The current scenario demands a need for tools where educators can deliver learning resources to learners through a digital platform. It is important that both the educator and learner should have access to a variety of tools to take forward the digital teaching and training platforms. For this reason schools, colleges and other training centers have started using Adobe Captivate, TechSmith's Camtasia, Filmora screen, and other such software.
Needless to say, the question arises, "Which software is better?" Hence I've compared Camtasia Vs Captivate based on the software programs, some notable features, similarities, and differences between them.
So, let's begin the in-depth comparison between Camtasia Vs Captivate-
Both TechSmith Camtasia and Adobe Captivate suit the needs of software stimulation, creation, demonstration screencast, or conversion of PowerPoint presentation into other formats. Although Camtasia provides fewer E-learning options, it has amazing features of screen capturing and video editing tools. This software comes with the option of manually adjusting sounds & video parameters. Video creators can use external microphones and cameras to increase the video quality. The astonishing feature of Camtasia is the editing of the footage. It enables you to cut & paste videos, the addition of transitions and captions to videos along with color grading and color correction action.
Being a powerful video editing program Camtasia is available for both Windows and iOS. It supports a range of popular media formats and offers an impressive range of control over the videos you create. Once you're finished editing, you can render and share your video files to YouTube, Google Drive, and Screencast from within the program.
Adobe Captivate is designed to provide an interactive learning experience. With Captivate you can learn everywhere you move. You can play any kind of learning content, take revision notes, download sessions, and use it later. You can pause videos on mobile devices and resume it later on desktop.
Camtasia vs Captivate-Pricing Review
Camtasia Pricing
The software of such quality and ease-of-access features requires a tremendous effort for their creation and design. And as no great things come at a small cost, the Captivate comes at $1,299 for the full version and $399 for the student version, which withdraws a fat cheque compared to the Camtasia's pocket-friendly $250 plus $99.50 for the full upgrade. If you are an educationalist or a student then discounts are available for both products. TechSmith Camtasia gives a 40% discount whilst Adobe gives an impressive 80% discount at the time of subscribing.
Captivate Pricing
Although Captivate seems an expensive buy momentarily, it also has a monthly plan at $29.99/month. Both provide a 30-day free trial with an option to buy at the end. The cost of Camtasia is $249 USD along with the updating cost of $ 99.50 USD.
Captivate does all that Camtasia can do. It allows users to turn their ideas into detailed storyboards and provides an option to save it on the cloud. The slider option enables adjustment of slides ranging from 320p to 1280p width along with the height of 100p to 5000p. The cost is on a higher side at $279.65 USD annually.
The system requirements for both are almost similar but there are minor differences between them. While Camtasia requires a 2.0GHz CPU with a dual-core processor Captivate can be worked on with a 1 .0GHz processor. Both this software can be accessed via Windows 7 SP, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 with a minimum speed of 4GB RAM. Camtasia supports the only 64 bit while Captivate supports 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems. A minimum of 5GB of hard disk space is required for installation of Captivate while the same is reduced to 2GB for Camtasia.
Hands-down on both this software. If you aim to develop quick, full-motion professional videos, Camtasia is the winner while Captivate lets you create online & offline interactive software simulations to engage learners and integrate E-Learning experience. Opt for Captivate.
Though Captivate offers an abundance of amazing and powerful features, it doesn't let one edit the videos created with the help of a screen capture option. The video content created via Adobe Captivate requires an editing software to get rid of errors that might occur during recording. For one to get an error-free video, Camtasia is surely the best to opt for. It is easy to learn when compared to Captivate.
Both captivate and Camtasia allows you to create a full-motion software demonstration. Camtasia makes editing enjoyable. It lets you reflect on your imaginative side. It helps to export existing videos or to capture something new. Videos can be easily annotated with freehand tools and can be shared instantly with colleagues.
Both of these programs are used to create e-learning content, but there are considerable differences between the two. Adobe Captivate is a rapid responsive software that is used to create aesthetically attractive and sound e-learning programs. It helps in turning ideas into storyboarding responsive learning and creating interactive presentations, like PowerPoint presentations converted to Adobe Flash or HTML5 programs, which increases the learner's participation and interest. Captivate is widely known for its newly-added 'Geolocation' feature, which helps in creating presentations related to your current location. You can change the location as per your choice and it provides the templates suiting the location is chosen, which truly is eye-catching.
Moreover, the 'Fluid Boxes' feature adds to the tip of the iceberg which lets users add orient objects in their presentations in all eLearning projects. The Responsive Motion effect is also a key feature that enables you to add object transitions without any programming. You can control the trajectories of the objects by applying a single visual effect. Adobe Typekit lets you create and store cloud-based Typekit fonts you can use in each presentation or e-learning courses. To make things even better, Adobe Captivate has the provision of publishing your eLearning courses as applications via the Native app publisher feature.
Although Camtasia provides less eLearning features, it has some appealing screen recording and video editing tools. Camtasia, as mentioned before, is extremely user friendly and uses the drag-and-drop gesture to make light work of video editing. The screen capturing has a 'Picture in Picture' option which allows you to adjust and calibrate all the audio and video parameters manually. The tutorial and eLearning course creators can use external microphones and cameras to improve video quality.
After recording the video, the footage can be edited using the video editor, unlike Adobe Captivate. TechSmith's versatile editing tools let users cut, copy, and paste the video. You can also make the video more attractive by adding captions, transitions, and footnotes. The 'Colour Adjustment' tool enables the user to adjust the basic color grading of the video. The video can also be tilted to the left or the right by using a variety of animations included in the 'Smart Focus' feature. Voice narration is designed to record and edit the audio like Adobe Captivate, which helps in developing captions easily.
There is no arguing the fact that each software is a powerful tool for making eLearning and tutorial content. Adobe Captivate surely has wonderful transitional features and visual effect tools, but regardless of all this, it does not give you the option of video editing, which in my opinion is the bedrock of creating eLearning content. Hence, Captivate requires additional software, Adobe premiere, to edit and eliminate all errors from your videos. Adobe premiere digs deeper into your wallet as it comes at a hefty $539.99/per annum.
On the other hand, Camtasia is much affordable at $249 and lets the users edit videos freely. Unlike Captivate, it has fewer options to create eLearning content. Camtasia is a screen recording and video editing tool, and if you need a program that does both things, this is the perfect buy for you.
However, for creating professional eLearning and tutorial software content, Adobe Captivate is the best option among all. It is a great tool to create online courses and tutorials. But as said before, Captivate is not easy to use and is not at all suitable for beginners.
So, if you want to create online courses and have some experience with editing and content creating with other software, you can enhance your skills as well as improve the quality of your content by simply upgrading to Adobe Captivate.
On the other hand, if you are an entry-level editor and want to learn the basics of video editing and tutorial creation by yourself, Camtasia seems the affordable and viable option for you based on your skillset.
Camtasia is a great tool for recording anything and everything online and sharing it online. It is best known for its screen capturing and video editing features. You can share videos online on any platform directly from the program itself, hence saving the sweat of one's brow to download, and then sending/uploading it online.
Video editing is essential in making any training course and TechSmith made sure that this feature was included with a great interface. This gives Camtasia the edge over Captivate in this sector.
Camtasia is great for recording purposes and audio/video editing, but it does not give the liberty of creating interactive simulation programs and eLearning courses. Here Captivate has the upper hand as it gives boundless opportunities for creators to edit the original content, apply transitions and visual effects to make it more attractive and interactive.
Captivate, unlike Camtasia provides a free template and character library which consists of a wide variety of ready-to-use templates which are a great help to new users and are time-saving as well.
Captivate launched its iPad and Tablet application in 2017, which has extremely user-friendly and simple gestures for adding and creating content. Camtasia too has a similar application (Techfuse), but it does not give users the freedom of editing and creating. It is useful for transferring videos and viewing them on your iPad/Tablet device. It is a 'read-only' application.
While each software provides; Text-to-Speech conversion, it should be brought to one's notice that Captivate is not something anyone can have a good hand at. Learning to use it is a tedious procedure and mastering it is quite a skill, whereas Camtasia seems better for a novice user.
Since I have used both at some point in time. Adobe Captivate is just too much but Camtasia studio is simpler and helps to record the screen. So while Camtasia might not be able to do anything that Captivate can't. But it surely does it in a much simpler way.
I would give Captivate an overall rating of 3.5 out of 5 as it is hard to get through pages when used on Smartphones. On the other hand, Camtasia is rated 3.6 out of 5. Users also say it is simple to use and taking notes is much easier Thus giving it a value for money.
Quick LinksCustomer Reviews
Camtasia Reviews
Captivate Reviews
FAQs
Camtasia's real-time recording method is most fine to developers desiring detailed display screen captures who do not think of modifying video content within the timeline. Editing content through slides in Captivate 2 is generally less tedious than the film format utilized in Camtasia.
Camtasia's method of making a presentation via an individual film works great for builders who are acquainted with video applications. Developers unexpectedly with the manner may additionally have increased problems with the enhancing system in Camtasia due to the fact screen captures arise in real-time. Frame synchronization of video attributable to change or deletion of mistakes along with audio misspeaking or incorrect mouse movements can be tedious in Camtasia. A script outlining the elements of a display seize can assist alleviate mistakes throughout recordings.
The main drawback is that lengthy presentations can bring about a huge variety of slides that can be time eating to sort through and result in a larger document length for the Flash document that users access.