Shakespeare had a pen. Picasso had a paintbrush. Instructional designers? They have authoring tools to bring learning to life. No single tool fits every project—designers often switch between them to achieve the best results. Understanding common authoring tools can help you see why a designer picks a specific one and even empower you to create your own eLearning experiences in-house.

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What are eLearning authoring tools?

eLearning authoring tools are software platforms that help instructional designers and subject matter experts create, develop, and publish digital learning content. They allow users to organize information, generate content, and integrate multimedia like text, audio, video, graphics, and interactive elements.

Why Use eLearning Authoring Tools?

  • Faster Course Development – Reduces time spent searching for design assets.
  • Built-in Libraries – Access ready-to-use templates, graphics, and media.
  • Streamlined Workflow – Focus more on content, less on formatting.
  • Professional Quality – Tools ensure polished, engaging eLearning experiences.

By automating design tasks, authoring tools let course creators spend more time on what matters—delivering impactful learning content.

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The difference between eLearning software and authoring tools

Authoring tools and eLearning software are different, even if they sound similar. When you use eLearning software, you’re deploying a learning management system, or LMS. An LMS is used to host your courses, deliver them to your learners, and collect data on learner behavior. The authoring tool, however, is what you use to create the very content that needs to be hosted, delivered, and analyzed. Sometimes, your LMS has an authoring tool available, but not always. What’s more, utilizing an LMS authoring tool can limit how much you can customize your content and media. That’s why it’s so vital to understand how authoring tools work and compare them to your content creation needs. You can decide which type best suits your subject matter and how you want your learners to experience it. 

How do authoring tools work? 

Authoring tools work like “enablers” in the content creation process. They provide the building blocks for authors to focus on content rather than the process of creating it. The tools also enable groups of individuals, teams, subject matter experts (SMEs), and technology specialists to collaborate and cooperate in the creative process. 

With the best eLearning authoring tools supporting their development efforts, organizations can better enforce development processes, visual identity standards, themes, and corporate branding and imaging. And, by using built-in data and feedback collection features and analytics tools, course developers can continually improve learning experiences for their target audiences.

Types of eLearning authoring tools

When you start to delve deeper into thinking about authoring tools, you’ll notice that they usually tout a few different features and types of accessibility. The one that works best for you depends on your needs and the way your organization typically works. 

Common types of content authoring software include:

  • A desktop-based eLearning authoring tool is software that you download onto your computer to use and update locally. They’re typically super-customizable and offer a spectrum of design tools. They also come with the added benefit of being more secure than web-based tools since they aren’t hosted online. Of course, that comes with the trade-off of being less useful for highly collaborative authoring. Still, they’re a good choice for a standalone instructional designer who prefers to have IT support and security over collaboration. 

Choosing the right eLearning authoring tool: Key criteria & considerations

When selecting an eLearning authoring tool for your organization, consider the following key factors to ensure compatibility, efficiency, and engagement in your course design.

1. Understand Industry Standards

Ensure the tool supports widely used eLearning standards for interoperability across platforms:

  • SCORM (1.2, 2004) – Standard for tracking learner progress and performance.
  • xAPI (Tin Can API) – Captures learning experiences beyond traditional LMS environments.
  • HTML5 – Ensures compatibility across modern devices and browsers.
  • MOOC Compatibility – Useful for large-scale online courses.
  • AICC – Supports legacy LMS integrations.
  • cmi5 – A newer xAPI-based standard designed for modern LMS use.
  • LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) – Connects tools and platforms seamlessly.

Tip: The more standards a tool supports, the more flexible and widely applicable it will be across different learning environments.

2. What Makes an Authoring Tool Effective?

Beyond technical skills, a great tool can elevate content quality. Consider:

  • Ease of Use – Is the tool user-friendly for your team’s skill level?
  • Collaboration Features – Does it allow multiple stakeholders (SMEs, designers, developers) to contribute easily?
  • Customization Options – Can you create interactive, engaging, and brand-aligned content?
  • Media & Interactivity Support – Does it support multimedia, simulations, and gamification?
  • Integration Capabilities – Can it work seamlessly with your LMS, LXP, or other learning platforms?
  • Scalability – Can it handle the growth of your learning programs?

3. The Right Tools Empower Extraordinary Learning

Dr. Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, put it best:

“Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.”

To develop high-impact eLearning, you need both skilled creators and the right authoring tools. The challenge? Choosing the best fit for your organization.

4. How to Choose the Best eLearning Authoring Tool for Your Team

  • Assess Your Needs: Identify content types, team expertise, and LMS requirements.
  • Compare Features: Prioritize must-haves like responsive design, collaboration, and integration.
  • Test Usability: Request demos or trials to evaluate functionality.
  • Consider Cost & Support: Factor in licensing, training, and technical support.

By aligning your tool selection with both industry standards and practical usability, you’ll set your team up for success in building engaging, effective eLearning experiences.

How to choose the right eLearning authoring tool

The best answer to that question is to use a tried and tested process. If your organization is looking for a course authoring tool to support your in-house eLearning strategy, here’s a suggested four-step process to use to find, evaluate, and choose the eLearning authoring tools that are right for you:

1. Identify program needs

Each organization’s eLearning program needs differ. So, the first step is to understand what your company’s learning needs and objectives are in order to identify the tools required to support them. Defining your objectives will give you a high-level insight into the functionality needed in the authoring tools. For instance, are you looking to train your target learners to act a certain way via simulation? Your authoring tool needs to be able to branch scenarios and evaluate actions. 

2. Identify in-house capabilities

Your authoring tools are only as good as the creators that use them. If you choose tools that are too complex or advanced for your team to understand or use, it’s unlikely that you’ll meet your course development objectives. Alternatively, choosing tools with advanced capabilities does set you up to address future needs, but you’ll have to invest in appropriate training to upskill your team.      

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3. Identify course-specific needs

Next, identify the types of eLearning courses you wish to create. If you intend to just produce cookie cutter courses, most tools today come with libraries of ready-made templates for a wide range of courses. Click, drop, done. 

If your needs require customizing complex interactive content, however, then you may have a more limited set of eLearning authoring tools to choose from. Doing so helps narrow the range of authoring tools available to meet your organization’s needs. In most cases, you may not require tools with advanced features to meet such needs. Using out-of-the-box functionality will likely fit your specific requirements, and you should choose simplicity and speed over tools that you probably won’t ever use. 

4. Conduct market research

The above steps set you up with a fine understanding of what to look for in a course authoring tool and an appreciation of the authoring tools’ benefits to your organization. However, choosing a tool that’s right for you is more involved than just going online and performing a Google search—though that might be a good start. 

Technology changes rapidly and so do organizational eLearning needs and analysis. Using a structured checklist approach ensures that you evaluate each tool not just for today’s needs, but for what you might potentially need in the future. 

Best eLearning authoring tools 

We match the project to the tool and go from there. Not every tool is right for the type of content, delivery, and outcome that our clients want. Here are some of the usual suspects we utilize (in no particular order) to design compelling and interactive eLearning content: 

Articulate Storyline 360

Among the best eLearning authoring tools available today, Articulate Storyline 360, which is part of the Articulate 360 suite, can produce interactive eLearning content for a wide range of environments, from laptops and desktops to tablets and smartphones. It’s a robust desktop-based solution that offers plenty of functionality for a sound foundation in eLearning design. 

Articulate Rise

If you don’t need all the bells and whistles and your goal is speed and accessibility, Articulate Rise is Storyline’s web-based little brother. It has basic functionality and uses templates to create visually appealing courses quickly. It’s not as customizable, but is more user-friendly than Storyline—great for in-house content creation. Rise scales better across multiple devices, so it’s a natural first pick for mobile eLearning. 

Evolve

When you need the flexibility to build courses from scratch or use a template-based approach, then Evolve may be right for you. It’s the best of both worlds, so you can customize as much or as little as you want to present content, preview content live, and publish courses directly to the web, host them on the Intellum platform, or integrate them with a host of commercial LMS.

Gomo

When your eLearning needs to be delivered across a multitude of devices and operating systems, Gomo is a simple way to create device-agnostic, accessible design. It’s a cloud-based service that works beautifully for collaboration and content can be translated into 160 (and counting!) different languages.

Adobe Captivate

This is a great desktop-based tool for organizations looking for content authoring tools to build distinct and fully responsive content. Better for more experienced instructional designers, it also allows course authors to integrate features like interactive video, VR, 360° assets, and branching scenarios. Captivate has one of the biggest libraries of tools, and we love it for creating courses that require higher levels of customization. 

iSpring Suite

Many organizations find that some of the best eLearning authoring tools are those that come with a look and feel your staff is familiar with. So, if you’re looking for a tool with a familiar, PowerPoint-like environment, then iSpring Suite is it. It offers a minimal learning curve to developers yet supports a wide spectrum of content like video tutorials, interactive assessments, screencasts, and dialogue simulations. 

ProProfs

If your in-house eLearning team is a one- or two-person show, ProProfs works especially well for smaller teams and smaller training budgets. It’s a lower-cost solution that is user-friendly and ideal for quick, simple customizations to assets like interactive quizzes and mastery checks. 

Elucidat

With a focus on HTML5 courses, Elucidat is a cloud-based solution that features pre-built templates, a custom theme builder, a user-friendly design interface, and collaboration tools. Content can load and run quickly on any OS and browser combination, making it a streamlined authoring tool for global organizations. 

Adapt

No coding experience? No problem. This is one of the many free, adaptive, HTML5 eLearning course authoring tools available that is web-based but still incredibly user-friendly. For organizations looking for a no-cost solution, Adapt is ideal. It is SCORM-compliant and produces responsive learning content that intuitively delivers unique viewing experiences, depending on various devices used to consume the content. 

Hurix

If your eLearning content hinges on including a wide variety of multimedia, Hurix is a budget-friendly, web-based authoring tool that makes it easier to combine different types of content. It’s intuitive, so you’ll spend less time trying to figure out the features and more time collaborating with your team with real-time updates and integration with your own LMS or the Hurix LMS. 

Lectora

A fully online authoring tool, you can use Lectora to create interactive slides, integrate simulations, and map out branching scenarios for truly interactive design. Lectora offers a number of templates and a huge online library of stock images, but you can also import your existing PowerPoint slides and other assets for quick uploads. 

Coassemble

One of the simplest web-based eLearning authoring tools, we love Coassemble for in-house design teams. With drag-and-drop templates, beginner designers can easily create streamlined, simple courses without sacrificing aesthetics. 

Conclusion

To better understand how authoring tools can help you, why not discover how ELM Learning creates smart, beautiful eLearning experiences to engage employees and create real change? When assessing the best eLearning authoring tools, it’s important to know what you are looking for before you engage in procurement discussions. Know if it’s a desktop, cloud-based, or open-source solution that fits your needs, and be familiar with the features and functionality of some of the leading authoring tools before selecting the one that’s best for your organization. 

Ready to talk about your options? Drop us a note and we’ll help you find a solution that works beautifully for you. 

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