Stornaway

What Stornaway is

Stornaway is an interactive video platform that turns linear video into branching, trackable experiences. For a training team it works as an authoring tool for video-led eLearning: you map out a scenario or lesson as a flowchart, attach video clips to each step, add choices and questions, and publish the result into your LMS. A home page heading reads "The interactive layer for enterprise multimedia," and the page promises to turn "interactions into evidence you can trust." The company describes Stornaway as "the world's most popular interactive video platform," and the footer says it is "Powering over 60,000 Stornaways worldwide" for customers in the USA, UK, EMEA and APAC. A company blog post credits co-founders Ru Howe and Kate Dimbleby, whose backgrounds span film and TV, jazz improvisation, theater and technology.

Learning is one use among several. The use-case menu covers education and training, scenarios and simulations, marketing and communications, live events, interactive games and TV, and 360 video. For this directory the relevant reader is an L&D team that wants branching scenario training or interactive video modules inside its existing LMS.

Building in the Story Map editor

The core of the product is the "Story Map," a modular flowchart editor. The home page says it lets you guide audiences "down different routes with personalised content," track engagement, and scale production with your existing content teams. Each step in a map is a "Story Island," Stornaway's term for a node in the flow, and choices connect one island to the next.

The home page lists the practical advantages:

• Drag-and-drop editor: the company claims "90% faster interactive content builds" with the flowchart editor, and you plan, create and publish without coding.
• Instant playback: you can view the interactive video immediately, with no need to export after every tweak to playtest it.
• Easy to update: change the central project and it updates everywhere it is published, whether a website, LMS or CRM.
• Quick to learn: the site says anyone on the team can master the "intuitive, beginner-friendly platform." An earlier version of the home page also mentions certification badges for users who become a Stornaway Certified Expert.

Video comes from the tools you already use. The home page says Stornaway "Works with Adobe, Canva, Synthesia, Articulate and everything else you already use," and the FAQ adds that an Adobe integration brings Adobe's editing tools into Stornaway for image and video design. Review happens in the same place: "Create, review and approve content in one place with instant playback for all." A creative director quoted on the home page describes partners in different countries each setting up an account and shaping the interactive flow together in the shared workspace.

What you can build for training

The home page lists what teams make with it. For learning, that means branching scenario training "to upskill learners in a no-risk environment," fully interactive learning courses with results tracked "in your chosen LMS," and interactive tours of locations, hazardous sites and other spaces. The Education and Training page promises "gamified, personal interactive video learning to use in your LMS." Customer-facing teams use the same tools for interactive Q&As and personalized content along a customer's path.

The testimonials show the training side. Jules Morgan, L&D Content Lead at Springer Nature, says "We are building eLearning video modules with branching logic." Mia Paley of Direct Line Group describes putting new staff "in the customer's shoes, in a safe environment." Paul Brennan, a learning experience designer, says the team produced live-play examples "that were deployed straight into their digital learning platform" for sales and field engineers. A Discovery Education case study with CVS Health covers a choose-your-own-adventure campaign for high school students.

Publishing and analytics

According to the FAQ, projects publish to Stornaway's own player, which can be embedded on your website, in a Learning Management System or in PowerPoint. On Enterprise plans you can host the player and projects on your own servers, or Stornaway can integrate its editor and overlays with your existing video players, VOD platforms and hosting. For social media, you use the 9:16 aspect ratio and post a link on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms, and the interactive video follows the link inside the app.

The analytics dashboard automatically records video views, individual Story Island views and watch times. On Premium and Enterprise plans, the FAQ says you can see button clicks, quiz scores and other triggers from individual viewers, which "can then be sent straight into your own systems or LMS". An earlier version of the home page describes a player API that reports views, watch times, clicks, completion, scores and variables, with an integration to Google Sheets. The workflow section also names HubSpot and Salesforce among the tools it connects to. The company claims Stornaway interactive videos "typically see 10x higher engagement and 20x longer watch times than linear content."

Security and hosting

For regulated buyers, the FAQ is more specific than most. It says Stornaway "collects no PII (Personally Identifiable Information) for videos created within our platform," that viewers need no Stornaway login, and that videos can be secured behind your own login or locked to a specific domain. Viewer and project data is hosted on Heroku in its Dublin data centers, and video files are hosted and processed in Amazon Web Services' London data centers, delivered through CloudFront. For stricter requirements, custom licenses provide "an on-premise player that runs entirely within your own system," which the FAQ pitches at healthcare, finance and government. The company says it already works with governments, universities, healthcare organizations and other enterprises. The site also links an accessibility statement.

Plans and pricing

Stornaway is free to create, edit and playtest projects, according to the company's comparison article. Paid features sit on plans described on a separate pricing page. The FAQ names Premium and Enterprise plans for granular analytics, and the article lists Academic, Enterprise and Not for Profit plans "with customised solutions for different needs," with self-hosting reserved for enterprise plans. The site also runs a Universities and Schools Offer. Neither the home page nor the article prints a plan price. Stornaway does not build content for you: the FAQ says it does not currently offer interactive video creation services, but keeps a list of recommended partner suppliers who work in the platform.

Who it suits

Stornaway fits an L&D or digital learning team that already produces video and wants learners to make decisions inside it: sales and service role-plays, safety and hazard walkthroughs, compliance scenarios, onboarding that branches by role. The flowchart editor keeps the logic visible to subject matter experts and reviewers, and LMS embedding plus per-viewer scores on the higher plans cover the reporting side. The published hosting locations and the on-premise option make it easier to get through procurement in healthcare, finance or government.

It is a narrower tool than a full authoring suite. It is built around video, so a team that wants text-heavy modules, slide-based courses or software simulations will still need other tools, and you will need to supply or commission the footage yourself. Per-viewer analytics sit on Premium and Enterprise plans, so check the pricing page against how much learner-level data your LMS reporting needs.