Visme vs Articulate 360: Your Detailed Comparison Guide for 2025
When it comes to content authoring, Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360 are two of the biggest players in the industry. Although both are designed to help you create excellent training content, they differ in interface, experience, features and cost.
Choosing between the two involves more than just determining which works best; it’s about finding the one that meets your specific training needs.
The last thing you want is to be stuck in an annual subscription plan you can't opt out of, or to painstakingly switch platforms after only a few weeks of use.
So, which is better, Adobe Captivate or Articulate 360?
To help you answer this question with an informed decision, we've created a detailed comparison between Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360 that covers top features, reliability, cost, and so much more. We’ve also included an excellent alternative to consider if both tools don’t meet your needs.
*Disclaimer: The comparisons and competitor ratings presented in this article are based on features available as of May 17, 2024. We conduct thorough research and draw on both first-hand experience and reputable sources to provide reliable insights. However, as tools and technologies evolve, we recommend readers verify details and consider additional research to ensure the information meets their specific needs.
Let's do a quick side-by-side comparison of these two content authoring tools
| Feature | Visme | Adobe Captivate | Articulate 360 |
| Ease of Use | User-friendly drag-and-drop editor with built-in onboarding. Minimal learning curve for beginners. | Known to have a high learning curve and requires extensive product knowledge. | User interface mimics PowerPoint but with added features and comes with a lower learning curve. |
| Reliability | Stable platform with responsive support and minimal bugs reported across users. | Reliable but more user experience bugs, glitches, crashes, or compatibility issues, with most Adobe products. | Mainly reliable but has occasional bugs and glitches for some users. |
| Content Authoring Capabilities | Offers templates for training content. Offers animation, interactivity, 3D characters, branching, and all no-code design features. | Offers pre-made templates, interactive features, immersive design and advanced 3D experience by supporting both 360° photos and videos integration. | Offers pre-made templates, interactive features, and immersive design but only supports the integration of 360° photos. |
| Storage | 25 GB of brand asset management; additional storage available in enterprise plans. | Offers 100 GB of storage for each plan and additional cloud storage via Creative Cloud Storage at additional fees. | Individual subscription plans come with 150 GB and team plans are given unlimited storage. |
| Analytics | Supports SCORM, xAPI, and built-in analytics. | Offers built-in analytics and SCORM and xAPI for advanced tracking. | Offers built-in analytics and SCORM and xAPI. |
| Publishing Options | Export to SCORM, xAPI, HTML5, PDF, video, embed and share as a link or webpage. | Options include: SCORM, AICC, xAPI, video, HTML5 file and .exe. | Options include: SCORM, AICC, xAPI, video, Word document, Review, and HTML5 file. |
| Support | Live chat, email, video tutorials, onboarding, and enterprise-level support. FAQs and design tips embedded in editor. | Provide support via an online forum, user guides, on-demand webinars, and FAQ pages. Better support for users with enterprise plans. | Provide support via an online forum, user guides, video content, on-demand or live webinars, FAQ pages and email support. |
| Cost | Free plan available. Paid plans start at $12.25/month. Enterprise pricing available upon request. | Offer both affordable monthly and annual subscriptions. | Only offer higher-priced annual subscriptions on 1, 2 and 3-year terms. |
| Ratings | Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 G2: 3.9 out of 5 |
Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 G2: 3.9 out of 5 |
Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 G2: 4.5 out of 5 |
Adobe Captivate is a household content authoring tool made for all things design and training. It is used by small and enterprise companies. Adobe Captivate is part of the Adobe suite of tools and is recognized as the most advanced content authoring tool in the training and development industry.
Unlike most content authoring tools, Adobe Captivate offers the ability to create VR and software simulation training projects and high-quality video production, including on-screen content recording and more.
Currently, there are two versions of Adobe Captivate. The first is its legacy version called Adobe Captivate Classic, which was released in 2019 and will be discontinued in February 2028. The second and latest version of Adobe Captivate was launched in 2023 and is now actively in use.
To learn about the differences between Adobe Captivate Classic vs Adobe Captivate, check out this video by Adobe:
Adobe Captivate has a variety of training and design features, which include:
Adobe Captivate provides training analytics via:
Adobe Captivate has a limited yet powerful set of tools that it integrates with. These include:
Adobe Captivate has the following rating:
How much is Adobe Captivate? Well, I found that Adobe offers a subscription service for all their products. With Adobe Captivate, users can book a monthly or yearly subscription service such as:
Articulate 360 is one of the leading content authoring platforms, providing content authors with an integrated system of tools for an accurate 360-degree approach to online training.
The platform is designed as an e-learning ecosystem, ideal for seasoned course creators, instructional designers, and training professionals seeking an all-in-one solution to create interactive content from start to finish.
When I tested this interface I was a bit surprised that it resembled PowerPoint. This made it easy since it offered a lower learning curve for those unaccustomed to more complex authoring tools, while at the same time.
But it enables users to add greater personalization and customization without the constraints of PowerPoint.
If you’d like a quick overview of Articulate 360 and what it offers users, I found this video below to give you. Once you’re done you can dive deeper into our next section.
And If you're also considering Visme, check out our detailed comparison of Visme vs Articulate 360
Articulate 360 features work as building blocks, synchronizing with each other for successful course creation. Features include:
Articulate 360 allows for integration with a handful of external apps. These include:
Articulate 360 has the following rating:
Articulate 360 only offers annual pricing plans, each plan below automatically includes Rise 360 and Storyline.
Pricing plans include:
Now, let’s dive deeper to answer your big question: Which is better, Adobe Captivate or Articulate 360?
In this section, I’ll cover each software’s ease of use, reliability, content authoring capabilities, storage, analytics, publishing options, support, cost, and ratings.
Being able to use authoring software without overcoming a huge learning curve can be a key differentiator when deciding between various software. This can affect how soon or effectively you can create your course.
Adobe has always been known as software that requires extensive knowledge of its features, tools, and layouts. When comparing these two tools, Adobe Captivate is no exception. All of Adobe’s software is built for more advanced designers and course creators.
Unlike Adobe Captivate, Articulate 360 requires less training as its interface mimics PowerPoint, which most users are familiar with. It comes with advanced features to help deliver more dynamic training content.
Therefore, users may have to learn more about the product to get the most out of it. Plus, all of Articulate’s software—Articulate 360 (Storyline 360 and Rise 360)—have similar interfaces, so users can easily switch between them.
The Choice: It depends on your level of experience as a course creator or designer. If you’re used to more complex authoring tools or already have experience with Adobe’s design interface, then Adobe Captivate is the choice for you.
If you’re new to design and want a tool with a low learning curve and less complex features, then choose Articulate 360.
Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as the perfect software; you're bound to encounter glitches, mishaps during updates, or the occasional bug.
Both Adobe Captivate and Articulate aren’t left out.
Some Adobe Captivate users have reported consistent bugs, glitches, crashes, or compatibility issues.
But Articulate isn’t fault-free. Users occasionally experience bugs and glitches, but compared to Adobe Captivate, fewer reviewers complain about these issues.
The Choice: Based on G2 and Capterra reviews, Articulate seems to have fewer complaints about bugs and crashes than Adobe Captivate.
Now let’s discuss content authoring capabilities.
Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360 both have some of the most up-to-date features in the market.
They share some great overlaps in capabilities, such as pre-made templates and interactive features like adding triggers, hotspots, branding, or layers, enabling users to design immersive training courses.
Articulate has a leg up in interactivity due to its ability to add bookmarks. These are triggered overlay slides used to halt trainees in their tracks, ensuring they pay attention rather than simply scrolling through—an aspect lacking in Adobe Captivate.
However, Adobe Captivate offers capabilities for designing more immersive training experiences. It is one of the few software options that accommodate 360° photos and videos. Articulate falls short in this area, only supporting the integration of photos to provide a basic 3D experience.
Another contrast is that Captivate lacks slide layer functionality, which makes creating content triggers challenging. Conversely, the Storyline 360 feature enables users to quickly create triggers and layers, allowing for more customizable training.
Lastly, you can import PowerPoint slides into a Captivate project, but keep in mind that they are imported as individual objects. On the other hand, with Articulate 360, users can easily import slides straight from a PowerPoint presentation.
The Choice: If you’re choosing based on content authoring capabilities, you'll need to decide what features you can live without when choosing between the two.
Adobe Captivate offers 100 GB of storage for each plan and for additional storage, users will have to pay an additional fee via a Creative Cloud Storage account.
Articulate 360 individual subscription plan comes with 150 GB, including Review 360 and Rise 360. Team plans are given unlimited storage space.
The Choice: If you’re planning on creating an extensive library of training materials and courses then storage is something that can become an issue in the future. This is determined by how many courses you plan to create and your current budget.
If you're a business or an entrepreneur on a budget, you can pay as you grow with Adobe Captivate. If you anticipate that you’ll need a lot of storage regardless, then go with Articulate.
Next to creating amazing content, you also want software that you can rely on to track trainees' learning experiences and completion rates. This feature is important to measure your training success or if you plan to conduct a Training Needs Assessment (TNA).
Articulate 360 and Adobe Captivate both offer built-in analytics in their platforms and the ability to export files in SCORM and xAPI for advanced tracking when uploaded into an LMS.
The distinction between the two is that Articulate provides more options in tracking. Users can use the basic analytics in Articulate 360, including Rise 360 and Storyline 360, or the LMS platform, Rise.com, for more advanced analytics.
The Choice: It’s up to you. Factors such as LMS integration, use of native software analytics or the size of the training will influence your final decision.
Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360 share similar publishing options such as SCORM, AICC, xAPI, video, HTML5 file formats. Adobe does allow users to export in exe., while Articulate 360 additionally publishes files in Word Document and Review.
The Choice: You can choose either as both offer great publishing options.
Reliable customer support is just as essential as having a good content creation tool. Both tools provide support via an online forum, user guides, video content, on-demand webinars, and FAQ pages. However, Articulate offers additional support to all users via email support and live webinars but only those with enterprise plans can access direct and fast support.
The Choice: Users for both Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360 are divided on customer support. It’s something you’ll have to experience for yourself to truly know.
For cost, you always want to ensure that you’re getting your money's worth. When comparing cost, Articulate 360 pricing is more expensive and has stricter payment obligations than Adobe Captivate.
Articulate users have to pay an annual fee with certain term lengths whereas Adobe Captivate’s price and plans gives users the flexibility to choose or switch between monthly and annual plans.
The Choice: This hinges entirely on your budget and your contractual commitment to the software. However, the more affordable and flexible option of the two is Adobe Captivate.
When choosing or researching software, it’s always helpful to read customer reviews from reputable sites. When I compared G2 and Capterra for Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360, I found that Articulate 360 had the best reviews on both sites.
The Choice: We’ve also linked them in the comparison chart and their designated sections in this article so you can click on them and see for yourself which works best for you.
When compared to other tools like Articulate and Adobe, Visme is an easy-to-use yet feature-rich content authoring tool with a seamless user experience
The tool offers a well-rounded approach to creating, sharing and tracking training and development content. It offers intuitive user interfaces, interactive elements and a vast library of templates.
In addition, it offers far more flexibility and customization than Captivate and Articulate, which helps ensure that whether you’re a beginner or a professional course creator, you have all the tools you need at your fingertips to bring your training ideas to life.
Visme goes beyond simply helping you create visuals; it provides effective results for teams big or small. In fact, our client, The learning and development department at WOW! saved up to 79% in design time and cost when they switched to Visme from Articulate 360.
Wow, Inc.
Visme’s award-winning platform comes with an adaptable interface and an easy-to-use editor. With Visme, you can easily drag-and-drop elements, add, rearrange and remove pages, switch out images, change color schemes and so much more.
All of the tools and features are easy to find and if you need additional help there’s a quick onboarding walk-through to get you started.
Plus, if you need additional help, each editor has a question mark that provides FAQs and design tips.
Unlike other design platforms that have boring, outdated designs, all of Visme’s templates are created by a team of professional designers. Choose from thousands of training materials made for a variety of use cases and industries. You can seamlessly customize each to meet your needs and incorporate your brand color.
You’ll find a wide range of templates in various formats such as:
Our templates are so accessible and easy to use that one of our users has this to say about them:
Adjunct Professor
Build interactive courses without the need for coding or relying on a developer. Visme allows you to incorporate interactive and animated features such as:
Instead of your slides controlling you, in Visme you control the slides. Add key transitions such as fade-in, flips or fades, on-click, transition delays and so much more.
Every project and presentation comes with a Presenter Studio. This allows you to record your lectures beforehand or live. You can use this to create on-demand videos or webinars for training.
You can also add notes to keep track of your key notes that are only visible to you.
Visme offers a myriad of premium design assets to ensure that you have access to the best resources to make your own.
This includes over 40+ 2D/ 3D data widgets, maps, graphs to bring your numbers to life. You can also access millions of high quality and royalty free photos and videos to add to your training content.
Elevate your content creation process with the help of Visme’s AI-powered tools. You can use them to save time and cost when designing your next training course:
Visme also acts as a brand asset management software. Add, manage and access up to 25 GB of images, videos, icons, fonts and other assets in an accessible location. This includes your company colors, logo, text and fonts so you can maintain brand integrity and identity across all your projects. You can manually upload your assets or let the Brand Wizard do the heavy lifting.
The Brand Wizard can also provide template suggestions that automatically match your brand identity so you can find templates with ease.
Unlike other content authoring tools that allow you to add comments and replies, Visme takes collaboration a step further by allowing you to create team workflows. This feature lets you:
You have more control over how you’d like to publish or download your training material. You can export your training material in the latest SCORM and xAPI Export format. There’s also an option to download it in high-quality PDF, PNG, JPG, GIF, an embed code and HTML5 formats, or publish it as a web page to generate a private or public link.
Visme supports industry standards such as SCORM and xAPI for advanced tracking in LMS systems so you can get reporting on learners' activities. You can also track analytics in Visme’s native software. Any Visme project shared as a link that has been published in the editor offers allows users to see data like:
Visme integration allows you to connect to a wide collection of your team’s favorite and most-used tools or software to help consolidate your techpack and organize your workflows. These include:
Visme has the following rating:
Visme provides monthly or yearly subscription plans with a range of features that meet the needs of each user, such as:
If you still have more questions when it comes to Adobe Captivate or Articulate, check out our FAQ section below:
The main difference between Articulate 360 and Adobe Captivate is that Articulate 360 has a lower learning curve, better functionality and more storage space than Adobe Captivate. On the other hand, Adobe Captivate allows you to create VR training and offers more affordable pricing.
Some amazing Adobe Captivate alternatives that will replace this feature include Visme, iSpring, Articulate 360, Articulate Storyline, Elucidat, Gomo or ActivePresenter.
For more alternatives check out the Best Adobe Captivate Alternative: A Complete List of Paid & Free Tools.
Adobe Captivate Classic is going away and will be discontinued in February 2028. Adobe will no longer allow licenses to be issued for this software. Adobe Captivate Classic will be replaced with Adobe Captivate (launched 2023).
Adobe Captivate is best used for creating interactive and immersive visuals in 360 or VR training environments without programming or coding from scratch.
No, Adobe Captive is not included or a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription.
Picking the right content authoring tool is essential. It’ll become a space that will expand and grow with you as your company or training needs evolve. You want to ensure that it’s a tool you can work with on a long-term basis. The difference between articulate and captivate are starkly different.
If you’re open to a better alternative to both, try Visme.
Visme is more than an online authoring tool; it’s a visual content creation hub that lets you create collaboratively and creatively. Unlike Adobe and Articulate, which require a significant financial commitment upfront, Visme offers the flexibility to test out its features and tools at a lower price point, providing a better overall experience.
Sign up for Visme and start creating training materials now! Or learn more about how Visme can help training and development teams and authors create amazing eLearning content, visit our website today.
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