Diffit and Brisk Teaching can both help teachers adapt materials and prepare lessons, but they fit different needs. Diffit is the stronger starting point for creating differentiated classroom resources.
Brisk Teaching offers a broader set of tools for planning, adapting content, giving feedback, and creating interactive student activities. That is how I would distinguish them based on their current features.
The overlap can make the choice confusing. Both tools can adjust reading levels, translate content, and turn existing materials into teaching resources. Simply asking which one has more features will not tell you which one belongs in your classroom. The more useful question is: what do you need help doing most often?
In this comparison, I look at where each tool fits, what teachers can do with it, and the free and paid options available. The classroom examples are suggestions for using the tools rather than reports of hands-on testing.
Diffit vs Brisk Teaching: Quick Comparison
| Feature | Diffit | Brisk Teaching |
|---|---|---|
| Main focus | Creating and adapting differentiated instructional resources | Supporting planning, feedback, differentiation, and student practice |
| Main workflow | Create resources in Diffit, then print or export them | Work through a browser extension or Brisk’s web workspace |
| Starting materials | Topics, prompts, pasted text, PDFs, URLs, and video transcripts | Documents, websites, PDFs, videos, and other teaching materials |
| Differentiation | Adjust reading level, language, scaffolds, and activities | Adjust reading level, translate content, and generate adapted materials |
| Student writing feedback | Primarily focused on instructional resource creation | Dedicated feedback tools, including rubric-based feedback |
| Student interaction with AI | Teacher-facing resource preparation; no student AI interaction | Teacher-directed AI activities through Brisk Boost |
| Free access | Basic resource creation, editing, printing, and PDF downloads | Free teacher plan with usage limits |
| Paid options | Individual teacher subscriptions and school or district licenses | School and district plans with custom pricing |
Feature availability depends on the plan. The comparison above draws on the providers’ current product and pricing pages.
What Can Teachers Do with Diffit?
Diffit helps teachers turn a topic or an existing resource into materials they can adapt for their students. You can start with pasted text, a PDF, a URL, a video transcript, or a prompt describing what you need. Diffit Chat then lets you request changes, such as adjusting the reading level, translating the content, replacing an activity, or adding a teacher guide. Diffit
What makes this useful is the connection between content and classroom preparation. Rather than stopping at a rewritten passage, Diffit supports resources such as differentiated activities, station materials, intervention resources, and slides. Teachers can print their materials or use supported exports, depending on their subscription.
For example, imagine preparing a science lesson about ecosystems. You have a useful article, but some students need help accessing its language. One way to use Diffit would be to prepare an adapted version with vocabulary support and a structured activity, while keeping the same central concepts.
The important check is whether the adaptation preserves what students need to learn. Easier wording is helpful when language is a barrier to understanding the science. It becomes less helpful if the rewrite removes the relationships students are supposed to explain.
What Can Teachers Do with Brisk Teaching?
Brisk Teaching covers a wider range of teaching tasks. Its tools support lesson and assessment creation, reading-level adjustments, translation, and feedback on student work. Its browser extension brings these functions into familiar digital environments, and its plans also include a web-based content workspace.
The feedback tools are a substantial difference. Brisk offers options such as Glow & Grow, Next Steps, and Rubric Criteria feedback. Teachers can review and adjust generated feedback before sharing it. Some functions, including targeted comments in Google Docs, require premium access.
Consider a persuasive-writing lesson. You might use Brisk to draft feedback on students’ arguments against your rubric. Before sharing it, check whether the comments address the intended learning. If students are learning to select supporting evidence, feedback that supplies the evidence for them may do too much of the work.
Brisk therefore makes sense when your needs extend beyond preparing resources to reviewing work and planning what comes next.
Which Is Better for Differentiated Instruction?
I would start with Diffit when differentiated materials are the main task. Its emphasis on adapting content and producing printable resources makes it a clear option for teachers preparing several ways into the same lesson.
I would consider Brisk when differentiation is one part of a broader digital workflow. You may want to adapt an article, create an activity, and later prepare feedback on the work students produce.
That recommendation reflects the tools’ different emphases, rather than evidence that one produces better learning outcomes. Both offer content adaptation; the practical choice is which workflow better supports your teaching.
With either tool, check more than the assigned reading level. Look at whether the adapted text preserves essential vocabulary, accurate explanations, and the challenge students need.
How Do They Differ for Student AI Use?
Diffit is designed for teachers to prepare resources. Students can use those resources without interacting with an AI system. This makes it worth considering when you want AI to support preparation while classroom learning happens through reading, discussion, writing, or practical work.
Brisk adds direct student interaction through Brisk Boost. Teachers can create activities such as tutoring, debate, writing coaching, and inquiry, set objectives and guardrails, preview the activity, and share it with students. Monitoring tools provide visibility into student activity.
This opens up different possibilities, but it also changes the lesson design. Before assigning an activity, decide what students should attempt independently and what assistance the AI should provide.
Diffit vs Brisk Teaching: Pricing
Diffit offers a free Basic plan with resource creation, editing, printing, and PDF downloads. Its paid individual subscription is currently listed at US$14.99 per month or US$149.99 per year, with prices potentially varying by country. Paid features include additional exports, alignment options, graphic organizers, and access to the full history of created resources. School and district licenses are also available.
Brisk offers a free teacher plan, alongside Premium and Intelligence plans for schools and districts with custom pricing. Its help centre notes that free-plan usage limits can vary with traffic. Check the current plan details for the particular tools you need before making a purchasing decision.
Which One Should You Choose?
My recommendation is to choose around a recurring teaching task.
- Choose Diffit if you regularly need differentiated passages, scaffolds, and printable activities.
- Choose Brisk Teaching if you want support across lesson preparation, content adaptation, student feedback, and guided AI activities.
- Consider both if resource preparation and feedback are separate needs that each tool serves well.
Try the same real lesson with both free plans. Compare the accuracy of the output, the quality of the support, and how much editing you need before students can use it. The better choice is the one that helps you prepare appropriate learning experiences with a manageable amount of review.
