Ilmino vs Cognito

Cognito and Ilmino answer different questions. Cognito is built around short, clear explanatory videos and follow-up questions: you watch a well-produced lesson on a maths or science topic, then answer questions to check it has landed. Ilmino is built around what you actually do with a question. You attempt it the way you would in an exam, typing or handwriting your working, and Ilmino marks that working against exam-board mark schemes, shows where marks were lost, identifies the misconception behind the slip and recommends what to practise next. Cognito's videos are genuinely strong for meeting a topic for the first time and for quick revision. Ilmino is the working AI practice, assessment and feedback platform for the stage after that, when you need to prove you can apply what you learned under exam conditions. This comparison shows where each one fits.

Ilmino is developed by ILM AI. This comparison is based on publicly available information and is intended to help learners, families and institutions understand the differences between the platforms.

Ilmino vs Cognito: quick answer

Choose Cognito if you want a large library of short, high-quality explanatory videos with follow-up questions and topic-organised exam practice, especially for GCSE maths and science. Choose Ilmino if you want exam-board-aligned AI practice that marks your typed or handwritten working against mark schemes, analyses your method, identifies misconceptions, offers quick, standard and full timed exam modes, gives Bayesian recommendations on what to do next and includes interactive STEM simulations, all inside a customisable dashboard for £12.99 a month with a majority-free Practice Mode. Many students use both: Cognito to learn a topic, Ilmino to prove they can apply it.

Quick comparison

Competitor cells marked "Not publicly stated" are features Cognito has not confirmed publicly, not features it lacks. Prices change often; confirm on the provider's official pricing page.

What Ilmino offers

Ilmino is a working AI learning, exam-practice, assessment and feedback platform. You learn a topic, practise exam-board-aligned questions by topic and difficulty, and set out your solution by typing or by writing on an interactive canvas, which feels most natural with a stylus and tablet. Ilmino then marks that attempt against exam-board question styles and mark schemes. Because it reads your working and not only your final answer, a sign error, a wrong method or a slip halfway through a physics or algebra problem is surfaced and explained, with attention to where method marks were won or lost and the misconception behind the mistake.

Ilmino does more than generate questions. It marks against exam expectations, explains where marks were lost, analyses how the learner worked and recommends what to practise next. That recommendation is driven by Bayesian personalisation, so the platform adapts to your next topic and next question rather than sending everyone down the same path. Around this sit quick practice, standard tests and full timed exam modes, strengths and weaknesses analysis, personalised learning journeys, revision planning, goals and sub-goals, and progress tracking, all arranged inside a customisable, widget-based dashboard. Interactive STEM simulations let you explore concepts visually, and parent progress visibility, notifications and teacher tools connect the people around the learner.

In short, Ilmino combines Bayesian personalisation, exam-board-aligned AI practice, mark-scheme feedback, working-step analysis and interactive simulations within a customisable learning environment. Ilmino is the student and family platform; Ilmino for Institution is the school-controlled learning and management platform for schools and colleges. Raphael, described later, is a separate advanced teaching agent.

What Cognito offers

Cognito is a focused and highly recognisable maths and science learning platform built around short explanatory videos, follow-up questions and exam practice. According to Cognito's website, it offers a large free video library, exam-board-specific courses, lesson questions that are checked automatically, and past papers and exam questions organised by topic. Cognito reports algorithms that prioritise a student's weaker areas, giving it adaptive, strengths-and-weaknesses-aware practice. Cognito Pro adds quizzes and flashcards, and Cognito offers school packages for teachers and institutions with simple onboarding.

Cognito's strengths are real and worth stating plainly. Its videos are clear, well-produced and genuinely excellent for first-time learning and quick revision, its interface is simple, and much of the platform is free. If you have not yet met a topic, watching a concise Cognito video is often the fastest way in, and the follow-up questions give you a quick check that the explanation has stuck. The features and figures here are drawn from Cognito's own reported information and should be confirmed on Cognito's official pages.

Key differences

Watching a prepared video versus doing marked practice

This is the central contrast. A Cognito video is produced once and plays the same way for every student, which is exactly what makes it clear, consistent and reliable for first exposure. What a fixed video does not do is look at the specific line where your working went wrong. Ilmino centres on your attempt: it marks the steps you actually wrote against a mark scheme and responds to your exact error. Explanation is best when you are learning something new; marked, adaptive practice is best when you are trying to fix how you personally get a question wrong.

Checking an answer versus marking the method

Cognito's questions confirm whether you understood the explanation, and its lesson and exam questions are checked automatically, which is efficient. Ilmino is built around open working. The interactive canvas lets you set out a full solution, typed or handwritten, and Ilmino evaluates the reasoning in between, with method-mark awareness and misconception identification. For maths, physics and chemistry, where marks are awarded for method, being marked on your steps rather than only your final answer changes what the feedback can tell you.

Recommendations that adapt to the individual

Cognito reports algorithms that prioritise a student's weaker areas, which helps steer revision at the topic level. Ilmino uses Bayesian recommendations that adapt to the individual attempt, updating its estimate of what you know from how you actually answered and recommending your next topic and next question accordingly. Both platforms respond to weakness; Ilmino's model is built to react to the specific step a particular student got wrong.

Live visual teaching

Where a topic genuinely needs to be drawn out, a diagram built up line by line or a derivation developed step by step, that live visual teaching is the role of Raphael. Raphael is ILM AI's advanced visual and interactive teaching agent and is offered separately from the £12.99 Ilmino Pro plan, with pricing and usage announced independently. This differs from a pre-recorded video: the aim is a visual explanation constructed in response to a particular student's need, rather than the same clip for everyone.

Practice, assessment and feedback

This is where the two platforms diverge most, and where Ilmino is strongest. Both check answers, but they do different jobs. Cognito's automatic checking confirms whether you got the follow-up or exam question right after watching a video, which is valuable and fast. Ilmino's marking is AI-powered and mapped to exam-board question styles and mark schemes, with the emphasis on the intermediate steps rather than only the final result.

Consider a student applying electrolysis in a calculation. On Ilmino they open an exam-board-aligned practice set, attempt each question on the canvas and write out every line of working as they would on paper. Ilmino reads those steps, so if the error is a slip in balancing a half-equation rather than a misunderstanding of the concept, that is exactly what is surfaced. The student sees where method marks were lost, gets the misconception named and explained, corrects it and practises again. Typed and handwritten answers are both supported, and working-step analysis assesses the method, not only the answer. Whether Cognito marks open handwritten working in this way is not publicly stated, so we make no claim either way. AI marking is not infallible, which is why Ilmino keeps teacher review available for high-stakes use through its institutional tools. For a related platform built around exam questions and revision notes, see Ilmino vs Save My Exams.

Personalisation and Bayesian recommendations

Ilmino personalises from your evidence. Its Bayesian recommendations maintain a live estimate of what you have mastered, updated by how you answer, and use that to recommend the next topic and the next question, prioritising your weaker areas without abandoning what needs consolidating. Around this sit strengths and weaknesses analysis, personalised learning journeys, revision planning, goals and sub-goals, streaks and progress tracking, all current parts of the platform. The result is a practice sequence shaped by your own attempts rather than a fixed course order.

Cognito reports that its algorithms prioritise a student's weaker areas, which is a genuine adaptive strength for steering revision through its courses. The difference is the level at which the two adapt: Cognito guides you across topics, while Ilmino also reacts to the specific step a particular student got wrong on a particular question.

Dashboard and user experience

Ilmino gives each learner a customisable, widget-based dashboard. Learners and families can arrange widgets around what matters to them: upcoming exams, progress, recommended topics, goals, recent practice, strengths and weaknesses, quizzes, streaks and simulations. The practical value is a space shaped around the learner's priorities instead of one fixed layout everyone is forced to use. A Year 11 student revising for GCSEs can foreground upcoming exams and recommended topics; a parent can foreground progress and streaks. Parent progress visibility and notifications, plus teacher tools, connect the people supporting the learner.

Cognito presents progress through its courses clearly and simply, with an interface many students find easy to navigate. Whether Cognito offers a customisable dashboard is not publicly stated, so we make no claim about it. What we can say is that Ilmino's user experience is designed to be arranged by the learner rather than presented the same way to everyone.

Interactive simulations

For a maths and science audience this is a distinctive Ilmino strength. Ilmino includes interactive STEM simulations as a current capability, letting students explore concepts by changing variables and seeing the effect, rather than only watching an outcome described. A student can vary the concentration in an electrolysis cell, adjust the variables in a projectile-motion problem or manipulate a geometric construction and watch the relationships change in real time. That hands-on exploration complements the marked practice: you can build intuition for a science concept in a simulation, then test whether you can apply it under exam conditions in a marked question.

Cognito's video library explains science concepts clearly and is excellent for first exposure, and its videos can show processes in motion. Whether Cognito offers interactive, manipulable simulations is not publicly stated. For students who learn by doing rather than watching, Ilmino's simulations sit naturally alongside its exam practice within the same platform.

Pricing and free access

Ilmino Pro is £12.99 per month, and the majority of Practice Mode is free, so you can start practising, get your working marked against mark schemes and receive Bayesian recommendations without paying. That £12.99 covers exam-board-aligned AI practice, mark-scheme feedback, working-step and method-mark analysis, misconception identification, quick, standard and full timed exam modes, interactive STEM simulations and a customisable dashboard, a broad working feature set on its own. Raphael, ILM AI's advanced visual teaching agent, is offered separately from the £12.99 Ilmino Pro plan, with pricing and usage announced independently, so the value above stands without it. You can see current options on the Ilmino pricing page.

According to Cognito's website, much of the platform is free, which is a real strength for cost-conscious students and schools, and Cognito Pro adds quizzes and flashcards. Cognito reports school pricing from approximately £10 per student. Because Cognito's headline school pricing is per student and Ilmino's published plans are monthly consumer prices, the two are not directly comparable, and we will not claim one is simply cheaper. A free-versus-free comparison is more meaningful: Cognito offers a large free video library for learning and quick revision, while Ilmino offers a majority-free Practice Mode centred on marked practice, working analysis and adaptive recommendations.

Prices change often; confirm on the provider's official pricing page. Last checked: 10 July 2026.

Where Ilmino has the advantage

Ilmino's advantage over a video-and-quiz platform is everything that happens to your own working. It marks typed and handwritten answers against exam-board mark schemes, analyses your method, awards attention to method marks, identifies the misconception behind an error and recommends what to practise next using Bayesian personalisation. It offers quick, standard and full timed exam modes for whole-paper rehearsal, interactive STEM simulations for hands-on science and maths, and a customisable dashboard that families arrange around their own priorities. For a student who has already watched the explanation and now needs to prove they can apply it, that combination is more complete than checking answers after a video.

Where Cognito has the advantage

Cognito's advantage is first learning. Its video library is clear, well-produced and genuinely excellent for meeting a topic for the first time and for fast revision, and this is a real strength Ilmino does not try to out-produce. Its interface is simple, much of the platform is free, and it enjoys high familiarity among GCSE maths and science students. If your immediate need is a concise, reliable explanation of a topic you have not met yet, backed by quick follow-up questions, Cognito is an excellent choice.

Who should choose Ilmino?

Choose Ilmino if you learn by doing questions and want feedback on how you solve them. It suits students who write out working by hand and want that working marked against mark schemes, who want method-level feedback and misconception identification, who want quick, standard and full timed exam practice, who benefit from interactive STEM simulations, and who value a customisable dashboard with connected visibility for parents and teachers. It fits GCSE and A-Level students who want adaptive, exam-board-aligned practice rather than only a prepared explanation.

Who should choose Cognito?

Choose Cognito if your priority is clear, video-led first learning and quick topic revision, especially for GCSE maths and science. It is an excellent fit for students meeting a topic for the first time, for anyone who wants concise, well-produced explanations backed by follow-up questions and topic-organised exam practice, and for schools that value simple onboarding and generous free access. Cognito's video quality, simplicity, free access and student familiarity are genuine strengths.

The verdict

Students mainly seeking a clear, well-produced video library for first learning and quick revision may prefer Cognito, and it deserves its reputation for helping students meet maths and science topics. Learners who want exam-board-aligned AI practice, mark-scheme feedback, Bayesian recommendations, analysis of their working, interactive simulations and a customisable dashboard will find Ilmino the more complete and affordable learning environment. Cognito helps you understand a topic; Ilmino proves you can apply it and fixes the exact step you get wrong. For a related comparison with a video-led revision platform, read Ilmino vs GCSEPod.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ilmino free?

Yes, the majority of Ilmino's Practice Mode is free, so you can start practising, get your working marked and receive recommendations without paying. Ilmino Pro adds further features for £12.99 per month.

How much does Ilmino cost?

Ilmino Pro is £12.99 per month, and the majority of Practice Mode is free. Pricing was checked on 10 July 2026; confirm current prices on the Ilmino pricing page.

Is Raphael included in Ilmino Pro?

No. Raphael is ILM AI's advanced visual teaching agent and is not included in the standard £12.99 Ilmino Pro subscription. It will be offered separately, with pricing and usage information announced independently.

Which is better for GCSE revision?

It depends on your goal. Cognito offers excellent short videos and follow-up questions for learning topics and revising quickly, especially in maths and science. Ilmino offers exam-board-aligned practice that marks your working against mark schemes, with timed exam modes, interactive simulations and Bayesian recommendations. Many students use both.

Which is better for exam practice?

Ilmino is designed around exam practice, with exam-board-aligned questions, quick, standard and full timed exam modes, and marking of your working against mark schemes. Cognito offers past papers and exam questions organised by topic; whether it offers equivalent full-paper timed simulation is not publicly stated.

Can teachers use Ilmino?

Yes. Ilmino provides teacher tools and dashboards, and Ilmino for Institution is the school-controlled learning and management platform with curriculum spaces, assignments, tests, AI marking with teacher review, and analytics.

Does Ilmino support handwritten answers?

Yes. Ilmino supports typed and handwritten answers through an interactive canvas, and it works best with a stylus or tablet. Working-step analysis assesses your method, not only the final answer.

Can Ilmino and Cognito be used together?

Yes. A common approach is to use Cognito's videos to learn a topic and Ilmino for exam-board-aligned practice, handwritten working, marked feedback and timed exam rehearsal.

Final call to action

Start practising with Ilmino for free and create a learning space designed around your subjects, goals and progress. See how it works, start free, or explore plans on the pricing page.

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Sources

• Ilmino pricing: /pricing
• Ilmino exam practice: /features/exam-practice
• Ilmino automated marking: /features/automated-marking
• Ilmino progress tracking: /features/progress-tracking
• Ilmino revision planner: /features/revision-planner
• Ilmino Raphael: /features/raphael
• Ilmino for Institution: /institution
• Ilmino how it works: /how-it-works
• Cognito official website: https://cognitoedu.org
• Cognito pricing and school packages: https://cognitoedu.org (confirm current pricing on the official pricing page)
• Pricing checked: 10 July 2026