Best Free Kahoot! Alternatives for Any Situation

Perhaps you know Kahoot from the (in)famous music, because you’ve been using it to quiz students' knowledge, or because you have seen your kids taking part in Kahoot! quizzes. No matter how you know it, it’s a great bit of software with millions of users around the globe. But if you are aware of the name but not sure about the product, well then let us clear some things up.

What is Kahoot!?

Kahoot is a learning platform that gamifies the classroom experience for students who play Kahoot online. It is primarily aimed at K-12 students (between the ages of 5-18) and features fun quizzes or learning games that can be played live or online. 

  But it is not the ideal solution for every occasion, and there are plenty of different, and often better, alternatives. Let’s look at some of the best options and where they fit in the mix. And don’t worry because there are plenty of games like Kahoot! 

Top free Kahoot alternatives

• Mentimeter
• Quizziz
• Brightful
• Quizlet
• Acadly
• Beekast

The Complete Kahoot alternative - Mentimeter 

By using Mentimeter, you can just as easily create fun classroom quizzes (just like Kahoot!) as you can pre-meeting surveys or icebreakers to kickstart a conference. Perfect for both the classroom and the meeting room, Mentimeter caters to various situations and is not limited to just being an EdTech tool. Alongside quizzes, users can also create Word Clouds, live polls, as well as surveys, and are not limited to just one interactive feature. 

Bringing together the fun elements of Kahoot! and the detail-orientated and informative aspects that a traditional presentation builder like PowerPoint or Keynote offers, Mentimeter can provide users with a more rounded and versatile product. While Kahoot! certainly brings fun to trivia and quizzes, but it lacks certain elements that would appeal to a wider audience. 

Kahoot users will find plenty of familiar similarities between Mentimeter and Kahoot such as a Mentimeter version of the Kahoot code, interactive elements, leaderboards, and more. 

Mentimeter’s quizzes are ready to play and help to improve the learning experience for students, employees, and clients. Mentimeter can effectively improve learning outcomes in any educational and work situation. More than that, Mentimeter encourages everyone taking part to voice their opinions and provide valuable insights to every meeting, class, workshop, or training in which it is used. 

While both Mentimeter and Kahoot! help students learn, Mentimeter also helps presenters learn about their audience, teachers better understand their students, and leaders everywhere gather more poignant and actionable insights.

Mentimeter has both a free plan and paid version with a variety of tiers for both educators and business professionals. Mentimeter offers K-12 students and educators a platform that is very similar to Kahoot but with a wider variety of use cases and additional premium features.

The Gamification Choice - Quizziz 

Anyone that has used or is familiar with Kahoot! will quickly recognize the layout and design of Quizziz. Taking inspiration from the Norwegian tech giant, Quizziz brings a new level of gamification to each of its quizzes. This can be a great way to add some extra excitement and competition to a class or lecture and help drive student engagement by turning it into a sort of mini-competition. 

Answering correctly is just one-way students can soar up leaderboards as the system also promotes quick responses. The scoring system can also help you identify if students have particular difficulty understanding a particular topic or subject area. A vast store of teacher-created templates will also help you get started and provide some inspiration for your next science, English, or social studies class. Think Kahoot! but higher stakes. 

The Remote Working Tool - Brightful

Users can get a 2-week free trial

If you’re looking to vary what kind of games you play then Brighful certainly has a wealth of different options. From ‘Would you rather’ to ‘Charades’, Brightful is a great way to quickly and easily play a variety of games that would traditionally be limited to in-person gatherings. What users get here is the same interactive fun that Kahoot! brings to the table, more choices.

While Brightful can certainly be used by teachers it really does excel as a tool in a team-building exercise and it really comes into its own when the goal is to increase team communication and interaction. Thanks to a series of games that are focused on teamwork and collaboration (Pictionary & Werewolf for example), Brightful is a great way to bring everyone closer together on your next Zoom or Microsoft Teams call while also adding a bit of fun and excitement to the calendar invite. 

The Complete Study Tool - Quizlet 

If you have done any online courses or had a professor in college that was a bit tech-savvy, then you are probably familiar with Quizlet. While Kahoot is great for younger students and for creating a fun atmosphere in the classroom, Quizlet is more multifaceted, appealing to students or any age group with a focus on studying and retaining information. It’s easy to see why it particularly appeals to language learners and science students, with its flash cards and speller mode.

More than just flash cards (although this is their most well-known feature), Quizlet also offers the opportunity to create full tests and multiple-choice study sessions. This complete study experience adds the same interactive element that Kahoot! does, while also bringing a serious study element to the table. The focus here is less on fun and lighthearted quizzes and more on understanding and retaining important information. 

The Full Classroom Experience - Acadly

While Kahoot! is great for running quizzes and playing in-class games, Acadly really excels at everything both inside and outside of the classroom. Acadly is truly a full smart classroom platform that allows teachers to take morning attendance, run real-time polls, quizzes, and Q&As, and upload full lessons and resources with ease. Acadly has the ability to be a real all-in-one tool for teachers everywhere.

The ability to upload teaching materials and view a detailed breakdown of students' performance means that educators don’t need to switch apps or run multiple software programs. Likewise, Acadly provides all the tools necessary for asynchronous learning and users can easily use the platform for pre and post-class activities. While offering many similar benefits to Kahoot! Acadly offers such a range of options that it is sure to make online, face-to-face, and hybrid, teaching all the more straightforward. 

The Business-Focused Solution - Beekast

If you’re searching for a tool with the same feeling as Kahoot! but in a more professional setting, then Beekast could be what you need. Designed for meetings, workshops, and trainings, Beekast likewise offers an interactive element that you can bring to all of your presentations. Like Kahoot! Beekast is a great way to run a remote or hybrid session and gain the same sensation of everyone being together in the same room. 

Much like Mentimeter, you have the ability to add in icebreakers and activities like a Word Cloud, as well as Selfie Wall that can add a personalized element to the meeting - a great idea for fully remote meetings. Beekast also features a list of integrations from Microsoft Teams to Zoom and Jitsi, that can help streamline any online meeting. What Kahoot! can do for a classroom, Beekast can certainly do for a team or audience.

Plenty of options

We can see that there are plenty of options aside from Kahoot! Different online platforms cater to different needs and fulfill different purposes. Mentimeter is one of the solutions that tick every box and can easily satisfy every need. 

A wide variety of plans and features mean that a Fortune 500 CTO, K-12 teacher, and everyone in between can benefit from Mentimeter’s interactive features. So educators can create classroom games while Agile coaches can create interactive presentations.