Comparison

Brightspace Portfolio vs SpacesEDU

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Brightspace Portfolio

This app allows students to document their learning journey by uploading evidence like images and videos. It facilitates reflection on achievements and sharing with educators and family. A guided mode is available for younger learners.

Highlights
  • Upload image and video evidence
  • Add thoughts and reflections
  • View recent evidence
  • Guided 'Funster mode' for younger students
  • Access in-class or at home
  • Use on personal or shared devices
Features
Read full description

Students of all ages can showcase growth, reflect on learning, and share their achievements with teachers, parents, and guardians with the Portfolio app. - Upload image and video evidence from a phone or tablet, with added thoughts and reflections - View a list of recently uploaded evidence items - Younger students can access a guided “Funster mode,” activating audio prompts that walk them through capturing evidence of learning. - Access the app in-class or at home, on your own device or with a shared device

About

SpacesEDU

This app facilitates portfolio-based assessment for educators and students. It allows for the creation and collection of student work in various formats, assessment of learning against standards, and communication of progress through visual reports. Students can engage in feedback and sharing within a dedicated digital space.

Highlights
  • Portfolio-based assessment tools
  • Assign and collect student work
  • Assess mastery of standards
  • Create visual report cards
  • Real-time feedback and messaging
  • Support for various media types
  • Group collaboration spaces
Features
Read full description

SpacesEDU makes it easy for teachers and students to capture, communicate, and celebrate the growth that’s happening in and out of the classroom. Based on feedback from 15+ years of educator insight, SpacesEDU Portfolio-Based Assessment (PBA) tools allow teachers to assign activities, collect evidence of learning in multiple formats, assess student mastery of standards and competencies, and create visual report cards. With SpacesEDU, student assessment progress becomes a two-way conversation. Students can ask questions, receive teacher feedback, peer review, and share work in an authentic and flexible way - all without leaving the SpacesEDU app. Provide real-time feedback on student work through commenting and messaging without leaving the app. Bring SpacesEDU into your classroom today and give your students their own space to learn, grow, and tell the stories behind their grades. Key Features • Activities: Easily create, track, and review activities to engage students in the learning process and provide a space for self-reflection • 1:1 Spaces: Create a safe one-on-one (teacher to student) space for your students to showcase their work in a portfolio, on topics, units, or self-reflections. Create 1:1 Spaces to better organize all of the work happening within your classroom and tie them to your own course objectives • Group Spaces: Spark collaboration with spaces for students to work on group projects, peer reviews, and more. Create your own groups or have them created for you • Space to grow: Add unlimited files to student or teacher accounts • Support for a wide variety of media types: Upload files (20 file types), capture content directly from your camera or microphone, add links from websites, or import from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. You can add up to ten media attachments to a post • Reporting Spaces: Think of it as a visual report card or summative portfolio. Teachers can easily bookmark exemplary artifacts of student learning throughout the year and add it to a Reporting Space. With Reporting Spaces, share student growth with family and/or students at the end of the year or at various progress points. Available only to schools and districts licensing SpacesEDU Pro Reporting Add-On • Proficiency Scales: A Standards-Based Assessment feature that makes it easy for educators to assess and report on student progress on learning outcomes and competencies using a 4 point scale (customize the scale with SpacesEDU Pro!) • Class Engagement and Read Receipts: Teachers can quickly view whether students or family have accessed the classroom or read specific messages • Technical support for teachers and students: We offer an unparalleled support experience, including live chat support for all users & personalized onboarding and support for schools and districts • Direct Messages: Have direct, real-time conversations with students, teachers, family members with messages (SpacesEDU Pro) • Drafts: Not ready to publish your post? Save posts as a draft so you can come back to them once you’re ready • Channels: With channels, you can send class announcements and communicate with all students, all family members, or both. You decide when and if to allow replies. (SpacesEDU Pro) • Family accounts: Family members can create accounts to view, comment, and celebrate their student’s work, engage with posts, and message with the teacher. (SpacesEDU Pro) • Advanced settings and notifications, including options to enable private or collaboration-focused workspaces • FERPA, COPPA, and PIPEDA compliant privacy standards: Protecting student privacy is foundational in the design of this product • Clever SSO: Users are able to signup and login using Clever • QR Codes - Allow students to use QR Codes to log into the SpacesEDU platform - making it even easier to get started. Teachers can access, share or print QR Codes for their students directly within their Classes. Available only to schools and districts licensing SpacesEDU Pro.

Screenshots

Brightspace Portfolio4 screens
SpacesEDU4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: SpacesEDU at every 2 weeks against Brightspace Portfolio's every 3 months. Brightspace Portfolio's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium) and rating (2.2 vs 2.0). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Brightspace Portfolio holds the better App Store score, 2.2 against 2.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 42 and 21 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 4% of Brightspace Portfolio's written reviews are positive against 7% of SpacesEDU's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Brightspace Portfolio ships an update every 3 months, SpacesEDU every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Brightspace Portfolio versus SpacesEDU: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBrightspace PortfolioSpacesEDU
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.2 (42 ratings) — better2.0 (21 ratings)
Positive reviews4.1% of reviews6.8% of reviews — better
Number of ratings42 — better21
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS10.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size77 MB149 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperD2L CorporationDoublethink Inc.

Customer experience

Brightspace Portfolio

All ratings42 ratings
Positive28.6%
Neutral2.4%
Negative69.0%
Written reviews73 reviews
Positive4.1%
Neutral5.5%
Negative90.4%

SpacesEDU

All ratings21 ratings
Positive23.8%
Neutral4.8%
Negative71.4%
Written reviews546 reviews
Positive6.8%
Neutral0.7%
Negative92.5%

User reviews

Brightspace Portfolio

From 42 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy for primary grades (Funster mode)
  • 👍 Good for collecting oral evidence

Room to improve

  • 👎 Extremely difficult to use
  • 👎 Confusing interface
  • 👎 Hard to navigate
  • 👎 Not intuitive
  • 👎 Forces camera on for login

SpacesEDU

From 21 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Helpful for student portfolios and communication
  • 🚀 Efficient for tracking assignments and reflections

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and performance issues
  • 🤯 Confusing navigation and user experience
  • 😩 Adds unnecessary stress and workload for students
  • 🔌 Missing basic features like dark mode

Bugs and requests

Brightspace Portfolio

Reported bugs

18 issues
  • Cannot log on
  • App crashes or freezes
  • Sign-in issues
  • Uploads fail to go through
  • Video uploads result in black screen
Show 13 more
  • QR code not scanning or connecting
  • "Failed to Connect" error
  • Work not appearing in portfolio
  • App locks in landscape mode
  • Lost submitted work
  • Connection breaks during use
  • App not compatible with school
  • Server not available
  • Login issues with school email
  • Cannot switch between accounts easily
  • Files not uploading
  • Videos not saving properly
  • App is slow and laggy

Requested features

16 requests
  • Allow uploading from device album
  • Improve QR code scanning reliability
  • Add crop and rotate tool for images
  • Allow submitting Word/Google Docs directly
  • Option to set default class
Show 11 more
  • Ability to see what has been uploaded
  • Confirmation of successful upload
  • Ability to upload video more reliably
  • Save profiles/portfolios for multiple children
  • Allow teachers to upload feedback
  • Add notification for successful upload
  • Ability to "favorite" classes
  • Dark mode option
  • Better integration with Google Drive
  • Unified app for portfolio and classes
  • Make it more like Google Classroom

SpacesEDU

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Login issues and inability to access accounts
  • Inconsistent performance and unexpected crashes

Requested features

3 requests
  • Improve app stability and responsiveness
  • Enhance user-friendly navigation and interface
  • Integrate more useful features for students and teachers

In-app purchases

None

Brightspace Portfolio

No in-app purchases

None

SpacesEDU

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Brightspace Portfolio free?
Brightspace Portfolio is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is SpacesEDU free?
SpacesEDU is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Brightspace Portfolio or SpacesEDU?
Brightspace Portfolio is rated higher. Brightspace Portfolio averages 2.2 out of 5 from 42 ratings, while SpacesEDU averages 2.0 from 21 ratings.
Do Brightspace Portfolio or SpacesEDU have ads?
Neither Brightspace Portfolio nor SpacesEDU shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Brightspace Portfolio or SpacesEDU?
Brightspace Portfolio ships an update every 3 months, and SpacesEDU every 2 weeks. Most recently, Brightspace Portfolio was updated on October 17, 2026 and SpacesEDU on October 16, 2026.

Other comparisons