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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 …
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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
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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

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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

(271)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 75)
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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use Articulate Storyline for the majority of eLearning content created in our organization, but have been exploring Adobe Captivate because we heavily use Creative Cloud and other Adobe apps. Primarily used for compliance and product training, typically rolling out to about 700 employees at our North American branch.
  • Early introduction of 360 degree photos
  • Very responsive interface, even on modest hardware
  • Easy editing/previewing of content for different screen sizes
  • 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.
For a long time if you wanted to use 360 degree photos, Captivate was stellar and made it pretty easy, but due to the slow pace of updates competitors have caught up and exceeded. I'd really love to see some innovation here, and in terms of "real" VR/headet support for some industry players like Meta and HTC. I find if I am creating a "traditional" eLearning, Captivate just feels cumbersome/archaic to navigate and create content in vs something like Articulate Storyline. I do still love that you can build responsive design in Captivate. It is annoying that competitors have created separate apps if you want responsive design, so Captivate is definitely a big winner there!
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We provide professional development and training for adults for educators, teachers, staff, and school site administration. We provide live in person, webinar, and self-paced trainings. We use Captivate to create our self-paced SCORM modules that we host in Schoology or PowerSchool Professional Learning LMS platforms.
  • Convert PowerPoint to SCORM.
  • Templates to start a design for eLearning.
  • YouTube how to video community.
  • More simple user interface for navigation.
  • More automated features.
  • Built in templates and ready to go features to plug and play.
  • Additional interactive features and elements to engage learners.
  • Learner Choice elements to easy add to a design.
We like Captivate, but there is a lot of time to learn it and for features we would like to do not as automated as we would have liked, you do need to program some features for the logic. We have not seen a new release since 2019 so we started to explore alternatives including Articulate 360 and GoMo and iSpring. We would like better collaboration features for several staff to work together on the same project.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Captivate to design eLearning for our clients. We are a SaaS company with 10 software products with release cycles from 2 to 4 weeks. The company I work for creates and/or updates approximately 200 courses a year.
  • Advanced Actions.
  • Customization.
  • User interactions.
  • Multi-state objects for users.
  • Crashes.
  • Lots of Space for a laptop.
  • Save early, save often.
Captivate is perfect for eLearning courses that require a user to click. It's also great for branching and simulations.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Captivate to create eLearning courses. The purpose of the courses is to train external customers on our product workflows.
  • screen simulations
  • ability to create multi-state objects
  • ability to create user-friendly interactions
  • Mostly it needs glitch/bug improvements - things disappear or just don't show up, such as state view for objects being used as buttons, etc.
  • It would be nice if you could expand the timeline to make the slides in it slightly larger, or at least provide 2 columns of slides.
Captivate works particularly well for our workflow simulations & user instructions.

We create "what's new" courses for each product release (usually monthly), but Captivate is too "clicky" for what we are trying to accomplish and have switched to Camtasia for that.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My team uses Adobe Captivate to build eLearning courses for our clients. Our clients learn how to use our software programs through the courses we build using Captivate.
  • Integrates knowledge checks easily.
  • Provides templates to get you started.
  • Programming advanced actions.
Captivate allows the simulation capture of programs, apps, and websites to develop on boarding training.
October 06, 2022

Captivate a Must Try!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
To create training materials for our client. Captivate assists with training gaps with our client.
  • User friendly.
  • Allows for diverse use.
  • I think that some of the issues may be address with Project Charm to make it even more user friendly.
  • Speed.
When creating eLearning content.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Captivate to guide teachers to train them on hands on products to then be able to give to students. The business problems we have faced using Captivate is the amount of data this program uses up. Captivate is probably not the best at being user friendly. These small problems could make business move a lot quicker.
  • Codes pretty well.
  • Works well when you tell it do the right thing.
  • Ability to change the state of object with ne and follow with the rest.
  • Common preferences made available rather than not.
  • Timeline needs to be better overall, as an 2d and 3d animator this timeline doesn't compare!
It will code a specific task to your liking in order to get the job done, such as trying to flip objects or make things show until all buttons/tabs have been selected really correspond to your needs.
October 06, 2022

Adobe Captivate

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As an instructional designer I use Adobe Captivate to create for e-learning courses and creating videos. I really like the different tools and features it has. There are so many ways to use Adobe Captivate to make it learning fun and interactive especially when it comes to training staff in a remote setting. I hope to continue to learn the different tools I can use with Adobe Captivate and implement it in the trainings. Great tool to use, I would definitely recommend Adobe Captivate to anyone who is responsible for creating videos and learning tools in any field. It is easy to use and navigate.
  • Font.
  • Audio.
  • Learning tool.
Best to use in creating learning tools.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Adobe Captivate to create software simulations training but we do not use the video simulations as recording is blocked by our ISO. We have a variety of software for servicing mortgages and consumer loans, so most of our training is software training. We do have some industry knowledge type training we offer as well.
  • Awesome graphic editing features like round-tripping from Adobe Captivate to Photoshop is a huge time saver.
  • The QuickStart slides are an amazing time saver.
  • The library functionality is very useful as well.
  • Ability to crop photos into shapes other than squares/rectangles would be useful.
  • Ability to preview just one slide or from any slide in scaled HTML5 format.
Adobe Captivate is well suited for software training. Even though we do not use the software simulation recording feature, we simulate the environment with screenshots and then roundtrip into Photoshop to make edits to a screenshot For example, they added 3 new fields and it affects 25 different slides in the course. I dummy up the 3 new fields in Photoshop, copy the layers with the new fields, flatten and save the screenshot and it's instantly updated in Abode Captivate. I then locate the next slide that needs the same new fields added and round trip into Photoshop and then I just select Paste in Place and flatten and save. The alignment is perfect and the screenshots never leave Adobe Captivate. I had a course that I had to do this to with about 25 slides and it was easy peasy.
October 05, 2022

Good

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I currently use Adobe Captivate to upload LMS content to Cornerstone. It is also a vehicle to easily attain certificates to training completions and skill and re-skill. One of the biggest troubles with Abode Captivate is to be able to learn the content and be able to apply it skillfully in works. It can be tedious to create variables that or even specially when just learning the how to use Adobe Captivate. It is an accomplishment to say I am near proficient status though I would like to be better at it.
  • Scoring exams.
  • Easy up-loadable content (images, jpeg)
  • Easy to edit text and animation.
  • Easier media management.
  • Interchangeable objects without changing the name/ variable.
  • Ability to work simultaneously on the same projects either with different slides or the same.
Adobe Captivate is great when showing new easy content to the user including website and software simulation. The guided actions that assist a new person in simulating data entry are great functions. It is also helpful when certificates and proof of an LMS are required. Sometimes, however, the design of a certificate does not translate correctly. Other times the certificate may need to look a particular way due to the policies and regulations of a company. It would be great if we had the capacity to create it easily instead of altering the templates that do not display like we may want.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We develop user content for our employees for SET (Skill Enhancement Training) and compliance training. We utilize Adobe Captivate by creating videos and quizzes to ensure understanding. We use Adobe Captivate also to upload our content to Cornerstone using a SCORM package that Adobe Captivate handles. It is very useful in all of our training sessions.
  • Custom presentations
  • Ability to embed video/music
  • Build quizzes and knowledge checkpoints
  • Interface
  • Steep learning curve
  • Needs "how to" videos
Well suited for creating content where eLearning is apparent. Its a must have application.
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