The 9 Best Adobe Captivate Alternatives

If you’re a novice instructional designer who is looking for the right course creation tool, chances are you’ve come across Adobe Captivate, one of the biggest players in the industry. But its popularity doesn’t guarantee that it will meet your specific authoring needs. Or you may have already tried Adobe Captivate, but it wasn’t quite your cup of tea because of the complexity of the user interface.

In this article, we’ll look at the 9 best Adobe Captivate alternatives that may be a better fit for you or for your HR teams. We’ll analyze their features, see who they are appropriate for, and compare pricing to facilitate you in making the best choice.

The Best Adobe Captivate Alternatives

Also read: The 10 Best eLearning Authoring Tools: Top Picks

1. iSpring Suite

Type: Desktop + Web
OS: Windows 
Starting price: $770 per user/year

iSpring Suite is an Adobe Captivate alternative tailored to create eLearning courses easily and rapidly. It’s integrated into PowerPoint, so you can leverage and repurpose existing presentations. Besides, this integration means that those who have created PPT decks will be able to pick it up and start authoring immediately.

With iSpring, you can create great looking courses that include interactive quizzes, interactions, video tutorials, and role-play simulations for mastering communication skills. A quiz maker, a simulation builder, a video studio, and all the other built-in iSpring components are easy to navigate and follow the same design principles. So, once you get the hang of one, there will be no problem with the others.

The iSpring Suite Max package offers a vast content library filled with characters, locations, icons, and slide templates, so you don’t need to search the Internet for high-quality images and can create professional-looking training videos even with no design skills. It also comes with iSpring Cloud, an online service for collaboration on eLearning content.

Key features

• Professional video studio for recording screencasts and webcam videos

• Robust tool for creating interactive quizzes and surveys with 14 question types
• Built-in tool for creating role-plays with branching scenarios
• Text-to-speech function
• Ability to convert Word and PDF documents into interactive flipbooks
• Strong capabilities for course player customization
• Content library with 89,000 eLearning assets and templates
• Cloud space for fast content sharing and collaboration
• Compatible with AICC, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, xAPI (Tin Can), and cmi5
• Ability to create courses in HTML5 format ready for mobile learning

Get the iSpring Suite free trial

Pricing

$770/year (for the basic package) and $970/year (for iSpring Suite Max)

2. Articulate Storyline 360

Type: Desktop
OS: Windows, Mac
Starting price: $1,099 per user/year

Articulate Storyline is another desktop Adobe Captivate alternative. It allows you to design slide-based engaging courses with audio/video narration, animations, quizzes, and screen recordings. It also boasts advanced features like triggers and layers that provide great capabilities for custom eLearning development.

With Articulate Storyline, you can create customized courses with a high level of interactivity. However, new employees will definitely find it challenging to use Storyline because there aren’t many built-in interaction templates, so it takes a lot of time to learn how to create them from scratch.

However, a collection of course templates, backgrounds, characters, buttons, and icons that come with the tool will certainly make the authoring process easier and faster. 

Key features

• Similar to the PowerPoint interface, but more opportunities for content customization

• Let you create complex interactions with object states, triggers, and layers

• Tools for screen and webcam recording and simple video editing

• 20 predefined, form-based questions for building quizzes

• A wide collection of templates, characters, and stock media

• Text-to-speech function

• Customizable course player settings

• Compatible with AICC, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, xAPI (Tin Can), and cmi5

Also read: iSpring Suite vs Articulate 360 — A Comprehensive Comparison

Pricing

$1,399/year (for teams) or $1,099/year (for individuals) for the entire Articulate 360 suite

3. Articulate Rise 360

Type: Web
OS: All
Starting price: $1,099 per user/year

Articulate Rise is a software similar to Adobe Captivate available through an Articulate 360 subscription. It allows you to build courses in the longread format from built-in blocks such as text, images, multimedia, knowledge checks, and interactions. 

In spite of the fact that the tool enables you to build good-looking interactive courses that are fully responsive and you don’t need to be a tech geek for this, it is quite limited in terms of functionality. For example, it provides only 4 question types for creating quizzes and has no video recording or editing capabilities.

However, it’s still a good tool if you need to create basic training courses quickly and have no learning platform to deliver the content to learners. Articulate Rise is an Adobe Captivate replacement that provides capabilities for storing content, enrolling learners in courses, and keeping track of their results.

Key features

• Ability to create responsive courses quickly, right in a browser

• Works on the Mac, Windows, and Linux OS

• Content library with royalty-free images, videos, icons, and characters

• Compatible with AICC, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, xAPI (Tin Can), and cmi5

• Allows you to collaborate on content with your team members

• Online space for storing and sharing the content on the same learning platform

• Basic reporting capabilities

Pricing

$1,399/year (for teams) or $1,099/year (for individuals) for the entire Articulate 360 suite

4. Elucidat

Type: Web
OS: All
Starting price: No price listed; need to contact the vendor

Elucidat is another cloud-based Adobe Captivate replacement that enables you to produce high-quality digital learning with no coding or design background. You can start authoring with preset templates that come with a downloadable storyboard, a live example, and in-line guidance.

The tool boasts a wide range of question types for online quizzes and allows you to create personalized pathways through your content based on user actions using Rules. However, it doesn’t provide you with the functionality needed to record audio and video or build role-play simulations. 

Like Articulate Rise, Elucidate is a good option if you need a single platform for creating basic eLearning courses, sharing them with learners, and tracking which learners have started, completed, and passed or failed a course.

Key features

• Ready-made course templates for fast content authoring

• Compatible with SCORM and xAPI (Tin Can)

• Ability to add animation effects and page transitions

• Ability to create tailored pathways in courses

• Ability to create fully tailored page layouts for your projects

• Great capabilities for creating brand-compliant learning

• Easy to access data about how users engage with learning content

• Online space for storing and collaborating on content

Pricing

No price listed; must contact the vendor

5. Lectora

Type: Desktop + web
OS: Windows
Starting price: $117/month, billed annually

Lectora, Adobe Captivate competitor, includes a comprehensive set of tools for creating various kinds of eLearning content: slide-based courses, quizzes, interactive videos, and role-play simulations. It also allows you to embed games from The Training Arcade® directly into your eLearning project and, like Adobe Captivate, create VR courses with 360º videos and equirectangular photos.

Lectora can hardly be referred to as easy-to-use authoring software. It is mostly used by experienced instructional designers and can be especially useful for course developers who are good at coding because it allows you to write your own custom scripts and include custom libraries, fonts, and CSS.

However, the Adobe Captivate competitor offers a set of Course Starter templates that include matching layouts, scenarios, games, interactions, timelines, and more. These can be a good starting point for newbies.

Key features

• App for creating VR projects
• Professionally designed Course Starter templates
• Can embed games into courses from The Training Arcade®
• Ability to add your own scripts, custom libraries, fonts, CSS
• Built-in Asset Library with stock images, audio, video, and more
• Integration with an authoring tool for creating role-play simulations
• Screen recorder and video editing tool
• Online space for storing content and collaborating

Pricing

Starting at $117/month, billed annually (for Gold Suite), and $799/month, billed annually (for the full suite)

6. Gomo

Type: Web based
OS: All
Starting price: No pricing options listed; must contact the vendor

Gomo is a cloud-based Adobe Captivate alternative. It is designed for easy course authoring and collaboration on content – multiple users can edit the content and leave comments for each other in real-time. With Gomo, you can build interactive content using a drag-and-drop interface. 

The course authoring process is based on working with pre-built templates. You just need to select the templates, fill them with text and images, and it’s ready to go. This authoring tool also comes with a collection of themes that can be easily adjusted to suit your brand or your project. You can add your logo and brand palette to create your own customized theme, and apply it to all of your courses.

Overall, Gomo is a great tool that allows you to build simple courses fast, but it’s not a good fit if you want to create professional courses with advanced interactions and simulations. 

Key features

• Ability to create responsive courses quickly right in a browser

• Allows team collaboration on the content

• A variety of pre-built templates for fast content authoring

• A collection of preset customizable themes

• Easy-to-use image editors

• Ability to set up branching scenarios

• Simple course structure overview

• XLIFF translation support for creating localized content

Pricing

No price listed; must contact the vendor

Also read: The 11 Best HR Tools for Streamlining Your Workflow in 2023

7. Coassemble

Type: Web
OS: All
Starting price: Free for individuals

Like Articulate Rise, Adobe Captivate alternative Coassemble represents itself as a complete online training platform. It includes the functionalities of both a course creation tool and a learning management system (LMS). 

To create a course, you need to select from among 30 pre-built templates, or so-called “lesson screens,” and fill them with content. There are standard screen templates that can be used for text, images, and videos, as well as interactive screen templates, and activity-based challenge screens for building quizzes. To personalize your online course experience, you can set up the customization options: add a logo, choose brand colors, etc. 

Once your course is created, you can assign it to your learners and keep track of how they’re progressing. Engage learners and create interesting training solutions. For example, you can reward your learners for completing a course with a certificate.

Key features

• Ability to create responsive courses quickly, right in a browser

• An extensive variety of pre-built templates for fast course authoring

• Ability to customize courses according to your brand

• Online space for storing and sharing content

• Ability to create and issue certificates of completion

• Can import SCORM modules to add them to your courses

• A wide range of integrations via Zapier

• Basic reporting capabilities

Pricing

Free for individuals. Business plans start at $7.50 per member/month, billed annually.

8. dominKnow

Type: Cloud-based
OS: Windows, Mac, Chrome OS 
Starting price: No price listed; need to contact the vendor

Among all the Adobe Captivate competitors discussed, dominKnow is the top authoring solution for enterprise-level companies. Despite multiple advanced features, dominKnow ensures a smooth learning curve for both seasoned and junior instructional designers creating engaging eLearning courses. 

dominKnow is an Adobe Captivate alternative software with solid features for teams. For example, you can manage course versions, easily add reviewers, track review statistics, and schedule reviews. 

dominKnow simplifies eLearning translation and localization. Creating eLearning content becomes less time-consuming as you can translate courses in over 50 languages, export for translation, and easily import the translated digital content. When you make changes to your content in one language, those changes are automatically reflected in the other language versions.

The system is self-hosted and doesn’t require IT infrastructure services. Content can take various forms, from SCORM, AICC, xAPI, and CMI5 to website packages, print training material, and presentations. Content publishing output is HTML5 only, with no Flash involved.

Users generally find the system satisfactory, but some note that due to dominKnow’s cloud-based nature, offline usage is limited.

Key features

• Single-source authoring that gives users centralized control of critical data across the training library

• One-step publishing for Learning Management Systems and for non-LMS content

• Components of a learning program can be broken down into different objects and reused

• Multiple authors collaboration in real time

• Off-the-shelf courses that you can easily customize to match business and learning needs

• Built-in Software Simulation that gives learners an opportunity to practice using software

• You can create learning materials in various document formats, such as Word, PDF, and ePub

• A library of over 10,000 high-quality royalty-free images

Pricing

No price listed; must contact the vendor

9. ActivePresenter

Type: Desktop
OS: Windows, Mac 
Starting price: $199/license

Adobe Captivate competitor ActivePresenter has 3 key features: eLearning authoring, screencasting, and audio and video editing. The software allows you to design videos and slide-based courses enriched with gamification elements to engage learners. You can also set up software simulations that give learners a chance to test it out for themselves rather than watch the screencast.

One of the key features of ActivePresenter is its compatibility with the latest web standard, HTML5. This allows you to seamlessly integrate your training content into your existing learning platform.

The tool is probably the best Adobe Captivate alternative for limited budgets. You make a one-time payment for an everlasting license. However, it means each license you buy can be activated on one device at a time. It is possible to transfer the license to a different device by deactivating it on the current computer and activating it on the new one.

Despite the convenience and ease of use, some users note a slight slowdown on their PC when running the app.

Key features

• Free version for personal / non-commercial use with limited functionality

• Ability to create interactive videos with multiple audio and visual layers

• Discounts for educational facilities and NGOs

• Popular video output formats: MP4, WebM, MVK, WMV, AVI

• Supports the latest web standard HTML5 for content publishing

• Compatible with common eLearning standards like SCORM and xAPI

Pricing

$199 per license (for Standard) and $399 (for Pro)

To Sum Up

Every Adobe Captivate alternative reviewed in this article has its niche and use cases. Choosing the product that fits your education and training needs makes its flaws vanish and its advantages shine brighter than those of its competitors. Know what your resources and requirements are and you will always make the right choice.

If you want to produce eLearning courses right out of the gate, with no prior training or need to read support forums, start with a free 14-day trial of iSpring Suite and explore all of its features now.