Awero vs Open Badge Factory

Awero provides digital tools for competence development, assessment, and recognition, along with training and consultancy. Its Cities of Learning platform helps learners and organisations map learning opportunities, combine local and digital activities into playlists, and issue or earn Open Badges. Activities can use skills from the multilingual ESCO database. Assessment can include self-assessment, peer review, or organiser assessment, while organisers can analyse data about their activities, playlists, and badges.

The Badge Wallet app lets learners earn, store, manage, and share badges, with downloads linked for Android and iOS. Personal accounts can sign in with a password, Facebook, or Google; the chosen method cannot later be changed. Awero serves not-for-profit organisations, public institutions, and businesses. Open Access costs nothing for personal and organisation accounts, and voluntary donations are welcome. Custom-look setup is listed at €1,500, paid once with Partner Access or €1,750, paid once with Standard Access. Awero says platform functions use default settings and cannot be tailored on demand, and temporary downtime or unexpected behaviour may occur.

Open Badge Factory is an online platform for organisations to create, issue, and manage Open Badges. Badge applications are custom questionnaires attached to badges, where applicants submit information and evidence for review. Organisations can share badges and applications, endorse other organisations’ badges, and report on how badges were issued, received, shared, and ranked by target groups. Badges can be created and issued in multiple languages. The Pro plan includes verifiable PDF badges that recipients can share online or offline without a badge wallet account. Plans set annual issuance limits: 5,000 for Basic, 15,000 for Premium, and 50,000 for Pro; larger quantities can be discussed with the maker. Integrations include an API, LTI, and plugins such as Moodle, while Zapier automation requires Pro. The maker says the platform is certified to Open Badges v3.0 and complies with the European General Data Protection Regulation. Its privacy notice says personal data is not transferred outside the EU/EEA. Basic costs €220 per year, Premium €700 per year, and Pro €1,280 per year; Enterprise pricing is by quote. A 60-day trial is listed, but no free plan is available.