If you're looking for an eLearning authoring tool, then you would do well to try out Trivantis Lectora Inspire (which begins at $2,595 for a lifetime license).
In fact, it's one of the best products of its kind on the market today.
It has a robust feature set that will likely meet all of your needs, but it's also intuitive enough for newcomers to get up and running with the solution.
A license also provides you access to the excellent TechSmith Camtasia 2018, so you can make your content stand out with interactive video as well as ReviewLink, which lets you solicit feedback from users in real time.
Trivantis Lectora Inspire is an easy choice for our Editor's Choice designation in our eLearning authoring tool review roundup, even when compared to our other Editors' Choice pick Articulate Storyline 2.
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Pricing and Plans
Trivantis Lectora Inspire is among the more expensive authoring tools on the market.
However, it's important to note upfront that, compared with the competition, the tool's price tag is merited by its functionality.
For $2,595, you'll receive one year of free maintenance and support, on-demand video training, and full installs of SnagIt ($49.95 at TechSmith) and Camtasia Studio 2018.
As a standalone solution, Camtasia Studio 2018 is a remarkable eLearning authoring tool in its own right, especially if you're focused solely on creating interactive, video-based courses.
Camtasia Studio 2018 alone costs $249, and SnagIt will cost you $49.95 for a single license were you to buy these tools separately.
On the equally expensive side, you'll find Elucidat (Visit Site at Elucidat) , which starts at $2,500 per user per year, with a minimum of three users per plan; this brings your upfront investment to $7,500.
This is easily the most expensive plan we reviewed in this category.
Articulate Storyline 2 isn't cheap, either.
The basic version costs $1,398 and, because it's a local installation, you won't get the benefit of cloud updating and will likely need to buy all-new software when the software reaches new major milestone version.
The same can be said of Trivantis Lectora Inspire, but having the option to use Trivantis Lectora Inspire Online Version mitigates this somewhat.
SmartBuilder can be purchased for $1,490 per year or $149 per month.
At the middle of the price spectrum, you'll find tools such as Raptivity ($300.00 at Raptivity) , which offers one of the more customer-friendly pricing plans in this category, though it's also the least well-featured.
For $300, you'll receive a lifetime license and the ability to pay for additional features at a later date.
This includes 119 templates (89 of which are Flash-based only), and a Microsoft PowerPoint plug-in that lets you incorporate your Raptivity "interactions" into your slide decks.
For $600, you'll gain access to 72 additional templates and Raptivity Linker, which lets you tie interactions into a single, multifaceted course (or to use PowerPoint-speak, "multi-slide courses").
All in all, I found that Shift eLearning (0.00 Starting Price at SHIFT e-Learning) offers the most customer-friendly pricing, starting with $1,200 per year plan for one user, for up to three courses of 120 screens each, and additional tiers that scale up as your needs increase.
Trivantis Lectora Does Inspire
Let's start with the obvious benefits of buying an Trivantis Lectora Inspire license.
A big benefit is that TechSmith Camtasia Studio 2018 functions well as a standalone eLearning authoring tool all by itself.
As we said in our review of TechSmith Camtasia 2018, 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.
But 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.
By purchasing Trivantis Lectora Inspire, you're getting a solid eLearning authoring tool without ever using Trivantis Lectora Inspire itself.
Not to mention you're gaining access to SnagIt, one of the best screen capture and image editing tools on the market.
However, after the video smarts of TechSmith Camtasia 2018 and SnagIt, Trivantis Lectora Inspire really delivers on in-depth courseware content creation capability.
It features a clean and vibrant user interface (UI) with clearly marked buttons that direct users exactly where they need to go.
If you have mostly been creating content on Microsoft PowerPoint, then you'll love that Trivantis Lectora Inspire can pull in old presentations.
This lets you turn old, static slide decks into interactive content without having to start from scratch.
It can also protect investments you have made on expensive presentations built for you by professional graphic artists.
Trivantis Lectora Inspire's Interaction Builder lets you quickly build HTML5 and Flash games by simply popping text and images, without having to know how to code.
You can create If/Then-based learning using the Action tab.
This feature gives your courses a less linear, more real-life feel as users navigate through questions and content like they would in a flesh-and-blood classroom or tutoring session.
Trivantis Lectora Inspire offers exhaustive design themes, similiar to Microsoft PowerPoint, to let you quickly build your course background.
The template library features more than 2,000 images and 50,000 character images, including multiple responses and emotions for each character.
You might never need to build a course from scratch in Trivantis Lectora Inspire because of how many course templates you're offered out of the box.
You're also given access to a video library, which features things such as overlay videos of people speaking or responding to others.
You can sync video actions and cue points to have the person speaking in the stock video gesture in-sync with your intended audio.
You can use the video images either as MP4 or HTML, or you can just pull one slide from the video.
Each library asset, template, and interaction, regardless of the media format, can be edited completely so you're not locked into any specific design elements when you use preloaded Trivantis Lectora Inspire files.
These are wonderful capabilities whether you're building content for business training or an academically-focused learning management system (LMS).
The tool offers Responsive Course Design, which lets you click between form factors to see how the course will look on every device type you might be targeting, from smartphones to desktops.
You can customize the course content for each individual device view or you can publish once and deliver for any platform.
For back-end administrators, the course Status Indicator shows whether a chapter or page has been started, completed, or not started—that's an important feature for managers of business learning and training platforms who need to coordinate course completion with the HR department to validate training for things such as bonuses or job requirements.
Lectora's social components let you create a widget that connects users to generate discussions about your courses.
You can even add feeds for external Twitter content into the body of your courses, or you can add social share buttons that let users share the entire course or just a specific page across all the popular social media channels.
Unlike every other tool we reviewed, except for Articulate Storyline 2 and Elucidat, Trivantis Lectora Inspire supports custom scripting to create any out-of-the-box interactions in your courses.
It supports JavaServer Pages, Java Applets, and Active Server Page scripts to let you expand the limits of how your courses look, feel, and adapt to user interactions.
Unlike other tools that require you to differentiate between quiz pages and regular course pages, Trivantis Lectora Inspire lets you put questions on any page in your course.
Scattered questions can be standalone, part of a test, or part of a survey.
Unfortunately, Trivantis Lectora Inspire only offers 10 quiz templates but, because you can use the tool to create out-of-the-box interactions, you can design your own questions should you need something unique.
Quiz response feedback is exhaustive.
The tool offers dozens of actions beyond just the standard pop-up that says "Correct" or "Incorrect." For example, you can launch a program, show an image, or show a video as a response to an incorrect or correct answer.
The Bottom Line
Very little separates the best-in-class tools in this category.
While Articulate Storyline 2 follows a strict Microsoft PowerPoint structure for content creation that can be bent and twisted as your heart desires, Trivantis Lectora Inspire offers an intuitive course creation structure that's supported by exhaustive templates.
Both tools offer comprehensive video editing, video recording, and screen recording functionality.
Each tool lets users embed webpages to create third-party course journeys.
Overall, Articulate Storyline 2 is significantly less expensive, which warrants your immediate attention.
However, both tools offer a free trial, so I recommend you give these and the others in our roundup a whirl before making your final choice.
Trivantis Lectora Inspire
The Bottom Line
Trivantis Lectora Inspire is more expensive than fellow Editors' Choice pick Articulate Storyline 2.
With that said, it's still worth checking out as it is a very powerful eLearning authoring tool.
