Comparisons and advocacy

Adobe Captivate is a combination of a lot of different tools and technologies. I do not think you can fairly compare these two programs, unless you look at it from the point of view of "what is most useful to me?"  For me, and I suspect most people, Moodle does what I want it to do, what I want to use it for, and is big enough for me to continue exploring its uses. It is flexible enough for me to adapt it to a number of different circumstances and I am always hearing of uses for Moodle that I had never considered before. Moodle is used and is available in all the schools and universities I am likely to work/study in. For me, Captivate is an unknown thing. It is expensive and I do not know any institution near me that I can access that uses it. This would indicate that while it sounds great, it may not be considered as useful by the people who are making the decisions at those places.

Anything can be made to look good,  but unless it is considered to be a useful or desirable tool, it is not going to gain a lot of support. 

Hi Paul: Quick story - maybe not that useful but possibly illuminating:

I once worked on a project for a client who wanted a short online course for a distributed workforce. The client hired a course developer who put together a really solid course in Moodle - interesting readings, links to resources, discussions, and assignments. The client hated it - too boring, they said. So they fired the course developer and hired someone who could create the same course using Captivate. Developer #2 packed the course full of flashy screens with rollover buttons that made little popping and wooshing noises. The whole course had the feel of a video game, and the final learning activity was a game of Hangman that spelled - I hope you are sitting down - the title of the course! And you know what? - the client loved it.

Was it a more robust learning activity? Absolutely not, but if a client is not always right, the client is at least never wrong, and they got what they wanted. I suppose the moral of the story is to be clear about learning outcomes and how you will achieve them, and not to be diverted by shiny objects - unless your organization has a way of balancing them with learning outcomes. Good luck with your decision.

Peter