Hi all,
I have used Articulate products for many years and am certified with those products, but I am new to the world of Captivate. For those of you who may have knowledge of both products, I would like to get some honest takes on some of the strengths and weaknesses of Captivate in comparison.
And for those who don’t have Articulate experience, tell me what really floats your boat about Captivate!
I am, by no means, disparagingly asking this, but I would like to compare and contrast so I can get to know to Captivate better. I intend to be sharp on both instruments eventually.
Thanks!
Brian
I didn’t want to answer this question, because I have looked at Articulate, but have turned away from it immediately because for several reasons it wasn’t the tool I was looking for. Beware: I completely agree about the customer support which is way better, and the ‘start’ learning curve. It is just not professional enough for me:
- Reusability is not very good, I rely a lot on the Project library, external libraries, shared actions.
- Roundtripping with Photoshop, Illustrator, Audition and more are a breeze in Captivate and I rely on many more Adobe applications to create and edit assets in Captivate.
- Support for my clients when creating more complicated interactions is much easier in Captivate. I am talking about Themes, Preferences and Libraries set up for the client. Moreover it is rather easy to create software training tutorials in Captivate as well.
As mentioned: not a honest comparison. I dislike also the PPT interface (off topic) of StoryLine. I just mention the reasons why I appreciate Captivate a lot more. Those are not only about its Software Simulation feature. BTW I also use Captivate since two decades.
Brian,
I started using Captivate way back in 2002 (as it is known nowadays, used to be called RoboDemo before Macromedia acquired it from eHelp Corp the original creators of the product along with RoboHelp, and subsequently Macromedia got acquired by Adobe and rebranding of RoboDemo to Captivate), and while I am not certified in Articulate’s Storyline or Rise, I have used both for several years. My 2 cents, Adobe has the worst Technical Support staff on this planet. They pass the buck to the next person without resolving the issue and then have the never to request a positive feedback. Plus, all the support staff is located overseas and somehow there is a huge disconnect in terms of what constitutes “customer service”. Articulate’s Tech Support is just outstanding (not to be mistaken with Community/Forums which Articulate has just an amazing platform of staff/and users base).
With the above stated, I will state this much, I have seen a shift in the corporate world away from Captivate and Adobe products to Articulate products (at least my observation for the last 10 years). While I am not certain if the corporate decisions were based on product comparisons or simply pricing comparisons; however, I have found Articulate products such as Storyline to be more robust, intuitive, and user-friendly than Captivate. So much so, when asked by Project Managers for recommendations, I have always endorsed Articulate Products due to their A+ customer support team. The only other company that has come close to Articulate’s Customer Support would be Mircorsoft’s Support. Now take it with a grain of salt, as this is just one person’s experience. My motto for customer service ratings is based on a very simple notion – Headaches are for free, and one should never have to pay for them!
The one area where Captivate is hands down 110% superior to Articulate’s Storyline is capturing simulation-based tasks. I have never been able to get that working in Storyline and Articulate’s Help Desk/Support finally confessed to me that it doesn’t work most of the time. I’ve had to use Camtasia to capture demos for Storyline projects, but really Captivate is 110% better (crossing fingers that they don’t jinx this one feature).
Hope the above is of some assistance.
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