Adobe Captivate vs. TalentLMS

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.

Incentivized

TalentLMS is user-friendly enough for someone new to LMS management can get a site up and running in a relatively quick manner. It is rather intuitive to operate. My needs have been a rather small scale of 400 learners and TalentLMS more than meets the need to produce a professional-looking and operational website to send customers and staff. The point here is that although I do not know how well it can be up-scaled, it certainly delivers for small to medium organizations to need to get content online

Incentivized

• Easy learning curve. Captivate makes it easy for a new user to pick it up and understand where to begin. Adobe, in general, does this very well and Captivate is no exception. When you begin using Captivate, many of the tasks to create a video come naturally as things are laid out in a way that makes sense.
• Embedding with LMS (Learning Management Systems). Adobe has made it very easy to deploy your produced video to any of the popular LMS's available. Captivate also gives you a very easy way of including a SCORM score for any quizzes that must be passed at the end of the video in order to proceed to the next video.
• Capturing Audio has never been easier. With Captivate you can easily add voice-over audio that you can record directly inside of Captivate, or import a pre-recorded audio clip. You can import sounds from other sources for effects in the video and Captivate already includes all of the commonly used sounds for mouse-clicks, error sounds, etc.

Incentivized

• Content creation tool for training lessons.
• Managing and organizing users
• Provides comprehensive library of pre-made courses.
• Very easy to use, out of the box.

Incentivized

• Templates. There seem to be "themes," but Adobe Captivate has a terrible time saving any sort of object preferences which makes it really difficult when a set of courses need to follow branding guidelines. I have to create a basic course and set up all my colors and whatnot and start every course using that.
• Ease of use. It is like pulling teeth sometimes to get Adobe Captivate to do things. You may be able to get it to do it, but it'll be like a dozen or more steps which make creating courses incredibly tedious.
• A bigger focus on software simulation. Adobe Captivate isn't designed for simulation, I get that, and I am happy it does as much as it does. However, it could be better to capture actions and things within a program. For instance, click and drag options and hot-key combinations.

Incentivized

• It should be easier to re-send someone their initial course assignment email notification. The notification engine is a little non-intuitive.
• I was trying to add a user to our account the other day (not a user - an internal employee that I wanted to give access to our system) and I had trouble finding it

Incentivized

We have hundreds of courses that were created in Adobe Captivate. It will take us a while to convert to Articulate. We'll need a license for another year and/or until Adobe comes out with a true update to the software.

Incentivized

The ease of use, the robustness of the offering, and familiarity. It does everything we need and probably more. We likley don't utilize all the functionality it has as it does what we want it to without having to dig that deep into its tools. Their course library also has saved us some time in terms of saving time from creating some basic courses.

Adobe Captivate does take some getting used to. There are features that are much more convoluted than they need to be, but overall it is a great product with a some excellent features. Being in a pretty small market, Adobe Captivate and Articulate Storyline dominate the space. They are not the same software, but allow for eLearning authoring. Each has their benefit and their downside, but, for me, Adobe Captivate edges out Storyline.

Incentivized

The system is intuitive. It does not have a lot of features that are hidden behind secret menus or elsewhere. There are often multiple ways to get to the same place through different menus without having to go back to the home or root menu. It makes things pretty easy. Additionally, if there is something I can't figure out, there is documentation available to help with that.

I have never run into an issue with downtime in 5 plus years.

It loads fast. Screen transitions are quick. Nothing seems to ever lag.

It is difficult to get in touch with Adobe Captivate support. With a seemingly limited number of resources, mostly outsourced, getting in contact with someone to help troubleshoot an issue is challenging. Typically wait times are long, and the desired path to resolution is to use an existing knowledge base or a self-help guide. It is certainly not a user-friendly experience.

Incentivized

The search feature alone is outstanding. When we needed technical assistance, it was provided with ease and clarity. Any representative we have worked with has been professional, knowledgeable, and good to work with, even if we were in different time zones or areas of the world.

Incentivized

I'm only aware of the problems Adobe Captivate had with SumTotal LMS and Upside LMS, requiring extensive contact with both internal and external support staff to fix the problems. We had no problems at all with Articulate.

Incentivized

Implementation was relatively easy. When we set up a second branch, we needed a little help. But the support area is well-detailed. My clients had no experience with an LMS and their digital skills were limited. We had a long way to go. Nevertheless, it was relatively easy. It was rather quick!

Incentivized

While Captivate has some awesome niche features for some circumstances, currently it cannot beat the ease of use with Storyline. Whether it's content, variables, quizes, etc. things are just "easier" in Storyline. Even something as simple as triggering an event when the timeline reaches a certain point. We continue to keep Captivate and Storyline because we're hoping it Captivate will continue building its integration with other Adobe apps and become our and the industry standard.

Incentivized

Out of the box, Talent is easier to use than Learn Dash, which can be quite convoluted to set up, as it requires the integration and configuration of multiple plugins. As a result, we spent a lot less time getting things set up in Talent than LearnDash. Talent was also much less expensive than Litmos.

Incentivized

The product can create as similar or unique experiences for different branches as you want for training purposes

• Adobe Captivate has allowed our instructors to engage students in ways we never have before.
• Instructors who have used Adobe Captivate in our organization have reported higher levels of engagement with their courses and their students, theoretically leading to improved assessment of student performance.

Incentivized

• We have dental practices across the United states; the TalentLMS platform helps us train out staff with one process. Standardization across 107 practice to track all of regulatory and compliance training needs.
• Over the course of the last four years we have recruited internal faculty to help develop content and they find the TalentLMS platform very easy to author material.
• Creating content ourselves saves a tremendous amount of money each year

Incentivized