Storyline 2 Vs Captivate 8/9

Feb 26, 2016

We are going through a review of tools at the moment. We use Captivate but are interested in Storyline. 

This might be a bias Forum to ask on but what do you all think?

Are there benefits/disadvantages to both?

Do you use both but for different things?

Could you live with one? If so what do you mainly produce with it?

12 Replies
Brian Allen

My response is very similar to Phil's.  I've used Captivate since before it was Captivate (RoboDemo anyone??).  I still have version 7 installed and have reviewed version 8.  I use Captivate when I have to make edits to an older Captivate course.

Also like Phil I've always found Captivate a bit painful to use, even after Macromedia bought it.  I was never a big fan of the authoring interface and have grown even less fond of it since the Adobe acquisition.

It's much faster and easier for me to build the same interactions in Storyline, and I feel that the end product is smoother and has more polish than anything I was able to build in the same amount of time with Captivate.

Good luck!

Marcus Haddon

That's interesting, I'm part of a captivate group on lInkedIn so might as the same question there and compare the results. 

Phil I checked out Tumult, looks good, but its Mac, do you run Storyline on a simulator e.g. parallels?

I have found with the theme and images available online for storyline you can make a very smooth and modern look. But with captivate it looks a bit clinical and a decade old. Maybe I need to either try to recreate something from storyline in captivate are look for inspiration online. 

Failing that I could just bite the built and move to storyline. 

Brian Allen

Besides authoring, being a LMS administrator I've found Storyline's output to be much more reliable as well.

Literally 99% of the time we had a problem with an online course in our LMS it was Captivate-built content.  Captivate content does not play well when you combine SCORM with some of the browsers that are out there (just try googling Captivate, SCORM and Firefox for example...).

Articulate's SCORM content works extremely well across multiple browsers and operating systems. In the rare occasion where we would have a problem with Articulate content in our LMS it always turned out to be an issue where a new developer had published something with the wrong publish settings. Easy to fix...

Christie Pollick

Hi, Marcus -- Thanks so much for reaching out with your question! I see that you are getting some excellent responses from other members of the community, but I thought I might stop in to share a few other threads on a similar topic that may be of interest:

Storyline 2 vs. Captivate 9

Captivate vs. Articulate

Articulate (Storyline) Vs Adobe (Captivate)

Hope that helps! :)

Stephanie Long

I am using Storyline 2 (and I have tried 3).  I am used to being able to use an Object Style manager to quickly control all elements or even import from other projects.  Also, setting universal project recording preferences for the various elements and timing (captions, highlights, mouse, audio, start, finish, etc.).  The ability to right click and copy background and paste background onto any slide.  There are too many features to mention really.

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