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Adobe Captivate

Adobe Captivate

Overview

What is Adobe Captivate?

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.

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Recent Reviews

Captivate review

9 out of 10
October 07, 2022
Incentivized
I use Adobe Captivate to build customized eLearning for companies. Sometimes the units are for a wide audience such as for new hire …
Continue reading

Awesome elearning

9 out of 10
October 07, 2022
Incentivized
Captivate is powerful and builds great eLearning. It has a bit of a learning curve, but your end products will be well worth it. Our …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 8 features
  • Course authoring (29)
    10.0
    100%
  • Progress tracking & certifications (25)
    10.0
    100%
  • Learning content (23)
    9.0
    90%
  • Player/Portal (23)
    8.0
    80%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Subscription

$33.99

On Premise
per month

Student & Teacher Edition

$399

On Premise
one-time fee

Upgrade

$499

On Premise
one-time fee

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Adobe Captivate - Software Simulations and Video Demos

YouTube

Create your first video demo with Adobe Captivate (2017 Release)

YouTube

Adobe Captivate Animated Text - brief how to and samples

YouTube

Adobe Captivate Tutorial - Pan, Zoom, Picture-in-Picture - Captivate Training in Los Angeles

YouTube

HOW TO Record Video Demo with Adobe Captivate

YouTube

Demo PowerPoint to Captivate Demo

YouTube
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Features

Learning Management

Features of LMS and LCMS systems, related to designing, administering, and consuming learning content in an educational, corporate, or on-the-job context.

9.4
Avg 8.5
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Product Details

What is Adobe Captivate?

Adobe Captivate is an elearning authoring and course design tool (or LCMS). It allows users to rapidly author responsive, interactive learning eLearning content, as well as mobile HTML-5 learning content. Users can test courses with the preview LMS feature, and track the performance of learners as they complete quizzes and other tasks. Adobe Captivate includes some prebuilt templates and learning assets, but users also have the option to custom code their own complex learning workflows. Adobe Captivate integrates with SCORM-compliant LMS systems, including Adobe Captivate Prime.

Adobe Captivate Video

What is Adobe Captivate?

Adobe Captivate Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Reviewers rate Course authoring and Progress tracking & certifications and Social learning highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Adobe Captivate are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(270)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 127)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This is the most amazing software I have used there are lots of features but the thing I like about Adobe Captivate is that it has got webcam feature which lets you connect with your learners affectively is very easy to use and the best thing that learners can easily navigate and see the learning calendar which helps in scheduling course while training. This app is used in my organization for connecting and training and trust me it has great features. Adobe products have very good interface including this software moreover you can customize courses as it suits you. This Software is interactive allowing the end user to simulate the software. The recording function is easy to use. Edits are simple. And As a registered Adobe user, I like the fact that I can create assets within the Adobe Creative Suite and then use them within Adobe Captivate LMS. The quality is very high in Adobe so I recommend the integration of Adobe assets with this LMS
  • Excellent Multi Tenanting configuration
  • can easily navigate
  • Difficulty using the function of setting up a menu
  • The pricing is expensive
  • Adobe Captivate Should give more than 30 days of trial
In my organization i have to make so many training courses and sessions and Adobe Captivate is simple software band it saves my times and energy and It is very easy to use and the best thing that I like is that learners can easily navigate and see the learning calendar which helps in scheduling course while training. The analytics in Adobe Captivate is helpful and I can set up user roles and permissions at six different levels, including Learner. It's very amazing and I can upload courses, videos, PowerPoint, PDF files and more and they show nicely using Adobe Captivate's Fluidic Player these features helped me save my time.
Andy Wong Wing Cho | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Adobe Captivate as part of the Learning Management System (LMS) for the HR Training team. We are using Adobe Captivate to publish training material and courses through LMS to all our employees. We are trying to consolidate all the training platforms.
  • Publishes training and courses to all employees
  • Creation of test questions
  • Need to improve on the user interface and more user friendly
  • Import project, copy slide sometimes may cause slide resolution not aligned
Able to publish training and courses fast but need to improve on the user interface for better user experience using Adobe Captivate.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Elearning of language learning to foreign military.
ESL

Using video photos and audio and test knowledge
  • organize media
  • text knowledge
  • ease of using
  • better use of multiple videos
  • graphics editing
  • speech to text
Educational training Task Based knowledge. Engaging media in learning
October 12, 2022

Adobe Captivate Review

Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Courseware development that solves the training needs of multiple departments in the company.
  • 360 View
  • Video insertions
  • Take-home license option
  • The top issue is with Adobe Captivate vaporware - several years of Adobe promises of updates. Adobe Captivate is still called "2019". I've reviewed the prototype on several occasions over the course of 2 years, yet nothing is coming to market.
  • Since Adobe dropped 360 view support in Photoshop, how are we supposed to edit 360 photos in Captivate? I feel this is very disappointing since Adobe Captivate's 360 feature is amazing. We've had to use non-Adobe products like Affinity to support the 360 feature.
  • Adobe Captivate courses frequently lock up in SumTotal LMS (SCORM 2004 v3), while other products like Articulate work flawlessly.
  • PowerPoint import is a big problem for us. In my experience, Adobe Captivate maintains hooks into the original PPT file, causing many problems and fails if the referenced PPT is updated or moved.
  • No easy way to darken previous bullets after they have passed to the next bullet unless we use complicated scripting.
  • Adobe Captivate is not part of Creative Suite, even though it depends on Creative Suite for many editing tools (imaging editing, video editing, etc.). It also makes licensing a challenge for the company.
  • In my opinion, the timeline is clunky and buggy, especially when adjusting the end position. Some blocks in the timeline jump around instead of moving and/or truncating with the end-point adjustments.
Well suited for developers who need a short learning curve and if using Adobe's LMS. Not appropriate if LMS is something other than Adobe's LMS.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Adobe Captivate to design self paced eLearning for our staff and administrators. These courses are used to supplement our in person professional development. We also use Captivate to develop courses that are required in our industry. This helps to ensure compliance with our state laws and local school board regulations. Captivate has been our go to eLearning software for many years.
  • Uses industry recognized standards for building eLearning. (SCORM files)
  • Is part of the Adobe suite of products and has resources and assets from Adobe.
  • Is continuing to evolve with the ever changing world of eLearning development
  • Captivate is slightly behind the curve in its development cycle.
  • Captivate would benefit from a collaborative workspace.
  • Captivate would benefit from cloud saving features.
While Captivate is a very powerful product, it does suffer from a design that is dated and hard to navigate. Once learned the product is powerful and very functional. However the learning curve, as with most Adobe products, is very steep. As such new users can find it hard to use the product initially. Captivate would see dramatically increased market share if it overhauled its UI.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization uses Adobe Captivate to develop web-based trainings and software simulations for various federal government agencies.
  • Software simulations.
  • 360° Virtual Reality features.
  • Create interactive training.
  • Accessibility - as a federal contractor required by law Section 508 but few have knowledge as to how to apply outside of simple screens.
  • Ease of use for new users - it is not easy to know how to use without any training.
  • Tricky settings - not always clear of the meaning.
Well suited for knowledgeable users, 360, software simulations.
Less appropriate - new users with no training, complex screens as difficult to make accessible.
October 07, 2022

Captivate review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Adobe Captivate to build customized eLearning for companies. Sometimes the units are for a wide audience such as for new hire orientation, while other times the lessons are for a small and specialized group of roles. It's been shown that when adult learners have some control over their progression, that they are more likely to engage with the material. So I strongly appreciate that I can use advanced features to build flexibility and user choices into the lessons. I also frequently use the multi-state potential of objects to visually show progression through a sequence.
  • Multi-state objects, changing states upon triggers helps make otherwise dry content much more dynamic.
  • I really appreciate that I can respond to knowledge check questions with visual feedback, audio feedback, or forced review of relevant slide.
  • I really, really appreciate that Captivate is very flexible and gives me control over so many aspects. I can be as creative as I want which helps me build more appealing lessons.
  • I appreciate that Adobe includes users in the feedback loop for new versions. But I would like for more explanation on new features, how to use, where feature parameters have been moved to, what features have been renamed to, etc.
  • Currently bulleted lists are animated as a block. If I want bullet points to animate synchronized with narration, then I have to create separate text blocks for each bullet. The end result is that copying my text from my notes is no more faster than typing. The workflow is either copy one short phrase and paste into a new text block vs typing the phrase. And then do the same thing for each bullet. (Sigh...)
  • I've had several situations where I'd like to have something travel on a path. For example, if I have a line graph, it would be nice to draw the line's path, but have it grow over a few seconds, or even haltingly. I once used an AA to show this, but it took quite a while to write it out (especially because writing it out is selecting each action from a drop down list). I had several states of the line graph and in each state I had the line grow another unit with a yellow highlight, proceeding down the line's path. So the AA sequence was delay by 1 second, change state to 2, delay by 1 second, change state to 3, delay... and on and on. The AA was a dozen or so lines long.
  • I saw a webinar a while back about lottie files. It seems that they could make a lesson more dynamic. Could Adobe add the ability to incorporate lotties into a lesson?
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.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Adobe Captivate to create mandatory training for compliance. Helps to track and connect with data in Powered BI. Will start using it for supplemental training and learning.
  • User friendly.
  • Integrate with LinkedIn Learning.
  • Access to government cloud.
Captivate is well suited for professionals beginning to create eLearning.
October 07, 2022

Awesome elearning

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Captivate is powerful and builds great eLearning. It has a bit of a learning curve, but your end products will be well worth it. Our learners love the interactivity that Captivate provides and our designers love the flexibility that they have when building out products. It's a great product and it's really flexible.
  • Incorporates JavaScript.
  • Serves as a great platform for building learning games.
  • Creates brilliant eLearning.
  • It's responsive but not quite responsive.
  • There's a lot to remember about how to make it do things.
  • The learning curve can be steep.
Captivate is perfect for building corporate training. It's good for difficult concepts and gamification. My clients love it.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Captivate specifically for the software simulations. It allows our providers to simulate ordering in the electronic medical record.
  • Software simulations.
  • Videos.
  • 360 slides.
  • It crashes a lot.
Interactive software simulations.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Adobe Captivate to create interactive video presentations. You can easily add video assets, build interactivity, and add assessment questions all in one application. Typical delivery includes publishing to a SCORM package and uploading to an LMS. Adobe Captivate allows us to expedite the content creation process by leveraging templates and saved actions to build out our eLearning solutions.
  • Easily add video to Captivate projects.
  • Program interactions without prior coding skills.
  • Target mobile devices with responsive layouts.
  • Responsive design programing could be expedited with premade widgets.
  • More finished templates and interactions.
  • Improved interface in line with other Adobe tools.
Adobe Captivate shines when creating true multimedia experiences - audio, video, and interactions. The timeline allows you to easily place content on each slide and visualize how the user will interact with each element over time. If you are trying to do simple quizzes or polling, Adobe Captivate may be the wrong tool when create this type of content.
October 07, 2022

Captivate is AWESOME!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Captivate to create engaging, fun, and interactive training content for employees and franchisees.
  • Design.
  • Interactive features.
  • Easy to use.
  • More training available online.
Captivate is appropriate for most training scenarios. The VR functionality is a game changer.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Captivate to develop courses for the FBI. The ONLY reason we use it, is because that's what the FBI picked. The software doesn't solve any problems. We use Storyline and import the files into Captivate.
  • Be clunky.
  • Take 50 steps to do what Storyline can do in 3.
  • Crash often.
  • Annoy my employees.
  • Captivate seems like an Adobe Money Grab. Nothing more. It's the worst product for course development that has ever existed (even worse than Lectora). Tear it down and start again. Just copy Storyline.
  • There are too many settings. No need for all of that. Storyline is way easier, simpler, and robust.
It's not well suited for anything, in my opinion. Also the responsive features are HORRIBLE. Abandon it and just scale down the HTML.
October 07, 2022

What Captivates me...

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the product to create content for our e-learning audience. Our audience can range from 10 - 1500+ people.
  • Displays content in simple fashion.
  • User Friendly interface.
  • Easy to create and display created content.
Captivate helps with how we distribute and show content to our learners when we have had a change in product and policy. It has helped to make the processing and crating the content easier.
October 07, 2022

Wide range of tools

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Adobe Captivate to convert instructor-led training decks, into asynchronous learning modules.
  • Create interactions.
  • Convert PowerPoints.
  • Branching.
  • Adding different coding languages aside from Javascript.
  • Making advanced interactions more intuitive.
  • Editing images to fit project sizes within the application.
Creating training scenarios using branching and multiple outcomes. Creating games for training purposes.
October 07, 2022

Great product!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use to educate clients on new product features.
  • Create courses.
  • Easy to integrate with current technology.
  • Works great.
  • More visibility in the marketplace.
When you need to add html functionality to your courses.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Technical eLearning for paint products.
  • Traditional eLearning.
  • Audio closed captions.
  • Basic transition.
  • Interaction.
  • Video closed caption.
  • Multi-language.
  • Text to speech quality.
An eLearning for LMS recording is a good fit.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We build interactive training available on-demand to our staff. In our industry it is often difficult to get staff together to attend an in-person training. Captivate allows us to build customized training that meets the needs of our organization that can be accessible when staff have the time. The courses we build touch everyone from executive leadership down to individual contributor level employees.
  • Integration with other Creative Cloud products.
  • Customization through advanced actions.
  • Stock assets.
  • Should always be responsive, like Articulate, without having to build with fluid boxes.
Captivate is a great tool to use when creating scenario-based training.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Adobe Captivate is our authoring tool for e-Learning. We use this to create e-Learning content to deploy to employed and non-employee staff.
  • Interactive learning.
  • Flexibility with Advanced Actions.
  • Access to assets.
  • More animation options.
  • Better text to voice options.
  • Responsive design is challenging to work with.
I love using Captivate - honestly the only thing I tell people is that they would want to be prepared to take a training on it like from ATD to maximize the use and to quickly adapt. They can't just pick it up and start using it.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Captivate to create software and IT related training for my company. Captivate allows me to create high quality software demos, record dynamic video content, and to design scenario based training that engages and informs employees at every level of my company. Captivate allows me to create training content that is interactive and allows my learners to engage with the training rather than simply be passive watchers.
  • Create interesting, interactive training.
  • Capture high-quality video demos.
  • Customize training for the training needs of my learners.
  • Modernize the user interface.
  • Better QA/review functionality.
  • Better Text-to-Speech functionality.
Captivate is a great resource for any organization that has a use for dynamic and custom asynchronous elearning content for any learner group or age; from professional organizations to K-12 learning. I would not recommend Captivate for anyone needing to present live training demos or to interact with users in a synchronous environment.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Adobe Captivate to develop training for company technicians and professionals. We develop full virtual curriculum scenarios to prepare learners for new internal certifications and training basics.

Captivate enables us to develop a single training tat we can assign out to the company nationwide.
  • Click through learning.
  • Scenario based training.
  • Gamification.
  • Interconnection to Creative Cloud i.e. Photoshop, Illustrator.
  • Direct connection to Storyline or Microsoft Word for improved captioning.
  • Ability to import .srt captions exported from Premier Pro for videos or from Audition.
  • Audio syncing could used a little boost so timeline and captions/action/animation can be more accurate.
Captivate is well suited for click through learning as well as for scenario based training. Additionally Captivate can be a great upgrade to traditional PowerPoint based training.
October 07, 2022

Captivating eLearning

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Company-wide use through LMS. Business problems: orientation, human resources, IT, product knowledge, etc.
  • Scenario-based learning.
  • Software simulations.
  • Product knowledge.
  • Sales training.
  • Simpler one-off presentations vis-à-vis Articulate Rise.
  • Incorporating video (i.e. editing).
Well-suited: Onboarding presentations, scenario-based learning.

Less appropriate: marketing presentations.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I design learning models for the FAA, moving from PP to Captivate.
  • Move the learner through a lesson.
  • Work with Illustrator and Photoshop.
  • HTML problems.
  • It is not intuitive.
  • Hard to move the subjects in PP to Captivate, unless images.
I would like it to be more intuitive and easier to use.
October 06, 2022

Lovely Product

Christine Iwamuro-Wilson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Software demos, simulation, captures. Media support for other departments when necessary. We do not necessarily address business problems, we use media/videos to support our organization in various ways.
  • Software Simuation
  • Software Demo
  • PowerPoint uploads
  • Software capture during software testing
  • Produce/Render screen captures onto word document with keystrokes
  • Triggers are not always accurate
  • Does not capture all point clicks in a simulation
It is kind of hard to pin point whether it is well suited or not unless I have completed a needs assessment for training needs with another department. We determine what applications we will use as well as how we deliver training (e.g. eLearning, demos, sims). Not every department within our company needs an eLearning, demo, or sim). So very early on we determine whether we have need of Captivate or not.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use it find learning solutions. I also teach workshops on it and like to add external web objects. I'm known for importing web and Animate files (OAM). I then use JavaScript to get the two objects to talk to each other.
  • Mobile development.
  • Exporting to HTML5.
  • Advanced Actions.
  • The built int JavaScript editor.
It's well suited for rapid development of eLearning. It's good that it works with an LMS well and can produce some nice looking content.

It does need some newer templates and the JavaScript window SUCKS. I tend to write the code else where and then paste it into the JS window.
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