Some eLearning authoring tools are designed to let you create effective text-based courses.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018, on the other hand, is more focused on letting you create robust video courses.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 (which begins at $249) is a solid offering, even when compared to Editors' Choice winners Articulate Storyline 2 and Trivantis Lectora Inspire.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 may not have all of the templates you'll find in those competing platforms, but it is still great for creating and editing video.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Pricing and Plans
Comparing TechSmith Camtasia 2018 to other eLearning authoring tools is a bit like making an apples-to-oranges comparison.
After all, there's a lot that separates it from others in the field.
For example, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 doesn't offer free-form quizzes, it won't let you embed webpages into courses, and you won't be able to create customized activities such as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" learning path.
However, given TechSmith Camtasia 2018's relatively low price tag of $249 for one license (with big discounts coming after the fifth license purchased), it's about as expensive as it should be compared to the rest of the eLearning authoring tools we reviewed.
For example, Shift eLearning (0.00 Starting Price at SHIFT e-Learning) offers a customer-friendly pricing model that starts with a barebones free trial, which can be used by one person to create one course of up to 120 HTML5 screens.
Or you can go as high as its Enterprise plan, which gives you access to three users, 30 reviewers, an unlimited number of courses, and nearly endless scalability for a whopping $8,500 per year.
If you think Shift eLearning's expensive, then Elucidat will blow your mind.
For $7,500, you'll get three seats and a comprehensive and capable tool, but nothing so revolutionary that you'll start signing a check the first time you demo the tool.
Articulate Storyline 2, which is one of the best tools on the market, offers one version of its solution for $1,398.
H5P is a free, open-source tool, which is great for one-off content creation, but it lacks the rich multimedia functionality you'll experience with most of the eLearning authoring tool competition.
Features and Functionality
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 is an excellent tool for creating software demos and content that can be shared via webcam.
For example, if you're creating a course to teach someone how to use Netflix, then you can easily jump back and forth from recording your cursor movements on the Netflix user interface (UI) to a video taken from your webcam in which you're speaking directly to the learner.
Unlike some of the other tools we reviewed—which force you to record video and screenshots in third-party tools—all of this can be done directly within TechSmith Camtasia 2018.
Screen recording is especially easy.
The tool lets you choose whether you want to record the full screen or just a zoomed-in area.
This is helpful for small demonstrations that take place in specific corners of the screen.
Rather than zooming in while editing a larger canvas and creating a pixelated final product, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 will zero in on where you need video captured in order to deliver a crisp recording.
You can also add cursor highlight effects to show exactly how and where the mouse is moving or, like in Articulate Storyline 2, you can remove the cursor entirely by adjusting its opacity.
For greater instructional emphasis, you can use the tool to animate, pan over, zoom into, and move things around after you've recorded video in order to help demonstrate important points during your lesson.
For example, if you've recorded a child playing with a ball, then you can zoom in on the child's face to see his or her smile, without altering other aspects of the video.
Animated callouts let you draw squares or arrows around specific aspects of your video to highlight distinct elements.
You can also pause one side of the screen (for example, when a talking head has finished his or her lecture) while the other side plays (for example, when the talking head's cursor moves along the screen).
For those of you who have never shot video, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 can record a Microsoft PowerPoint ($8.25 Per User Per Month with Annual Commitment at Microsoft365 for Business) slideshow and turn it into a video.
More impressively, it will automatically create a table of contents with the titles of every slide.
To turn the slideshow into a quiz, you can interject a question or a series of questions between each slide.
The tool also integrates with TechSmith Snagit, which will let you drag and drop images from the web or external programs into TechSmith Camtasia 2018.
If you don't want to make your learners watch an entire course video, then you can insert jumps by creating an action within the video (for example, "Skip ahead to the section on bees" or "Press Play to learn more about butterflies").
What also makes TechSmith Camtasia 2018 a great eLearning authoring tool is its basic but useful quiz functionality.
You can insert a quiz at any point during a video.
This won't be a rich experience like the quizzes you'll find in Articulate Storyline 2 or Elucidat as quizzes in TechSmith Camtasia 2018 are limited to multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, or true or false.
But the quizzes will be powerful enough to help you decipher whether someone gave right or wrong answers.
To pull analytics from your quizzes, you'll need to publish your video to Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and pop it into online training software; this is an added expense you'll want to consider before making a purchase decision.
If you're not concerned about analytics and you trust your employees to learn and master the content in your videos, then you can share video from TechSmith Camtasia 2018 directly to a number of sites—such as Vimeo and YouTube—from directly within the software.
Unfortunately, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 can only handle video files up to 1080P and at 30 frames per second (FPS) so, if your coursework requires higher-definition video or intense and rapid graphics, then you'll probably want to purchase heavier-duty video editing software.
However, among the eLearning authoring tools we reviewed, there's no better solution for building, capturing, and editing quizzes through video than TechSmith Camtasia 2018.
The Bottom Line
All eLearning authoring tools are not created equal.
Some are built for heavy-duty HTML5-based interactive content, some are designed for extremely templated course creation, and others focus on a specific media format.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 falls in the latter camp.
It's not an eLearning authoring tool that does video well, but rather, it's a video tool that's versatile enough to serve as your company's eLearning authoring tool.
If your desire is to create courses quickly, without worrying about interactivity, templates, back-end analytics, or gamification, then TechSmith Camtasia 2018 will help you get the job done.
Just don't expect TechSmith Camtasia 2018 to produce the same run-of-the-mill training content you're used to seeing when you get a new job or when compliance reviews are due.
That's what we like about it.
Pros
Easy to set up and use.
Affordably priced.
The Bottom Line
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 is a solid eLearning authoring tool that's great for creating video lessons, but those wanting a more traditional, text-based program may want to look elsewhere.
Some eLearning authoring tools are designed to let you create effective text-based courses.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018, on the other hand, is more focused on letting you create robust video courses.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 (which begins at $249) is a solid offering, even when compared to Editors' Choice winners Articulate Storyline 2 and Trivantis Lectora Inspire.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 may not have all of the templates you'll find in those competing platforms, but it is still great for creating and editing video.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Pricing and Plans
Comparing TechSmith Camtasia 2018 to other eLearning authoring tools is a bit like making an apples-to-oranges comparison.
After all, there's a lot that separates it from others in the field.
For example, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 doesn't offer free-form quizzes, it won't let you embed webpages into courses, and you won't be able to create customized activities such as a "Choose Your Own Adventure" learning path.
However, given TechSmith Camtasia 2018's relatively low price tag of $249 for one license (with big discounts coming after the fifth license purchased), it's about as expensive as it should be compared to the rest of the eLearning authoring tools we reviewed.
For example, Shift eLearning (0.00 Starting Price at SHIFT e-Learning) offers a customer-friendly pricing model that starts with a barebones free trial, which can be used by one person to create one course of up to 120 HTML5 screens.
Or you can go as high as its Enterprise plan, which gives you access to three users, 30 reviewers, an unlimited number of courses, and nearly endless scalability for a whopping $8,500 per year.
If you think Shift eLearning's expensive, then Elucidat will blow your mind.
For $7,500, you'll get three seats and a comprehensive and capable tool, but nothing so revolutionary that you'll start signing a check the first time you demo the tool.
Articulate Storyline 2, which is one of the best tools on the market, offers one version of its solution for $1,398.
H5P is a free, open-source tool, which is great for one-off content creation, but it lacks the rich multimedia functionality you'll experience with most of the eLearning authoring tool competition.
Features and Functionality
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 is an excellent tool for creating software demos and content that can be shared via webcam.
For example, if you're creating a course to teach someone how to use Netflix, then you can easily jump back and forth from recording your cursor movements on the Netflix user interface (UI) to a video taken from your webcam in which you're speaking directly to the learner.
Unlike some of the other tools we reviewed—which force you to record video and screenshots in third-party tools—all of this can be done directly within TechSmith Camtasia 2018.
Screen recording is especially easy.
The tool lets you choose whether you want to record the full screen or just a zoomed-in area.
This is helpful for small demonstrations that take place in specific corners of the screen.
Rather than zooming in while editing a larger canvas and creating a pixelated final product, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 will zero in on where you need video captured in order to deliver a crisp recording.
You can also add cursor highlight effects to show exactly how and where the mouse is moving or, like in Articulate Storyline 2, you can remove the cursor entirely by adjusting its opacity.
For greater instructional emphasis, you can use the tool to animate, pan over, zoom into, and move things around after you've recorded video in order to help demonstrate important points during your lesson.
For example, if you've recorded a child playing with a ball, then you can zoom in on the child's face to see his or her smile, without altering other aspects of the video.
Animated callouts let you draw squares or arrows around specific aspects of your video to highlight distinct elements.
You can also pause one side of the screen (for example, when a talking head has finished his or her lecture) while the other side plays (for example, when the talking head's cursor moves along the screen).
For those of you who have never shot video, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 can record a Microsoft PowerPoint ($8.25 Per User Per Month with Annual Commitment at Microsoft365 for Business) slideshow and turn it into a video.
More impressively, it will automatically create a table of contents with the titles of every slide.
To turn the slideshow into a quiz, you can interject a question or a series of questions between each slide.
The tool also integrates with TechSmith Snagit, which will let you drag and drop images from the web or external programs into TechSmith Camtasia 2018.
If you don't want to make your learners watch an entire course video, then you can insert jumps by creating an action within the video (for example, "Skip ahead to the section on bees" or "Press Play to learn more about butterflies").
What also makes TechSmith Camtasia 2018 a great eLearning authoring tool is its basic but useful quiz functionality.
You can insert a quiz at any point during a video.
This won't be a rich experience like the quizzes you'll find in Articulate Storyline 2 or Elucidat as quizzes in TechSmith Camtasia 2018 are limited to multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, or true or false.
But the quizzes will be powerful enough to help you decipher whether someone gave right or wrong answers.
To pull analytics from your quizzes, you'll need to publish your video to Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and pop it into online training software; this is an added expense you'll want to consider before making a purchase decision.
If you're not concerned about analytics and you trust your employees to learn and master the content in your videos, then you can share video from TechSmith Camtasia 2018 directly to a number of sites—such as Vimeo and YouTube—from directly within the software.
Unfortunately, TechSmith Camtasia 2018 can only handle video files up to 1080P and at 30 frames per second (FPS) so, if your coursework requires higher-definition video or intense and rapid graphics, then you'll probably want to purchase heavier-duty video editing software.
However, among the eLearning authoring tools we reviewed, there's no better solution for building, capturing, and editing quizzes through video than TechSmith Camtasia 2018.
The Bottom Line
All eLearning authoring tools are not created equal.
Some are built for heavy-duty HTML5-based interactive content, some are designed for extremely templated course creation, and others focus on a specific media format.
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 falls in the latter camp.
It's not an eLearning authoring tool that does video well, but rather, it's a video tool that's versatile enough to serve as your company's eLearning authoring tool.
If your desire is to create courses quickly, without worrying about interactivity, templates, back-end analytics, or gamification, then TechSmith Camtasia 2018 will help you get the job done.
Just don't expect TechSmith Camtasia 2018 to produce the same run-of-the-mill training content you're used to seeing when you get a new job or when compliance reviews are due.
That's what we like about it.
Pros
Easy to set up and use.
Affordably priced.
The Bottom Line
TechSmith Camtasia 2018 is a solid eLearning authoring tool that's great for creating video lessons, but those wanting a more traditional, text-based program may want to look elsewhere.
