Kognity Review 2026: 3 Best Alternatives for IB DP Schools

Kognity is a Stockholm-based digital learning platform for IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE schools. It ships interactive textbooks, embedded practice questions, and teacher analytics on an annual per-school licence. Kognity is not an exam or on-screen assessment platform. For IB DP schools moving to on-screen assessment in 2026, the three Kognity alternatives worth evaluating are AssessPrep (school-licensed, 18,000+ IB DP questions plus secure on-screen assessment and AI grading under a single licence), RevisionDojo (AI tutoring and a teacher revision toolkit via a dedicated Schools Program), and Save My Exams (student-facing past-paper practice).

This Kognity review is written for DP Coordinators, MYP Coordinators, and Heads of School who need a frank third-party answer before they sign a multi-year contract. The goal is simple: help coordinators decide whether to keep, pair, or replace Kognity before the 2026 on-screen assessment cycle.

Kognity is strong on reading experience and embedded practice. It is not a digital exam platform. For schools now running IB DP on-screen assessment, Kognity either sits alongside a full assessment tool, or gets replaced by one that covers both under a single school licence.

TL;DR: Kognity Review 2026 at a Glance

Methodology: This Kognity review is based on secondary research. Each platform was evaluated using its own official website, published help documentation, and publicly available product guides (Kognity's help guide at help.kognity.com, AssessPrep's product docs, RevisionDojo's llms.revisiondojo.com guide, and Save My Exams' public subject pages), cross-referenced with the IBO's Assessment Principles and Practices (2018) for on-screen assessment policy. Pricing is out of scope. Kognity and AssessPrep are both quoted per school on request, and this review focuses on platform capability and licensing model rather than figures.

Disclosure: Kognity screenshots have not been included in this review. Kognity is a gated per-school platform and we do not hold live teacher access. Descriptions below are drawn from Kognity's own product documentation and published help guides.

What is Kognity?

Kognity is a Stockholm-based digital learning platform offering interactive textbooks, embedded practice questions, and teacher analytics for IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE schools. Schools licence it annually to replace or supplement print textbooks. Content is written and reviewed by Kognity's internal team of examiners and experienced teachers, aligned to the relevant IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE syllabuses.

Founded in 2014, Kognity sits in the content-and-practice layer of the IB tech stack. Its practice layer has three parts: Section Questions (in-chapter comprehension checks), Exam Style Questions (longer written-answer practice with model answers and mark schemes), and a Practice Centre with Strength Tests and a gamified Strength Battle mode. Schools typically pair Kognity with a separate assessment platform for secure exams, paper-structure mocks, and gradebook workflows.

Kognity's IB DP subject list covers Biology SL/HL, Chemistry SL/HL, Physics SL/HL, ESS, Business Management SL/HL, Economics SL/HL, Psychology SL/HL, Geography Core SL/HL, History SL (three paper strands), Math AA SL/HL, Math AI SL/HL, Theory of Knowledge, English A Language and Literature, English B SL/HL, French B SL/HL, and Spanish B SL/HL. Kognity does not currently cover IB MYP. Its active programmes are IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE.

AssessPrep's IB DP platform sits in an adjacent but overlapping category. It is the on-screen assessment platform most IB schools pair with (or switch from) content tools like Kognity. Its built-in 18,000+ IB DP question bank removes the need for a separate content licence for assessment purposes.

How Kognity works

The Kognity workflow is built around the teacher, not the examiner. Students read an interactive textbook, hit embedded Section Questions as they go, and complete teacher-set Book, Question, or Exam-Style assignments. Teachers monitor progress via class-level heatmaps and individual student drilldowns. The flow below is drawn from Kognity's own help documentation at help.kognity.com.

Step 1. Subject and textbook assignment. The coordinator licences subjects, and the teacher assigns a Kognity textbook to a class.

Step 2. Student reading. Students read the interactive textbook on a laptop, desktop, or iPad. Section Questions throughout each chapter must be answered to mark the reading complete.

Step 3. Teacher dashboard and analytics. The teacher sees completion data, performance heatmaps, and per-student drilldowns (time on task, attempts, accuracy).

Step 4. Assignment flow. Teachers set Book (reading), Question (auto-graded MCQ/short answer), or Exam-Style (written-response) assignments.

Step 5. End-of-module practice. Teachers unlock Exam Style Questions for students to complete self-paced and grade by hand. Students can also take 5-question Strength Tests in the Practice Centre.

With IB DP going digital in 2026, the bar for student readiness moves beyond practising more question types. Students need exposure to full paper-structure exam sessions under timed conditions, experience navigating a secure exam environment, and feedback on extended-response answers against IB rubrics. Kognity's Section Questions and Exam Style Questions build the content foundation, but the exam-condition layer (secure exam delivery, timed Paper 1 / 2 / 3 sessions, rubric-aligned marking) is what actually prepares students for the 2026 assessment. For that layer, schools typically add AssessPrep

Kognity features and capabilities

Kognity's feature set breaks into five groups: content delivery (interactive textbooks), a practice layer (Section Questions, Strength Tests, Exam Style Questions, Strength Battle), teacher analytics, content quality (written by Kognity's internal team of examiners), and integrations with ManageBac, Google Classroom, etc. 

• Content delivery. Interactive textbooks for IB DP across the subjects listed above, plus Cambridge IGCSE syllabuses including Biology (0610), Chemistry (0620), Physics (0625), Combined and Co-ordinated Sciences, Business Studies, Economics, Computer Science, Geography, ICT, Math (0580/0607), First Language English, and ESL. Kognity does not currently cover IB MYP.

• Practice layer. Section Questions (in-chapter checks that gate reading completion), Practice Centre Strength Tests (5-question randomly-generated sets feeding a Strength Bar), Exam Style Questions (longer written answers with model answers and mark schemes), and Strength Battle (3-question, 60-second head-to-head against AI or a classmate).

• Teacher analytics. Class-level heatmaps, individual progress, time-on-task, and per-question accuracy. Teachers can author and share questions with same-subject colleagues — a useful surface, but not a full authoring workflow.

• Content quality. Textbooks are written and reviewed by Kognity's internal team of examiners and experienced teachers. Content is aligned to the IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE syllabuses (not an official IBO publication) and updated as syllabuses change.

• Accessibility and integrations. Browser-based; runs on any laptop, desktop, or iPad. Kognity integrates with Google Classroom, ManageBac, Microsoft Teams, Schoology, Toddle, Canvas, ClassLink, and Clever. Integration is mostly at the assignment-launch layer (rostering, SSO, assignment handoff), not deep gradebook sync.

What the Kognity features set does not include: Exam creation beyond the Kognity question library, rubric design, AI grading of extended response, question authoring from scratch with full item-type support, PDF or past-paper import, and a secure exam mode. For the question-authoring, AI question authoring, AI grading, and PDF-import layer that schools often expect alongside a content platform, AssessPrep ships 18,000+ IB DP and 13,500+ IB MYP questions and adds AI authoring from any PDF or curriculum document and overall leads to  school readiness for digital exams.

Kognity Pros and Cons

Kognity is worth it for IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE schools that want a high-quality digital textbook with embedded practice and teacher analytics. It is not worth it as a standalone assessment solution, because it does not deliver secure digital exams, AI-graded rubric marking, or a gradebook. Here is the category-by-category read.

• Content quality. This is Kognity's strongest category. Textbooks are written and reviewed by Kognity's internal team of examiners and experienced teachers, and regularly updated for syllabus alignment. The caveat is coverage: Kognity focuses on IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE. It does not currently cover IB MYP. Within IB DP, a small number of niche electives (Global Politics, certain History periods outside the three core papers, and some Language B strands) are partial or not yet on the platform.

• Ease of use. The student reading interface is clean and low-friction. Training overhead for teachers is low. The Section Questions flow is useful for quick in-chapter comprehension checks, and the Practice Centre gives students a self-paced revision surface.

• Assessment capability. This is the weakest Kognity category and the one that matters most in 2026. Per Kognity's own documentation, the platform does not 

  • deliver secure exams

  • support a lockdown browser

  • replicate IB DP paper structure under timed conditions, 

  • Have AI-grading Paper 2 extended response against IB rubrics. 

Strength Tests and Exam Style Questions are practice, not assessment. That is a common pattern across schools running Kognity. Content and practice on one platform, mocks and on-screen assessment on another. It is exactly the gap AI grading for IB DP extended response was built to close. 

For schools that want the content layer Kognity does well plus the assessment layer it doesn't, AssessPrep handles the second half under a single annual school licence. The 18,000+ IB DP question bank is already included, so there is no content gap either. The Ecolint Geneva case study captures how one International IB school actually did that consolidation.

How I tested these Kognity alternatives

Every Kognity alternative below was evaluated against four criteria: IB DP fit, assessment depth, licensing model and total cost, and teacher time saved.

• IB DP fit. Coverage of IB DP subjects, alignment to IBO syllabus, and support for on-screen assessment per the IBO's Assessment Principles and Practices (2018).

• Assessment depth. Secure exam delivery, timed sessions, paper-structure replication, and rubric-aligned marking for extended response.

• Teacher time saved. AI grading, question reuse, and gradebook sync. Cross-referenced to the IB DP assessment principles coordinator guide.

Product information was drawn from each vendor's official website and help guides as of April 2026.

3 best Kognity alternatives for IB schools

The three best Kognity alternatives for IB schools are

1.  AssessPrep: 18,000+ IB DP questions secure on-screen assessment, AI grading, and gradebook under one annual licence

2. RevisionDojo: AI tutoring and a teacher revision toolkit with a dedicated Schools Program

3. Save My Exams: student-facing past papers and revision notes

Which one fits depends on whether you are buying at the school level or pointing students to self-paced revision.

AssessPrep: the complete school-licensed Kognity alternative

For IB DP schools looking to run on-screen assessments under a single annual school licence, AssessPrep is the AI-powered digital assessment platform that covers the full 18,000+ IB DP question bank, secure browser, timed sessions, AI grading, and native ManageBac gradebook sync, so schools stop paying for content and assessment as two separate line items. For any school doing a serious Kognity review and evaluating alternatives, AssessPrep is the one that collapses the two-licence stack into one.

What AssessPrep offers IB schools. AssessPrep is an AI-powered digital assessment platform used by 800+ international schools in 85+ countries for IB DP, IB MYP, Cambridge IGCSE, Cambridge A-Level, and Pearson Edexcel. It ships with an 18,000+ IB DP question bank written for the current syllabus and tagged by paper, marks, and IB command term, plus 13,500+ IB MYP and 9,000+ Cambridge IGCSE questions for schools running multiple programmes. On the delivery side it includes a secure browser with full lockdown on Mac, Windows, and iPad; timed on-screen assessment sessions replicating IB DP Paper 1 / Paper 2 / Paper 3 structure; AI Writing Assistant and AI-Assisted Question Authoring from any PDF or curriculum document; AI grading aligned to IB DP rubrics for extended response; grid-view grading with audio feedback, annotations, and anonymous grading; Paper Mode for hybrid paper-to-digital workflows; native ManageBac integration via Public API with SSO Launchpad and Gradebook sync; and further integrations across PowerSchool, Veracross, Canvas, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365. For a school already running Kognity, this means the question bank, the secure exam delivery, the marking, and the gradebook sit together under one licence. No second line item for assessment.

Pros and cons.

Pros: 18,000+ IB DP questions; Safe Exam Browser with full lockdown on Mac, Windows, and iPad; AI grading aligned to IB DP rubrics for Paper 2 extended response; native ManageBac, PowerSchool, and Canvas gradebook sync; single annual school licence covering content-plus-assessment; trusted by 800+ schools in 85+ countries with 5M+ student submissions.

Cons: Does not include interactive subject textbooks,  schools using Kognity primarily for the reading experience will retain a separate textbook provider (Kognity, Oxford, or Haese). Sold as an institutional licence only, not direct to students.

School-level proof of what IB schools actually do with AssessPrep is available in the AssessPrep case study library, with the Ecolint Geneva IB digital readiness case study a good starting point for coordinators evaluating the Kognity-to-AssessPrep consolidation path.

Best for / when to choose. IB DP, IB MYP, and Cambridge IGCSE schools running on-screen assessment in 2026 who want a single platform for question bank, exam delivery, marking, and gradebook. See how AssessPrep compares to other digital assessment platforms.

RevisionDojo: AI tutoring and a teacher revision toolkit

RevisionDojo is an IB DP, SAT, and A-Level AI tutoring and revision platform with a student product and a Schools Program. It supplements a school-licensed assessment platform. It does not replace Kognity's content layer or a full on-screen assessment tool.

What it offers beyond Kognity. Jojo, a 24/7 AI tutor, plus a Questionbank with instant AI feedback, Exam Mode for timed simulation, and a Coursework Grader for IA, EE, and TOK against IB rubrics. The teacher side adds Test Builder for custom assessments, bulk Coursework Grading, and Cohort Analytics on topic mastery and command-term performance.

Pros and cons.

Pros: 24/7 AI tutor; instant-feedback Questionbank; rubric-aligned Coursework Grader; teacher Test Builder and bulk grading; Schools Program with free teacher Pro accounts and a 10% student discount; 350,000+ students across 180+ countries; GDPR-aligned with SSO and 2FA.

Cons: No ManageBac sync (CSV export only); no secure exam delivery or lockdown browser; not endorsed by the IBO.

Best for / when to choose. IB DP students wanting AI-guided revision, and IB DP departments wanting an AI tutor and revision toolkit on top of an existing assessment platform. RevisionDojo supplements, not replaces, a school-licensed platform like AssessPrep.

Save My Exams: past-paper practice as a Kognity alternative for students

Save My Exams is a student-facing revision site with exam questions, revision notes, flashcards, target tests, mock exams, and practice papers across IB DP, Cambridge IGCSE, A-Level, AP, and O Level. As a Kognity alternative it sits in the student revision space, not school procurement.

What it offers beyond Kognity. Broad curriculum coverage and a past-paper-heavy stack. For IB DP it covers Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math AA/AI, Business Management, Economics, ESS, Geography, and Psychology, teach with Exam Questions, Revision Notes, Flashcards, Target Tests, Mock Exams, and Practice Papers.

Pros and cons.

Pros: Huge past-paper bank across IB, IGCSE, A-Level, and AP; familiar brand among students and parents; affordable per-student tiers.

Cons: No teacher-side workflow, no secure exam delivery, no school analytics; explicitly not endorsed by the IBO ("Neither IBO nor College Board were involved in the production of, and do not endorse, the resources created by Save My Exams").

Best for / when to choose. Students who want affordable past papers and revision notes. Schools looking for a procurement-level Kognity alternative should pick AssessPrep instead.

Which Kognity alternative is the right fit for your school?

Which Kognity alternative is the right fit for your school?

The right Kognity alternative depends on the buyer and the use case. Schools needing textbooks plus a separate assessment tool can keep Kognity and pair it with AssessPrep. 

Schools needing the question bank plus full on-screen assessment under one licence should pick AssessPrep. Students wanting AI tutoring or extra past-paper practice have RevisionDojo and Save My Exams as supplements, not school-level replacements.

For IB DP schools running digital assessment, the question is no longer do we keep Kognity or not. It is what is the cheapest complete stack that covers content, assessment, grading, and reporting. 

For most schools, AssessPrep plus one textbook provider (Kognity, Oxford, or Haese) is a cleaner stack than Kognity alone plus a second assessment platform. Book a free 30-day trial to see how your IB DP question bank, mocks, and grading workflow look under a single licence.

Kognity Review 2026: Key Takeaways

This Kognity review lands on a straightforward verdict. Kognity is a genuinely strong content and practice platform for the IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE subjects it covers. It remains the right choice for schools buying specifically for the textbook layer. It is not an assessment platform. For IB DP schools moving to on-screen assessment in 2026, that gap has to be filled somewhere. For most schools, filling it with AssessPrep, which includes the question bank, the assessment workflow, AI grading, and gradebook integration under a single annual licence, is the cheapest complete answer.

Key Takeaways

• Kognity is a content and practice platform for IB DP and Cambridge IGCSE. Syllabus-aligned interactive textbooks written and reviewed by Kognity's internal team, plus teacher analytics, Section Questions, Exam Style Questions, and a Practice Centre. It is not an exam or assessment platform and does not currently cover IB MYP.

• Schools running Kognity alongside IB DP digital assessment end up managing two licences: Kognity for content, plus a dedicated assessment platform for secure exams, rubric marking, and gradebook.

• AssessPrep is the complete school-licensed Kognity alternative: 18,000+ IB DP questions plus secure on-screen assessment, AI grading, and gradebook, under a single annual school licence.

• For IB DP schools in 2026, the cheapest complete stack is AssessPrep plus one textbook provider, not Kognity alone plus a separate assessment tool.

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