Mahara vs Seesaw Digital Portfolios

Mahara is a free ePortfolio system for learning communities. Students and staff can collect evidence, reflect on experiences, and relate work to competencies or registration requirements. Listed uses include study, professional development, work-integrated learning, assessment, presentation, and employability. Portfolios can be shared with an individual, group, or the public, with access limited by a time frame or assessment task. Users can comment, give feedback, build portfolios together in groups, and take part in group forums. Portfolios can be submitted to learning management systems through LTI for marking. Mahara is open source, under conditions that include providing source code with copies and using the same license for derivative works. It can be hosted on a Linux server; the manual also describes Docker setup for development and testing, and advises securing that environment before live use. The manual describes LTI 1.3 Advantage as experimental and tested only with Brightspace. The project links to community forums, a manual, a wiki, an issue tracker, and extended security support; Catalyst is named as maintainer.

Seesaw Digital Portfolios help PreK–5th grade students document learning and show growth over time. Students can capture assignments with photos, videos, and audio, upload digital work, and write reflections. They create and shape their own portfolios, self-assess against learning objectives, and save noteworthy work in highlights folders. Schools can use competency stickers and custom folders to collect evidence aligned with priorities such as creativity, communication, and critical thinking. Teachers control sharing, while student work remains private to the classroom by default. Seesaw lists integrations with Schoology, Canvas, and Google Classroom, plus Google, Microsoft, and Okta single sign-on. Districts can automate class, teacher, and student rostering through Clever or ClassLink. Security measures include encrypted content in transit, secure server communication, and regular third-party audits. Seesaw states SOC Type II compliance and compliance with FERPA, COPPA, GDPR, LGPD, MFIPPA, and the Australian Privacy Act. It runs on web, iOS, and Android with a free plan.