PebblePad vs Portflow
PebblePad
pebblepad.com
Portflow
drieam.comSide by side
| Figure | PebblePad | Portflow |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Eportfolio Software | 7.9 (#4) | 7.7 (#7) |
| Assessment | Built-in tools let educators monitor engagement and provide formative and summative feedback and assessment. | Students can create locked snapshots of selected portfolio content and submit them through an LMS assignment for assessment in its Grader. |
| Audience | PebblePad is built for higher education institutions and supports learners across curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences. | The product is presented for universities and other higher education institutions supporting student learning and assessment. |
| Founded | 2004 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Telford, Shropshire, United Kingdom | Eindhoven, Netherlands |
| Mobile app | The PebblePocket mobile app captures reflections, photos, videos and other learning evidence, including offline, and syncs content to PebblePad when reconnected. | The learner app is available on iOS and Android and supports capturing evidence, offline use with later syncing, guest mode, ad-hoc feedback, and signature sign-off. |
| Other integrations | The integrations page describes connections to student management systems, identity providers, cloud storage and plagiarism detection services, and content providers including YouTube and Credly. | The trust portal lists Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub OAuth for alumni accounts; OneDrive evidence import; and several video embedding and digital badge services. |
| Purpose | PebblePad is a higher education learning, ePortfolio, workbook and assessment platform designed to support students from induction through graduation and beyond. | Portflow is a student-owned learning and assessment portfolio that works as an LTI app alongside an institution’s LMS or VLE. |
| Security | PebblePad lists ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and TX-RAMP among its security certifications and compliance credentials. | The trust portal says Portflow uses TLS 1.3 for data in transit and AES-256 storage encryption for data at rest. |
| Support | PebblePad offers institution-tailored onboarding, training, customer success support and a role-based Help Hub. | Drieam directs Portflow users to its Portflow knowledge base for product support. |
Plans
In their own words
PebblePad
PebblePad is a higher education platform for learning, assessment and engagement, designed for institutions, educators and learners. Students can plan and reflect on learning experiences, then collect and share evidence of their capabilities in ePortfolios. Educators can create templates and workbooks for activities, projects and placements, and use assessment tools to monitor engagement and give formative or summative feedback. The platform maps competencies and skills to programme outcomes or professional frameworks, while dashboards help institutions define completion and identify learners ready for assessment. PebblePocket captures reflections and learning evidence offline and syncs it after reconnection. Accounts are issued by institutions, each with its own installation. Integrations with learning management systems support single sign-on, enrolment synchronisation, resource links and grade synchronisation; listed options include Blackboard, Brightspace, Canvas and Moodle. The service is hosted on AWS and has a stated 99.9% uptime SLA. PebblePad lists ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and TX-RAMP among its security certifications. Pricing is institutional and available on request.
Portflow
Portflow is a student-owned learning and assessment portfolio that extends an institution’s learning management system or virtual learning environment. Students can set personal or programme goals, collect evidence from different learning contexts, organize portfolios into collections and sections, and track progress. They can request feedback from LMS users and external guests, with discussions supported by threaded comments, attachments, and recordings. For assessment, students can lock selected portfolio content into a snapshot and submit it through an LMS assignment for review in its Grader. They can also share showcase portfolios or export their contents as zipped files. Portflow integrates with Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, and Moodle. Its Android and iOS learner app supports photo, text, audio, and video evidence, offline capture, guest mode, and QR-code feedback; web access is also listed. Drieam offers a demo and contact options, but does not publish a price. The maker states that Portflow is GDPR compliant, LTI Advantage certified, and conforms to WCAG 2.2 level AA.