Adobe Captivate elearning content suthoring software is definitely the leader, but is there any alternative to Captivate?

Adobe Captivate 4 is $799

Adobe Captivate versus Flash Video Recorder

Captivate and Flash Video Recorder really very different when it comes to recording. The first thing you will notice is that Flash Video Recorder it is very easy to record the computer screen. To start recording all you do is click on the start button and it seamlessly records every move and when you’re finished just click on the stop button. If at any time you need to pause for whatever reason the pause button is right there between the start and stop. Also, everything is recorded in real time.

Adobe Captivate only captures the screen as your screen changes. This means that if you pause, Captivate will not capture anything. When you are finished recording Captivate will compile all the different screen captures into a project. So, Captivate displays each screen capture as a slide instead of one video file with Flash Video Recorder.

If you consider that with Adobe Captivate the mouse is captured separately to the screen itself when you edit you can actually move the mouse to where you want it to be. You can change how the mouse looks like but this is a feature that is also included with Flash Video Recorder. If you want to add screen captions and shapes you have to set this up in advance with Flash Video Recorder so you really need to plan your recording in advance.

Adobe Captivate will only output the movie into a Flash animation (SWF) file. Flash Video Recorder will not only output the movie into Flash but also produce your movie in AVI. This makes it easy if you want to upload your movies online to video hosts such as GoogleVideo or YouTube

As you can see there are some advantages and disadvantages to both products. For many people price is very much a determining factor when you consider that Adobe Captivate sells for $699 and now the new version is $799 compared to Flash Video Recorder at under $50. The best thing is just to try them out, Flash Video Recorder gives you a dozen or so uses and there is a 30 day free trial with Adobe Captivate