17 Most Popular Training Softwares (Free & Paid) Used by Trainers to Make an Impact

Read Time: 9 minutes

We asked trainers all over the world about the best training software and LMS systems they use, and here are the results:

Forget about office yoga and happy hour, it’s TRAINING that the employees of tech companies and startups demand. It’s TRAINING that tops the list of most requested office perks. It may be hard to believe, but at any given moment, either you or a professional colleague are being trained, or someone in your company is providing training for others (which includes internal or external training for both the private sector and government-run organizations). And, when a trend grows at such an exponential rate — the training software to support it will follow.

What’s causing a surge in training and the use of training software?

Before we dive into the most popular platforms for digitizing L&D and training, let’s understand WHY training is making waves. First of all, it’s actually become cool to learn.  It’s 2019 after all, and cutting edge technology has embedded itself into every part of our lives (smart homes, AI, machine learning…), so tech employees are eager to be in the know  — and companies are more than happy to accommodate. Secondly, we live in a world where we can easily offend — and be offended — so rules and guidelines must be transparent. Lastly, training is increasingly becoming a legal requirement (e.g., GDPR compliance), and no intelligent company wants to challenge the law. But do the numbers match the demand?

Statistics Behind the Training Trend

According to the most recent Industry Report, the tech world’s most trusted source of data on budgets, staffing, and programs, the total cost of training (for US-based companies) was $87.6 Billion! Which means… diddly squat — until we break down how and where these numbers are being spent:

Training Expenses Stats:

• The average training expenditures for large companies increased from $17M in 2017 to $19.7M in 2018. 
• Training Expenditures for midsize companies rose from $600,000 to $2.1M in 2018.

Training Budget Stats:

• In 2018, 36% of companies increased their training budgets, while 49% reported that their training budgets remained the same (hey, no budget cuts!) 

Training Hours Stats:

• On average, employees receive 46.7 hours of training a year (excluding vacation, that’s 1 hour/week, per employee).
• On average, a company spent $986 on training/per learner/per year.

The Most Popular Training Topics

Internal Training: Training within a company, includes onboarding new staff, product training, soft skills training,  LMS training, workflow training, L&D for a product, financial training, etc…

Training as Dictated by Law: Government-mandated trainings includes sexual harassment prevention training, diversity training, safety training, hazard communication training, emergency preparedness training,  etc…

Compliance Training: Training for compliance includes OSHA training, HIPAA training, GDPR training, software integrations,  etc…

And FINALLY….

Almost all training requires the creation and sharing of knowledge — which comes in many forms — PDFs, videos, MP3s, MP4s, text documents, training modules, surveys, interactive forms, live video sessions, posts, etc…So, after hundreds of interviews & survey responses from trainers all over the world (Powtoon users, and non-Powtoon users alike), we are proud to present a roundup of:  

The 17 Most Popular Training Software For All Your Various Training Needs

1. Articulate 360

Tagline – “Get everything you need to create e-learning”

Software Categories: Content authoring tool, course creation tool, and collaboration tool

Plans: Paid

Description: Articulate 360 includes both Storyline 360 and Rise 360, plus a slew of other authoring apps. Use Storyline 360 to develop custom, interactive courses that work on every device — without any manual tweaking. It’s powerful enough for experts, but easy for beginners to create virtually any interaction imaginable.

2. iSpring

Tagline – “eLearning Software that really works”

Software Categories: LMS, content authoring tools, and presentation tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description: Create interactive courses and assessments in record time. No training required to start. iSpring Learn is an LMS that delivers your training faster. It allows you to automate training projects, from onboarding to sales enablement, engage employees, provide consistent learning, and boost your team performance.

3. Powtoon

Tagline: “Create Awesome Videos and Presentations in minutes.”

Software Categories: Rapid content authoring tools, video editing software, video creation tool, publishing tool, collaboration tool, and presentation tool

Plans: Free and Premium

Description: Powtoon is a trainer’s go-to platform for creating awesome, professional-looking videos and presentations — in minutes. Simply choose from 100’s of “drag and drop” templates that are already designed, scripted and ready for customization. With 1-click technology, you can add your logo, message, swap characters or objects, upload video, and so much more! In addition, you can convert your PPT to video and vice versa, then collaborate with colleagues. To finish it off, add a voiceover or soundtrack from a huge music library and watch your audience get excited!

4. MS Office (Honestly, mostly PPT)

Tagline: “Welcome to Office. Your place to create, communicate, collaborate, and get great work done.”

Software Categories: Presentation tool, collaboration tool, content authoring tool 

Plans: Paid

Description: MS Office suite includes Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, One Drive and of course, PowerPoint.  Trainers favor PPT, where they can “Tell a story with confidence using slide-by-slide notes only viewable by you, easily translate slides into a preferred language, and use built-in accessibility checkers.” As part of the suite, trainers can view work across any device, including mobile apps for Windows PCs, macOS, iOS, and Android as well as save work to the cloud.

5. Camtasia

Tagline: “The Best All-In-One Screen Recorder and Video Editor”

Software Categories: Screenshot and recording tool, and video editing tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description: Camtasia 2019 makes it simple to record and create professional-looking videos on Windows and Mac. It’s a best friend for your content authoring tool.

6. Adobe Captivate

Tagline: “Fast Forward e-learning” 

Software Categories: Video editing tool, video creation tool, and interactive tool

Plans: Paid

Description: Jumpstart compliance and soft skill course creation with ready-to-go slides…or use Quick Start Projects to create beautiful, mobile-ready projects in minutes. Add cool interactions and knowledge check questions as overlays on top of your video.

7.Vengage

Tagline: “Make Infographics That People Love”

Software Categories: Content authoring tool and design tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description:  Tell your stories and present your data with infographics. Turn complex data into easy to understand infographics. Make a big impact with stunning charts and visualizations.

 8. Elucidat

Tagline: “Produce eLearning that makes a real difference”

Software Categories: Content authoring tool, eLearning tool, collaboration tool, publishing tool, analytics tool, and interactive tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description: Create engaging, personalized digital learning that your audience can access on any device. Elucidat’s cloud-based eLearning authoring tool lets you produce HTML5, SCORM-compliant content that works with every modern LMS. That way, your whole team, from content producers to subject-matter experts, can contribute to, review, and author eLearning at any time with this tool. Then, use Elucidat’s analytics dashboards to help optimize your experience and report on the success of your content.

9. Adobe Express

Tagline: “Quickly and easily make standout content”

Software categories: Content authoring tools, collaboration tool, video creation tool, presentation tool, and design tool

Plans: Free and Premium

Description: Create impactful social graphics, web pages, and short videos in minutes. Whether you want to build your business, grow your side hustle, or rock your presentation, Adobe Express can help unleash your potential — beautifully. 

10. TalentLMS

Tagline: “Be a learning hero with the #1 LMS on the market”

Software categories: Content authoring tool and LMS 

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description: TalentLMS is a “super-easy, cloud LMS software” used to train your employees, partners, and customers with the necessary inbuilt tools that help everyone involved. All users can access the portal with ease and convenience.

11. SAP Litmos

Tagline: “Training in the Now – number one training platform for customer-focused enterprises“

Software categories: Content authoring tool, collaboration tool, presentation tool, interactive tool, and publishing tool

Plans: Paid

Description: SAP Litmos enables you to comprehensively and consistently train service and support agents to skillfully represent your brand. You can automate course assignments and quizzes to ensure learners are receiving and retaining information, and offer it from within an integrated environment, such as a CRM, where they spend the majority of their time.

12. Canva

Tagline: “Canva, your secret weapon for stunning design”

Software categories: Content authoring tool and design tool 

Plans: Free and Premium

Description: Whether it’s an invitation, email update, workshop summary, or any other message that must grab attention — and look professional — Canva is the go-to place for ready-made designs that can be customized to your brand.

13. Kahoot!

Tagline: “Make learning awesome, gamify your training sessions with Kahoot!!”

Software categories: Content authoring tool and interactive tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description: Kahoot! makes it easy to create, share and play fun learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes. Spice up your sessions by making them engaging, fun, interactive, and memorable through games. You can play Kahoot! to break the ice, reinforce a topic, assess progress or reward trainees.

14. G Suite

Tagline: “Make it Anywhere. Make it together. Make it with G Suite.”

Software categories: Content authoring tool, collaboration tool, presentation tool

Plans: Free 

G Suite is an integrated suite of secure, cloud-native collaboration, and productivity apps powered by Google AI, that allows you to easily work on documents, spreadsheets, and slides across your devices, with or without internet access. Multiple people can work at the same time, and every change is saved automatically. G Suite excels in privacy and security options like 2-step verification, single-sign-on, and mobile management.

15. Prezi

Tagline: “Present everywhere, online and off”

Software categories: Content authoring tool, collaboration tool, and presentation tool

Plans: Free and Premium

Description: Prezi is a platform that allows you to deliver stunning interactive visual experiences — that let you adapt on the fly — and zoom in on the topics that matter most to your audience. As a cloud-based software, Prezi lets you create, collaborate, and share around the world, or take your work offline with a desktop app.

16. VideoScribe

Tagline: “Make your own whiteboard video fast”

Software categories: Content authoring tools, video creation tool, presentation tool, and design tool

Plans: Free and Premium

Description: VideoScribe is easy, quick, and inexpensive. You can create hand-drawn style videos in no time for business or training to engage viewers and retain a productive and motivated workforce.

17. SkyPrep 

Tagline: “One-stop Solution for Any Industry”

Software categories: Content authoring tool, video creation tool, and presentation tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description:  Your online onboarding and upskilling platform shouldn’t be complicated, and with SkyPrep’s corporate eLearning solutions, companies can easily arrange general training and certification programs, compliance training, onboarding initiatives, client training, and more.

18. BONUS – Lessonly

Tagline: “Do Better Work”

Software categories: Content authoring tool, video creation tool, presentation tool, course creation tool, and interactive tool

Plans: Paid and Free Trial

Description: If you can write an email you can use Lessonly to create beautiful, interactive lessons in minutes, with just a few clicks. Aside from presentation creation, teammates can easily find what they need with dynamic search and intelligent recommendations —  so they can do their best work.

There you have it! The “17 Most Popular Training Software” used by trainers, instructional designers, and L&D leaders to create, share, and engage their audience with the best training materials.

Do you use any of these tools? We’d love to hear from you! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!