MagicSchool and Brisk Alternatives: 7 AI Teacher Tools Compared
MagicSchool alternatives compared by job: seven AI teacher tools, what each does well, where each one starts from, and which have a school review side.
Teachers search for MagicSchool alternatives for the same few reasons: the tool they have makes fine first drafts but does not know their class, the school wants one tool instead of six, or a colleague swears by something else. The honest answer is that the main AI teacher tools do similar jobs and differ in where they are strongest. This post compares seven of them by job, fairly, so you can choose by what you need rather than by the loudest advert.
I build one of them, so read my section on TeachBuddy AI with that in mind. I have tried to be as fair to the others as I would want them to be to us.
The seven tools and what each does well
- MagicSchool. A long menu of small, focused generators: lesson plans, rubrics, text levelling, report comments, IEP drafts and many more, plus a student-facing side where teachers open tools for students. Its strength is breadth: there is a tool for almost every small writing task a teacher has.
- Brisk Teaching. A browser extension that works inside Google Docs, Slides and web pages. Its strength is place: feedback on a student's document, a quiz from an article, a levelled version of a page, without leaving the tab you are in.
- Diffit. Give it a topic, a text or a link and it returns the same reading at several levels with vocabulary and questions. Its strength is differentiated reading material, fast, and it is the one many teachers keep for that single job.
- Eduaide. A planning workspace with many content types: plans, activities, assessments, feedback, with a chat alongside. Its strength is structured planning content when you want many parts of a lesson generated in one place.
- Curipod. Interactive lessons where students answer on their own devices: polls, drawings, open responses, and AI-generated decks built for participation. Its strength is live student activity inside the slides.
- Canva for Education. Design first: slides, worksheets, posters, with AI writing and image help inside the editor. Its strength is how things look, and a template library teachers already know.
- TeachBuddy AI. A classroom profile that every generator reads, a reflection after teaching that updates it with the teacher's approval, Spaces where students work, and a school side for submitting and reviewing lessons. Its strength is that the class, not the topic, is the starting point.
MagicSchool alternatives compared by job
A tool is "strong" in a job when teachers choose it for that job, "has it" when the feature exists but is not the reason to pick the tool, and "not its job" when you would go elsewhere. These are my judgements from using them; yours may differ.
| Tool | Planning | Differentiation | Slides | Quizzes | Student activity | School review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MagicSchool | Strong: many plan and unit tools | Strong: text levelling, IEP and support drafts | Has it | Has it: questions and exit tickets | Has it: student-facing tools opened by the teacher | Has it: an administration side on school plans |
| Brisk Teaching | Has it: plans from a page | Strong: level any page or document in place | Has it: inside Google Slides | Strong: quiz from any page or video | Strong: feedback inside student documents | Not its job |
| Diffit | Has it: built around a reading | Strong: one text at several levels | Has it: export to slides | Has it: questions with the reading | Not its job | Not its job |
| Eduaide | Strong: many content types in one workspace | Has it: adapt and scaffold | Has it | Strong: assessment builder | Not its job | Not its job |
| Curipod | Has it: a lesson built as a deck | Has it | Strong: interactive decks | Has it: polls and checks in the deck | Strong: every student answers live | Not its job |
| Canva for Education | Not its job | Not its job | Strong: design and templates | Has it: templates | Has it: shared designs | Not its job |
| TeachBuddy AI | Strong: from a class profile and textbook pages; series planner; automations | Strong: the class profile feeds every generator | Has it: a deck from the plan, pictures, Edit in Canva | Strong: from a plan, file or library, auto-graded | Strong: Spaces with tutor chat, assignments, class voice, games | Strong: submit, policy check, review checklist, school library |
What the table does not show
When teachers compare MagicSchool alternatives, three things decide more than any feature cell.
Where does the tool start?
Most tools start from a topic you type. The output is a good plan for a class that does not exist. The question to ask is: how does this tool learn about my class, and does it remember next time? Brisk learns from the document in front of it. Diffit learns from the text. MagicSchool and Eduaide learn from what you type into each tool. TeachBuddy AI learns from a classroom profile you write once and a two-minute reflection after each lesson, and it proposes changes you approve. For why this matters, see a fast plan for the wrong class is still the wrong plan.
Where does the work go afterwards?
Brisk and Canva live inside Google and the Canva editor. Diffit exports. MagicSchool and Eduaide keep work in their own libraries. TeachBuddy AI keeps plans, worksheets and quizzes in your account, exports to PDF, Word and PowerPoint, and saves to Google Drive or opens in Canva on paid plans.
Is there a school side?
If you are choosing for a school, not for yourself, this cell matters most. MagicSchool offers an administration side on its school plans. TeachBuddy AI has My School: teachers join with an invitation code, submit lessons, a policy check and a review checklist run, and plans sit in a school library a head of department reads. The others are teacher tools, which is fine if that is what you need.
How to choose: an example
A Grade 7 English teacher with a bilingual class wants three things: levelled readings, a quiz after each text, and a way to know what each student understood. The MagicSchool alternatives above split by that need.
- If she already lives in Google Docs, Brisk Teaching does the first two inside her documents.
- If the readings are the main job, Diffit is the fastest at that one thing.
- If she wants the readings and quizzes to come from her textbook pages and her class description, and wants students to answer in a Space where she hears every voice, that is the TeachBuddy AI path.
Many teachers use two tools. That is not a failure. Pick by job, and keep the number small enough that your school's AI policy can list them. See AI tools for teachers sorted by the job they do for the longer list, and free AI tools for teachers: what is actually free before you commit.
How TeachBuddy AI helps
Among MagicSchool alternatives, the honest difference with TeachBuddy AI is small to describe and large across a week. You describe each class once in a classroom profile. The lesson plan generator, the worksheet generator, the quiz generator and the slide deck all read it. After teaching, a two-minute reflection records what landed and proposes updates to the class description and learner notes; you approve each one. Students join a Space with a code for tutor chat, assignments, interactive worksheets, class voice and games. A school can add the review side with My School. It is free for teachers; paid plans add Drive, Canva, automations and sharing.
What it is not: it is not a browser extension, and it does not have a hundred tiny tools. If those are what you need, the table above names better choices.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best MagicSchool AI alternative?
It depends on the job. For working inside Google Docs, Brisk Teaching. For levelled readings, Diffit. For a planner that starts from your class and adds a school review side, TeachBuddy AI.
What are good Brisk Teaching alternatives?
If you want the same feedback-in-place idea, nothing else sits in the browser tab the same way. If you want feedback, quizzes and planning that remember your class and live in one account, TeachBuddy AI; for a broad menu of generators, MagicSchool or Eduaide.
Are there AI tools like MagicSchool for a whole school?
MagicSchool has an administration side for schools. TeachBuddy AI adds lesson submission, a policy check, a review checklist and a school library through My School, for schools that want to see what was planned rather than only who has a licence.
Try the class-first approach with one class and one lesson. Create a free TeachBuddy AI account. Free for teachers.
Munawwar is the technical founder of TeachBuddy AI. A former teacher and a parent, he builds the agentic AI behind the platform and writes about what AI can and cannot do in a classroom.