Comparing Adobe Director to Adobe Flash

Adobe® Director® and Adobe Flash® software are both powerful, interactive authoring programs. Used together, they enable developers to create the most compelling and effective rich content, both online and offline. Many Director users have already discovered the advantages of combining Flash with Director, while more Flash users than ever are also discovering this powerful combination.

When to use Flash

Adobe Flash is an ideal authoring tool for creating rich, interactive content for digital, web, and mobile platforms. If you want to create interactive websites, rich media advertisements, instructional media, engaging presentations, or games, vector-based Flash produces and displays small files for speedy delivery.

When to use Director

Adobe Director is an ideal multimedia authoring tool for creating rich, interactive games, demos, prototypes, simulations, and eLearning courses for the web, desktops, DVDs, CDs, and kiosks. Director lets you combine a huge variety of content, including bitmap images, vector artwork, audio, animation, native 3D rendering, text, hypertext, and video — including video created with Flash. What's more, you can control how and when these elements appear, move, sound, and interact.

When to use Director with Flash

If you want to embellish your Adobe Flash content and deliver your rich, interactive experience beyond the web to desktops, DVDs, and CDs, integrate your SWF and FLV files with other types of files in a multimedia application you create with Adobe Director. Add native 3D rendering, real-world dynamic motion, and sophisticated interactivity between 2D and 3D elements.

At-a-glance comparison

Here's an overview of the main strengths of Adobe Director 11 and Adobe Flash CS3 Professional. For more information, visit the Adobe Director and Adobe Flash pages.

	Adobe Director 11	Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
Deployment environments	Cross-platform desktops, kiosks, DVDs, CDs, and the web	The web and digital devices
Playback application	Standalone via Director projector on Windows® and Mac; Adobe Shockwave® Player on the web	Adobe Flash Player on the web; Flash Lite™ on digital devices
Interactivity	2D and real-time, native 3D	2D
Image formats supported	More than 40, including GIF, BMP, JPEG, PSD, PNG, and TIFF	JPG, PNG, and GIF
Audio formats supported	MP3, SWA, AU, AIFF, WAV, WMA, and RA	MP3, AIFF, and WAV
Video formats supported	SWF containing FLV, DVD-Video, WMV, RM, MOV, AVI, and more	FLV
Optimal animation length	Short to long	Short
Scripting	JavaScript and Lingo languages	ActionScript™ language
Extensibility	Extensible both for authoring and playback. Thriving ecosystem of third-party Xtra plug-ins	More limited selection of extensions
Native device control (joysticks, disk access, etc.)	Supported	no