Best 7 Adobe Captivate Alternatives & Replacements

If you’re a novice instructional designer who is looking for the right authoring 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 7 best Adobe Captivate alternatives that may be a better fit for you. We’ll analyze their features, see who they are appropriate for, and compare pricing to facilitate you in making the best choice.

Also read: The 10 Best eLearning Authoring Tools: Top Picks for 2022

1. iSpring Suite

Type: Desktop + web based
OS: Windows 
Price: $770/year (for the basic package) and $970/year (for iSpring Suite Max)

iSpring Suite is an authoring toolkit 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 courses even with no design skills. It also comes with iSpring Space, an online service for collaboration on eLearning content. 

Key selling points

• Ability to use ready-made PPT slides as a starting point for a course
• Ease of use, a simple, familiar interface for non-tech people
• 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
• Great 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

Get the iSpring Suite free trial →

2. Articulate Storyline 360

Type: Desktop
OS: Windows, Mac
Price: $1,399/year (for teams) or $1,099/year (for individuals) for the entire Articulate 360 suite

Articulate Storyline is another desktop Adobe Captivate alternative. It allows you to create slide-based 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, newbies 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 selling points

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

3. Articulate Rise 360

Type: Web based
OS: All
Price: Starts from $399/month for up to 100 learners

Articulate Rise is a web-based authoring tool available through an Articulate 360 subscription. It allows you to create online 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 courses quickly and have no LMS to deliver the content to users. Articulate Rise provides capabilities for storing content, enrolling learners in courses, and keeping track of their results.

Key selling points

• 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
• Basic reporting capabilities

4. Elucidat

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

Elucidat is another cloud-based alternative to Adobe Captivate 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 selling points

• 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

5. Lectora

Type: Desktop + web based
OS: Windows
Price: $899/year (for Silver Suite), $1,299/year (for Gold Suite), and $1,599/year (for Platinum Suite)

Lectora includes a comprehensive set of tools for creating various kinds of eLearning content: slide-based courses, quizzes, instructional 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 tool 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 selling points

• 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 a tool for creating role-play simulations
• Screen recorder and video editing tool
• Online space for storing content and collaborating

6. Gomo

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

Gomo refers to a group of web-based Adobe Captivate alternatives. 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. The 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 selling points

• 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

7. Coassemble

Type: Web based
OS: All
Price: Several plans, starting from $1,440/year for 20 users

Like Articulate Rise, Coassemble represents itself as a complete online training platform. It includes the functionalities of both an authoring 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 and their results. You can also reward your learners for completing a course with a certificate.

Key selling points

• 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

To Sum Up

Every Adobe Captivate alternative reviewed in this article has its niche and use cases. Choosing the product that fits your 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.