No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Adobe Captivate vs FrameMaker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Adobe Captivate
Ranking in Publishing Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
eLearning (10th)
FrameMaker
Ranking in Publishing Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Publishing Software category, the mindshare of Adobe Captivate is 14.1%, up from 14.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FrameMaker is 18.1%, down from 28.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Publishing Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Adobe Captivate14.1%
FrameMaker18.1%
Other67.8%
Publishing Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2814465 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Cloud Cost Over And Visibility Parts at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Interactive e-learning creation has transformed our training and now delivers measurable time savings
I would recommend Adobe Captivate for organizations that need advanced interactive e-learning content and have dedicated training or L&D teams. We have workflows to handle collaboration between team members when working on Adobe Captivate projects. We track learner progress and performance using Adobe Captivate through the reporting feature that Adobe Captivate provides to manage this information. We are using the latest version to manage version control for Adobe Captivate projects. There is a process we follow to handle content updates or revisions in Adobe Captivate once a course is published to keep the materials current. I am unaware of how to ensure content created in Adobe Captivate is accessible to all learners, including those with disabilities.
it_user432606 - PeerSpot reviewer
Documentation Department Manager with 10,001+ employees
The valuable features for us are format control and professional and clear output.
There should be some training for Chinese customers. This is maybe because only a few Chinese documentation engineers are using FrameMaker, so it is difficult to find solutions through the Internet and there is little training about FrameMaker. Most of the features of FrameMaker are not used because we don't know how to use them. I think Adobe should provide more training for Chinese customers.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Automatic responsive designs allow us to not have to code for any eLearning modules."
"The most valuable features are the templates that come with the package, the recording features, as well as the surveys and quizzes that you can create with it, and I also like the content library."
"The most valuable features are the templates that come with the package, the recording features, as well as the surveys and quizzes that you can create with it."
"It helped us bring in-house what would have otherwise been extremely costly projects."
"We use Adobe Captivate 5.5 with Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5 to produce technical how-to videos."
"Adobe Captivate is a complex software. You can create many complex learnings with it. T"
"Since using Adobe Captivate, I have noticed specific outcomes and improvements in my organization, including saving time and cost, and we have saved approximately 15 to 20% in time and cost after using Adobe Captivate."
"It helped us bring in-house what would have otherwise been extremely costly projects."
"The valuable features for us are format control and professional and clear output."
"However after a little ramping up, most get used to it and often uncover some very cool features that you can use when you have to manage large volumes of multiple documents with single source content and chapter and book modularity."
 

Cons

"I would love to see a "For Dummies" option. It gets pretty extensive in its level of intricacies and options offered."
"I would love to see a "For Dummies" option. It gets pretty extensive in its level of intricacies and options offered."
"I would love a quick widget which walks novices through the process along with descriptive output options."
"I believe Adobe Captivate can be improved because the tool can feel complex for beginners, and the performance may slow down for large or highly interactive projects."
"The text to speech capability needs to be improved."
"Getting started with Captivate has been a struggle for two of us on our team."
"The older or classic version of Adobe Captivate needs much improvement because everything looks very old."
"The voice sounds automated and I would like to have a more natural-sounding voice."
"One thing that bugs me about FrameMaker is that when you are dealing with large files, it sometimes hangs and can seize up your local PC or VM resources."
"We had some stability issues and it was often corrupted before we installed some patches."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is part of the larger Adobe Creative Cloud offering, which costs about $600 USD per year."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Publishing Software solutions are best for your needs.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Adobe Captivate?
I believe Adobe Captivate can be improved because the tool can feel complex for beginners, and the performance may slow down for large or highly interactive projects.
What is your primary use case for Adobe Captivate?
My main use case for Adobe Captivate is to create interactive e-learning content including training courses, software simulations, and quizzes.
What advice do you have for others considering Adobe Captivate?
I would recommend Adobe Captivate for organizations that need advanced interactive e-learning content and have dedicated training or L&D teams. We have workflows to handle collaboration between...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Captivate
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GAAP Dynamic, Ceresti Health, ThinkBuzan, Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Design Goat, meLearning Solutions, The BRITE Initiative, Kineo
HaCon Ingenieurgesellschaft, ANA (All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd.), IBM, Marcia Riefer Johnston, Novell, AFNOR Publishing
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe Captivate vs. FrameMaker and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.