized content. LMS-integrated tools, on the other hand, are an extension of existing learning systems, and thus negate the need to switch products, learn new programs, or understand in-depth authoring tools. However, this benefit comes at the expense of having less robust design and creation features.

Content creation tools. The integrated content creation and editing features of a Course Authoring Tool will most likely be a deciding factor in choosing the best product for you. To some degree, each product will let you record, upload, edit, or store content such as videos, audio, and images. What they offer beyond these features can make a difference in creating effective courses. Certain products allow you to add and manage captions for video content and transcripts for audio files, making it an essential tool if your organization must comply with ADA accessibility standards.

Supported eLearning formats. Each Course Authoring Tool comes with a range of supported eLearning formats, and as such you should consider which format(s) you use and how well a product will facilitate using them. While authoring tools generally support the most popular formats (e.g. SCORM, AICC), it is crucial that the tool you select support your preferred format.

Responsive design features. If you plan to allow users to access course content from multiple devices and platforms, you’ll want to ensure that the Course Authoring Tools help with adequately and comfortably displaying assets on tablets and phones. The built-in previewers offered by some products address this concern by letting users preview master files from a variety of screen styles and operating systems.

Pricing Information

Course Authoring Tools pricing plans can vary based on the included features or anticipated users. The most common pricing plans are:

  • Per user pricing between $1 and $15 per month.
  • Flat per month pricing between $23 and $230 at the lowest subscription tiers.
  • Annual plans range between $490 and $999 per year for individuals, and $1,299 to $1,500 per year for teams at the lowest subscription tiers.
  • Perpetual (one-time purchase) licenses, starting $1,299. These usually provide limited vendor support compared to annual or per month plans.

Per-user pricing may be better choices for small organizations with fewer team members, while larger businesses may find the flat-rate or perpetual license costs more economical. Most vendors offer custom pricing, free trial periods, and demos.

More Resources

The following resources can you choose the best Course Authoring Tool for your organization:

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of using course authoring tools?

Course authoring tools are highly customizable, allowing businesses to independently create their own educational courses and training materials. They also make multimedia assets, such as video and interactive content, more accessible for non-technical users.

What is the difference between course authoring tools and eLearning content providers?

Course authoring tools provide a toolkit that allows administrators to create content for their specific needs. eLearning content providers offer prebuilt libraries of content designed to serve industry-specific training needs and educational coursework.

How much do course authoring tools cost?

Some tools offer limited free versions, and bigger suites may offer course authoring as a free version versus their paid platform offering. Pricing often starts from $500-900/author/year.

What are the best course authoring tools?

The course authoring tool with the most reviews on TrustRadius is iSpring Suite, which is a Top Rated product for 2021. HubSpot Academy received positive reviews from small businesses and mid-size companies.