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Articulate Storyline and Articulate Studio 360 are two e-learning authoring tools developed by Articulate. They have many similarities and overlapping features, but there are also many differences between the two platforms. But before we go into that, let’s get to know about Articulate Storyline and Studio.
Articulate Storyline
Articulate Storyline (formerly called Articulate Presenter) is an e-learning authoring tool that allows anyone to create interactive online courses and presentations easily. The software can be used to design, publish, test, and maintain learning content in various formats, including desktop applications and mobile apps.
Articulate Studio 360
A game-changer in e-learning, articulation studio is a flexible tool that includes just about everything you’ll need to create engaging and interactive courses for your organization or clients. The software is divided into two main components: story and designer; users access both editors via a subscription model ($150 per month).
The Key Differences
We’ve outlined five key differences between the two authoring tools to help you decide which one might better suit your needs as an e-learning developer or designer.
- Timeline Structure
Much like PowerPoint and other presentation tools, Articulate Storyline organizes your slides into a simple timeline-based structure that’s easy to follow. This can be advantageous for audiences listening to you speak live or watching a video of your talk later since they can easily rewind when needed or jump ahead without fear of missing something important.
But it can also limit flexibility in telling your story; if you discover while practicing (or after recording) that a slide belongs in another location on another page, there’s no way to move it without completely redoing every slide in its new place.
Is this the same for articulate studio 360? Not quite; rather than forcing you to build your presentation in a specific way, Studio allows you to combine and organize slides however you see fit, emphasizing individual slide elements rather than order of appearance.
This provides more creative freedom to express your ideas in whatever way best helps them resonate with your audience without forcing unnecessary limits or jumps in information.
- Publishing Options
Articulate Storyline and Articulate Studio 360 are powerful authoring tools that let you create courses, but they are very different in their approach to publishing options for your audience.
Though both programs offer some level of LMS support, such as SCORM compatibility and standalone package exports, they excel in unique ways that you might not know about until it’s too late to switch over.
Is articulate studio 360 publishing options better? No doubt about it—you can do more with Articulate Studio 360 than with Storyline 2, which includes creating courses for delivery in an LMS or as a standalone package export.
For example, Storyline 2 only lets you publish to one SCORM-compliant learning management system (LMS) out of a shortlist of five possible choices. Plus, Storyline 2 does not support popular e-learning development toolkits such as Adobe Captivate.
In contrast, Studio 360 supports all major LMS platforms, including Moodle, Blackboard Learn 10/11, Canvas by Instructure, Sakai Open Source by PTC / Pearson, and Brightspace from D2L Corp. That’s because they are built into Studio; there’s no need to install any additional plugins or APIs.
- Ease of use
One of the challenges people have with Articulate Storyline is that it’s extremely complicated, difficult to use, and often frustrating even for experienced designers. However, people have one advantage with Articulate Studio because it’s incredibly intuitive, easy to use, and fast-paced enough to get you to create quickly.
If you want a tool that will help power your business, I’d suggest giving Articulate Studio a try. But, if you want something fun to play around with or if your needs are very specific (e.g., you want a game engine), go ahead and try out Storyline—but don’t expect much help if things go wrong!
- Price
The biggest differentiator between these two packages is price. There are multiple levels of pricing for each option. Still, one thing that’s for sure is that you’ll pay less for Articulate Storyline than you will for Studio 360, especially if you only need one program or another (Storyline has fewer programs than Studio, though it also has fewer features.
Articulate Studio 360 costs $999, while the team subscription costs $1299—articulate Storyline for a single user costs only $99, but up to $649 for a team.
- Visual Design
This might be enough reason to choose one software over another, but it shouldn’t be a make-or-break decision factor. After all, you can use both Storyline and Studio 360 to create visually stunning eLearning courses. Of course, there are differences in their visual design capabilities.
Build Interactions With Drag and Drop Editor: One of Studio 360’s strongest assets is its drag-and-drop editor, enabling easy interaction creation. The Storyline slide layer has basic animation options for objects, but it isn’t nearly as robust as Studio 360 offers.
Flexible Player Options: By using integrated, responsive technology (for mobile devices), these two programs ensure that your course content will display correctly on various devices.
A pop-up survey window appears when learners view your course on mobile devices, enabling them to indicate whether the content is displayed correctly. After viewing your course, respondents are redirected to their place in your training with no disruption or delay.
You can also embed videos within slides from YouTube and Vimeo within either program. However, Studio 360 has an edge because learners who access your course through a laptop/desktop computer don’t get asked many questions about video playback.
Content Management System Integration: Storyline and Studio 360 integrate with WordPress sites without hassle.
The Key Difference
For several organizations, it always comes down to budget. However, companies with limited funds available for training software can save a significant amount of money by going with Articulate Storyline instead of Studio—and that means they’ll be able to purchase more licenses or other training tools.
The big differentiator between articulate story and Studio is articulation’s interactivity engine, enabling designers to embed multimedia elements and branching capabilities into e-learning content like never before.
