Not too long ago I wrote a post about my initial reaction to Articulate Storyline and its relation to Adobe Captivate. The post itself attracted a lot of attention, many of the comments passionately defending Storyline. It seems one thing is abundantly clear since Storyline has come onto the scene: the comparisons between the two programs are at an all-time high.
While doing my usual reading on all things e-Learning related, I stumbled across a pretty nice video by Cogentys (included at the end of this post) detailing a quick comparison between Storyline and Captivate. Without giving away too much of the video, I will say that I appreciated their approach at comparing Storyline not to just Adobe Captivate, but rather Adobe e-Learning Suite 2.5. What I like about this is that it makes price pretty much a wash as both are around the tune of$1400.
At first glance, I have to say that e-Learning Studio provides more bang for the buck (this package comes with Captivate, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign). If you are a seasoned e-Learning pro, or you have a competent team, then this is basically a no-brainer – but that’s not to say that Storyline doesn’t have its own place in the mix.
As the video will point out, the learning curve for Adobe products is rather steep, so having all those extra programs doesn’t do much good if you can’t maximize their potential, and this is where Storyline carves out a good piece of the market. Their WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) approach, and intuitive integration to the extremely familiar Microsoft PowerPoint, enables even beginners the ability to create professional looking e-Learning, fast.
The fact that Storyline is married to PowerPoint is both good and bad. The good is pretty obvious: most organizations already have an abundance of PowerPoint materials that can instantly be created into e-Learning. Since Adobe Captivate struggles to integrate with PowerPoint (quite possibly their biggest flaw), this makes Storyline an extremely attractive option.
The “cool” factor for me is that Storyline comes with characters in various poses you can use for e-Learning. Too often instructional designers are stuck trying to make stock photography make sense in multiple situations. Articulate has a ton more of these characters available for purchase, which is great for those who prefer Adobe as you can take advantage of this ”cool” factor as well!
One thing I think this video fails to give credit to is the support community of Adobe. Yes, Articulate has a good community, but Adobe’s is pretty much unmatched in size and knowledge capital (Personally, I can’t tell you the number of times “Captiv8r” has helped me on there… you Captivate users know who I’m talking about).
Maybe I’m also a bit jaded in this area as every time I’ve used the help forum for Articulate (which wasn’t often), I never really got a straight forward answer that worked. I remember one bug in particular with QuizMaker that the developers admit existed but said wouldn’t be fixed until the next release. I am assuming that it is fixed in this new Storyline release, but I couldn’t help but think, “really?? You’ve known about this for THREE years and haven’t even addressed it???”
I could go on and on about these two programs. My personal take on the matter is that time will tell if Storyline continues to lose out to Captivate, or if they can capture significant market share. I believe that Storyline is now strong enough competition to force innovation out of Adobe for their Captivate line, which is only good for our industry and something all learning professionals have been dreaming to happen.
Take 5min and watch the video comparison below:
I’m an experienced Dev, own the Adobe Creative Suite and there are a few things that are just flat out faster to build in Storyline. Build efficiency and consistency of output matter.
I love my creative suite tools, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to compare a suite with another tool that may offer similar potential outputs but are really built for different workflows and purposes.
By the way, Storyline isn’t married to PPT at all.
I might actually use the next version of Captivate, the previews are looking good. Couldn’t get into older versions. I won’t know how well it’ll work for me until I’ve tried it. You should try Storyline before your next article:P
Hi Steve, thanks for your comment. I have in fact tried Storyline; my comment about it being “married to ppt” is probably a bit misleading. Let’s just say instead that it “plays nicer” with ppt… real nice. I don’t think it’s a mystery that Storyline resembles Microsoft products either. Smart marketing really.
Agree with you on the previews of Captivate. Count your blessings that you weren’t using “Macromedia Captivate”…what a mess.
Yeah. Tried Captivate at every version. Even spent a little bit of time in RoboDemo before the acquisition. It’s never grabbed me as a tool I’d choose to use. The UX of the tool itself always seemed backwards and the output compositions never seemed “pro” to me.
I’ve always been happier (and arguably faster once the frameworks are out of the way) building my own custom activity shells. Been doing software demos since the late 90′s. Tried Viewletbuilder in the early days. Liked that one for some purposes.
Now for screen caps that don’t require try / test, I’ll use Camtasia or Screenr (or sometimes, Storyline).
I think there are lots of folks that use and love Captivate. It’s just never been for me. Now that I’ve seen the latest version, while it’s better than the previous version, I’m going to give it a pass. Here’s hoping for a dynamite Captivate 7:)
To each his / her own. The tool choices of other folks don’t bother me in the least:P
Steve, what do you mean by “e-learning Studio”? If you are referring to the eLearning suite, your description of the content is not very accurate: it has neither Illustrator, nor InDesign but has Audition, Acrobat Pro, Media Encoder, Device Central and extensions for Flash and Dreamweaver. Moreover it comes with very functional roundtripping between Captivate and Photoshop, Captivate and Audition. That is the reason I became a big fan of that suite, that has everything on board for all e-learning needs (except perhaps a pure vector drawing application, although Photoshop has progressed a lot there).
BTW: Captiv8r is a great moderator of the forums. He rocks!
I think you’re talking to Justin:) But, yeah. The eLearning Suite contains some great tools. It’s a nice system. I’m not a Captivate fan, personally. But I know plenty of folks that use it to produce lots of content.
One of the tools I use regularly, probably more than any of the tools in the suite, is Fireworks (I use Photoshop too, but they aren’t the same workflow / output intent). One of the reasons the eLearning Suite wouldn’t work for me.
Let’s clear up facts here…
Justin says>> The post itself attracted a lot of attention, many of the comments passionately defending Storyline.
Correction: People weren’t defending Storyline they were simply correcting the misinformation you were writing. You were attempting to critique software that was obvious to any amateur user reading that you hadn’t even used the software. Readers want and welcome critiques but it must be based around facts & experience not simply hearsay and false assumptions.
Justin says>> What I like about this is that it makes price pretty much a wash as both are around the tune of $1400. [Adobe Elearning Suite & Storyline]
Correction: Adobe elearning is $1799. That’s a $400 difference. Quite significant difference.
Justin says>> If you are a seasoned e-Learning pro, or you have a competant team, then this is basically a no-brainer – but that’s not to say that Storyline doesn’t have its own place in the mix.
Correction: I believe this should state “as a seasoned Captivate pro – this is a no brainer” as then the pro has already mastered the skill. Steve’s infer that as a seasoned pro then getting Captivate is a no brainer, which is not the case.
Justin says>>The fact that Storyline is married to PowerPoint is both good and bad.
Correction: As someone has already pointed out, and who obviously uses Storyline, it is not married to PPT.
Steve>> Yes, Articulate has a good community.
Correction: It has a great community – unmatched in any sense of the word by Adobe.
Justin says>>My personal take on the matter is that time will tell if Storyline continues to lose out to Captivate.
Correction: AGAIN you have made no tangible, quantifiable argument that Storyline is actually losing out on anything. It does exactly what it says on the box
I’m sure your critique skills will improve with time & experience. The best of luck in that!
Hi Adam, thank you for your comment. I can appreciate that not everyone will share my view, and that is okay.
Justin says>> The post itself attracted a lot of attention, many of the comments passionately defending Storyline.
Correction: People weren’t defending Storyline they were simply correcting the misinformation you were writing. You were attempting to critique software that was obvious to any amateur user reading that you hadn’t even used the software. Readers want and welcome critiques but it must be based around facts & experience not simply hearsay and false assumptions.
If you read the original post, you will notice that I admitted to not testing the product (at the time it was written) as it was not necessary given the point of the article. An amateur would know that just by reading
Justin says>> What I like about this is that it makes price pretty much a wash as both are around the tune of $1400. [Adobe Elearning Suite & Storyline]
Correction: Adobe elearning is $1799. That’s a $400 difference. Quite significant difference.
Took a second look at the price at you are correct. I took the videos word when they said, “both are priced around $1400″ at the 1min30sec mark.
Justin says>> If you are a seasoned e-Learning pro, or you have a competant team, then this is basically a no-brainer – but that’s not to say that Storyline doesn’t have its own place in the mix.
Correction: I believe this should state “as a seasoned Captivate pro – this is a no brainer” as then the pro has already mastered the skill. Steve’s infer that as a seasoned pro then getting Captivate is a no brainer, which is not the case.
Your correction statement is rather an opinion (which doesn’t bother me, I welcome those). But apparently my opinion bothered you to the point where you felt that your opinion was a “correction”, as if a fact.
Justin says>>The fact that Storyline is married to PowerPoint is both good and bad.
Correction: As someone has already pointed out, and who obviously uses Storyline, it is not married to PPT.
I clarified this statement in my response to Steve.
Steve>> Yes, Articulate has a good community.
Correction: It has a great community – unmatched in any sense of the word by Adobe.
I don’t know if Steve will come back to reply to this. I would suspect he would want a little more evidence as your correction is just stating a matter of opinion. Doesn’t have to be much, you could site the forums, the blogs, their average response time. But I’ll leave that to you.
Justin says>>My personal take on the matter is that time will tell if Storyline continues to lose out to Captivate.
Correction: AGAIN you have made no tangible, quantifiable argument that Storyline is actually losing out on anything. It does exactly what it says on the box
If that’s the standard you are applying to me, then neither have you in any of your corrections Adam.
All the best,
Justin
I have to agree with Steve on the Articulate community – when I review Articulate I usually say it is unmatched on the web. Not just in e-learning but any product. I have never waited longer than 12 hours for a response (and that was posting at 9pm on thursday heading into holiday good Friday). Usually it is within 2 hours. My last query was on an advanced variable interaction. Dave from Articulate responded within 2 hours with a Screenr video on how to do it step by step.
The longest I have waited for a response from the Adobe forums? I’ll let you know when they finally reply to a couple of posts about accessibility that I post in October 2011. I even emailed Adobe people directly. Nada. Email anyone at Articulate and if you don’t get a response in 24 hours i would be shocked. Their sales rep emailed me while he was on vacation.
I tell people the community is so good for Articulate that you can’t put a price on it.
Articulate knows about a bug and didn’t do anything about it? Captivate has had some consistent bugs in place since its Macromedia days.
Also, I don’t think the issue is about how much marketshare cp is stealing from Articulate, it’s about how much it has to reclaim after driving people away from its own product in releases 1 to 5.
CML- looks like 6 is a disappointment: http://rjacquez.com/an-honest-assessment-of-adobe-captivate-6-first-impressions/
David, why do you refer to a review of someone who only played with Captivate for a couple of hours? Is this the way to evaluate a software application? Personally I do not trust that kind or reviews. I have been with Captivate 6 for months in the prerelease, and even at this point I will not post a full assessment, because I think it is logical first to know in depth the new features. I already posted one article about a feature I did explore that way:
http://lilybiri.posterous.com/captivate-6-advanced-actions
For that same reason I never wrote anything, negative nor positive, about Storyline because I didn’t have time enough to explore it really, one month trial is too little and as a simple teacher I cannot afford the price (even the academic price) of SL. No one talks about that kind of prices that are, in comparison with Adobe’s academic prices, very high.
@lieve. I think that says a lot – 6 months is not enough time to review it. 30 days is more than enough time to know about the features of SL. That’s how easy it is to use. David’s review is from a former Adobe evangelist – so his review is either based on years of Adobe experience or, hopefully not, some bitterness from getting sacked.
I think the discussion has been about the product itself, not the price. For me I would bite the bullet so I could work more efficiently and have more free time to myself.
@CML Missed this. You misunderstand my previous answer (I’m not a native English speaker). I was telling that 30 days was NOT sufficient to judge Storyline on its functionalities. Was not talking about the basic, easy use that is always demonstrated in the video tutorials, but on the more advanced features that will need more learning time.
I started with captivate, and agree, the learning curve is too steep in a time when I need to provide trainings and videos quickly. Storyline has a much quicker turnaround for me. Again, that is because I have never been formally trained in Captivate, but they make it pretty difficult and have that steep Adobe curve. However, I am struggling to see how Storyline is worth $1400 when to me, it is Powerpoint Plus. Yes, it has a lot of great features, but if a company is going to pay that, it should have almost every function that PPT does, which right now is missinga few things that I use in PPT (background music the entire way through, various animation/transitions, etc). The price tag should be less than 1k.
Some good points about learning curve and missing options. My only comment is that if you are designing e-learning, you might want to drop the background music. Studies have shown it reduces retention when used.
Also as for the price tag, my time easily accounts for the difference in price. Both from the unbillable learning curve and from time spent trying to fix something (less time because of the articulate community).
After reading these posts I think Justin was definitely right about one thing. Captivate and Storyline are now officially AT WAR!!
I think the next year is really going to be fun to watch.
Hey there,
a bit sad to hear that these products could be so much better, eagerly awaiting some cs5 implementation for mobile devices. In one way I’m glad that these products need to compete against eachother, but with everyone comparing features (that aren’t necessarily essential) – I’m worried both companies might try and outdo eachother on similar features instead of working on the necessary things mlearning devs would really need right now.
-c
Adobe doesn’t have to worry about the future. They bought the best elearning development interface there is from Macromedia (Authorware). As the industry progresses back to the level of interactivity we came to expect in the late 90′s they can ressurect that tool with updated publishing options to squash any competitor.
I think you were right about the Cap vs Storyline article. It’s not that Adobe and Articulate must be expected to work together as competing companies. It’s that they both claim to export standards-based files and therefore by their own claims they SHOULD work together in the ways that were mentioned.
Getting excited about Captivate at war with Storyline while Authorware sits on a shelf is like getting excited about Obama or Romney competing without Ron Paul there to tell the truth to both of them! hahahahah
After spending a full day evaluating Articulate Storyline versus the Adobe eLearning Suite I was left feeling a bit disappointed with Articulate Storyline. The difference between the two programs is that Articulate Storyline is the equivalent of those over-sized legos you buy for toddlers and the Adobe eLearning suite is more like the super-lego-star wars-kit your buy for your 13-year-old.
The bottom line is that Articulate Storyline is great for the masses, but serious developers are going to need the tools and flexibility the Adobe eLearning Suite offers.
I really felt like with Storyline you have to be a “one-take jake” because you aren’t going to be able go back and edit out the ums, ohs and whoopsies without exporting to yet another program.
Brian
Love the lego analogy! haha
Brian, thanks for this metaphor! Based on my limited experience with Storyline and a broader experience with the eLearning Suite I tend to agree totally with you. Perhaps this is not totally correct, perhaps with a longer learning time to discover the more advanced features of Storyline, those that go beyond the canned things, those who are more hidden (in the back of the box with the big Lego blocks) it will be a good tool for ‘serious developers’. But I do not believe it will ever be able to replace all the features and integration functionalities of the suite. It is so much easier to get pretty much the same UI for a video editor, graphical, audio, animation editor and easy roundtripping than having to switch all the time between applications from different software producers.
One thing I have discovered after completing the most intensive, interactive elearning module in my career (which includes numerous in Articulate Studio and award winning programs in Captivate 4) that, for me, comparing features is useless. For me it’s not what SL does compared to CP, it’s the way it does it. It’s a new take on the “it’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it.”
I think SL will continue to grow a base in Instructional Designers who want to develop elearning but don’t have a technical background. Like me.
Cp and suite will be the domain for developers who are taking IDs storyboards and producing them or IDs with a technical background – which IMO are hard to find. I don’t mean developers who can design courses but true IDs who can design fundamentally sound programs.
SL will give non techies the tools to create elearning that is not just “good enough” but “great enough” compared to CP in a shorter time and for less budget than using a developer. I know my firm dropped using our developers when we started using Articulate Studio b/c it was good enough and clients favored that over more expensive custom work. The ID was better because we kept control.
What about alternatives to these two tools? Allen Interaction’s new ZebraZapps? (Aside from the total lapse of judgement on the name selection!) https://www.zebrazapps.com/#/list?visitor&zapp
or Smartbuilder? http://www.suddenlysmart.com/smartbuilder.htm
Interesting article here: http://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=2221186
Anyone used them? Where do they fit in the big picture?
I love Articulate but I think Storyline in VERY expensive @$1400. Why is it so high? Now that Articulate 2012 is about to be released, I wonder if they are going to ramp up Engage to have more interactions choices and even some of the Storyline features (characters). Re: Captivate, I agree it is a steep learning curve compared to Articulate but I had to learn it to do demos and simulations for my client.