Panopto Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
I love how it manages our video content. The ability to manage 1000's of videos with ease and update user permissions or move content around all without breaking the link to the video was the biggest selling point for me. Other products I've evaluated managed video very differently and left things more up to the user. If the user were to leave their content would be difficult to hand over to the next person that may need it. The LMS Integration is excellent. Biggest workflow saver is when an instructor makes a recording in class the hit stop and upload and the video automatically goes into the course it needs to be in and even gives students a progress bar for it. Other products required the instructor to go in after they made the recording and move the video into the course manually or move it into a specific playlist. When an instructor finishes class they don't have time to go moving their recordings around. They need to finish up and leave before the next class starts coming in. It has so many bells and whistles. Live broadcasting, quizzing that integrates with the LMS Gradebook, scheduled recordings, so many great video player features, the mobile app. It's overall an excellent product and I couldn't find anything else that checked all my boxes.

Cons
The recorder has a lot of options in regards to setting the quality when we always encourage our faculty to set it at the highest possible. I wish the recorder could be streamlined so I could start up recordings faster and have a share link go right to my clipboard so I could send it out like how Jing does it. There is value to all of the options on the recorder but I wish they had a lighter weight version.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
There are many features that I like about Panopto; ease of use is near the top of the list. I have been using it for several years and it is comforting to know how reliable and simple it is to get a recording completed. I have had situations where an opportunity arose and I wanted to capture it for my students to see later, and I simply pulled out my phone and recorded and uploaded it to the Cloud with a few simple clicks. My students love it because regardless of their hardware (PC, phone, iOS device), they can record their assignments and get feedback almost as if they were in front of me. The simple-to-use editing features allow me to update/enhance legacy content enabling me to leverage existing resources. I could go on and on...

Cons
Some of the more advanced features are a bit more challenging for some of my students to understand; however, the good news is that the basic features provide more than enough opportunity for successful resource generation.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Good when working, I can watch clearly and sound is good.

Cons
When something that causes the replay to stop, e.g I lose internet connection, I can never reload the replay video. After this occurrence whenever I click on the replay, all I get is a black screen and the video will never load again. This is infuriating as the replay is then lost to me forever. Major inconvenience and this makes the service useless. I try everything to reload the video replay, signing in and out, turning off computer, but still when I load the replay I only get a black screen that never loads. Major bug that needs to be fixed.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 0/10

Pros
The software is easy to roll out across a large campus due to its software-only focus and the need for just a microphone. Most steps can be automated and the integration with Blackboard (in our case) allows videos to be secured to classes/modules with no additional steps.

Cons
Moving to a fully automated recording workflow requires heavy integration with your timetable system.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
What I like most about Panopto is how easy it is to choose what you want to record, with what source of audio you want to use, and where to save it. Another good thing is that when your video is all done, there is the ability to edit the video down in case you want to cut out some parts.

Cons
The only thing I noticed was that when you would start the recording and then decide to switch to a different audio source, the program would freeze and would have to be restarted.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10