Formative vs H5P

Formative is a web platform for creating interactive lessons, assigning assessments, and seeing student progress as responses arrive. It serves individual teachers, schools, districts, and K-12 students across subjects. Luna AI can generate standards-aligned activities from prompts, PDFs, or documents, then provide hints and feedback. More than 20 technology-enhanced question types and multimedia formats support varied assessments. Teachers receive live response data to identify misconceptions and adjust instruction during learning. Integrations with Google Classroom, Clever, ClassLink, Canvas, and other LMS or SIS systems support rostering, single sign-on, and assignment syncing. Formative says it complies with FERPA, COPPA, and other K-12 privacy standards; student information is not sold, and student work is not sent to a public chatbot. Access requires a current Chrome, Firefox, or Safari browser and stable high-speed internet. The Free Teacher plan costs nothing. Classroom Plan costs $20.75 a month, billed annually, and a 14-day trial is listed. There is no stated limit on students added to a class.

H5P lets authors create, share, and reuse interactive content such as videos, presentations, games, and quizzes. Featured content types include Interactive Video, Course Presentation, and Branching Scenario, and a browser is enough to view or edit content. Core team plugins support WordPress, Drupal, and Moodle; H5P.com adds LTI integrations including Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, and Moodle. H5P.com content can also be embedded where iframes are supported or shared by direct link. The free self-hosted software uses an MIT license but requires Drupal, WordPress, or Moodle, and its plugin does not include content types or support. H5P.com’s 30-day trial requires an application and approval. After the trial, users have 14 days to buy a plan or save and export content; activities become inaccessible afterward unless exported. H5P validates package files and sanitizes author input, but evaluates answers on the client side, which can let technically knowledgeable users cheat.