Acadly vs ARSnova

Acadly automates class attendance and provides tools for in-class engagement, including polls, quizzes, word clouds, discussions, and a class backchannel. Instructors can configure the roster, schedule, and attendance rules in advance so sessions run automatically. Acadly says its mesh-network technology verifies physical presence without GPS or QR codes, does not track geolocation, and flags suspicious patterns for instructor review. A native PowerPoint add-in can launch attendance and polls from slides and is described as working on Mac and PC. Institutional deployments support LTI compatibility with Moodle, Brightspace, Blackboard, and Canvas, as well as Zoom and PowerPoint integrations. Basic is listed at $3 a month; its pricing details also show a teacher-pays rate of $3 per course or student-pays rate of $5 per course. Pro is listed at $5 a month, with teacher-pays at $5 per course or student-pays at $10 per course. A First Course Free option covers one course for up to five months, but excludes fraud alerts. Acadly is available on Android, iOS, macOS, and the web.

ARSnova provides live quizzes, numeric estimation questions, Q&A, word-cloud analysis, and Pulse Check feedback for education and organizations. Sessions can include up to 500 participants. Hosts can start without an account, and participants join with a code or QR without signing up. Question types include short answers, estimates, matching, ordering, categorization, multiple choice, and ratings. The Q&A wall supports moderation before posting, pinning, archiving, voting, and sorting by support, quality, or controversy. Hosts can create quizzes and run sessions on a phone, with an option to pair a second device for presenting. After a session, results are available in a PDF report, and tabular data can be exported as CSV. Quiz content remains on the host’s device while live sessions process data needed for interaction. The open-source platform is licensed under MIT and can be self-hosted with Docker, PostgreSQL, and Redis. The site states WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformance and PDF/UA-1 validation for its results report. Matching, ordering, and categorization questions do not award partial credit.