(Note: This is as of 2/12/18 – I fully expect this to change in the future, as these 2 companies will likely continue adding features)

“I want my students to record their opinion and then respond to each other in writing.  FlipGrid or Recap?”
“I want my kiddos to post videos recorded in Screencastify.  FlipGrid or Recap?”
“I want to be able to play the students’ videos all together in one string.  FlipGrid or Recap?“

In my role as a technology integration coach, I hear a lot of these questions.  So I decided that I needed to sit down and figure out when to use each.

First up, a disclaimer – FlipGrid Classroom (their paid service) dominates here. If you’ve got access to that, there’s not a whole lot that Recap offers that is better than it.  For this post, we’re just talking about the free versions (FlipGrid One and Recap).

When to use . . .

Recap:

• If you want students to reply to each other (text only).  Only FlipGrid Classroom, the paid version, allows students to leave video replies to each other’s videos.  So, for free, there’s only one tool that allows any kind of responses.  It’s Recap.  (Note: FlipGrid Classroom doesn’t allow text responses either – so if that’s a priority for, Recap is still your choice).
• If you want to play all videos with one click.  If you want to be able to click play and string together all of your students responses, Recap is the tool for you.  It’s nice if you want to show all of the responses on the projector.  (Note: FlipGrid Classroom doesn’t do this either).
• It’s a priority for you to have a separate space for each class.  FlipGrid One only gives you one grid, though it can have unlimited topics.  You can always use one topic for each of your class periods, but if you want to keep responses from one class private from the other classes, this is problematic.  Recap, however, allows you to have unlimited queues and, therefore, keep your classes separate.
• You need a variety of time limit options.  FlipGrid Classroom offers plenty of time limit options, but FlipGrid One only offers 15 seconds & 90 seconds.  Recap lets you choose between 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 2 minutes & 5 minutes.

FlipGrid One:

• If you need to “screen” student responses before peers see them.  With both tools, you can delete videos from the feed.  With FlipGrid’s moderator option, you can set it so that videos have to receive your approval before making it to the public grid.
• If you want to include multimedia other than webcam video in prompt (YouTube videos, GIFs, images, links, etc.).  Recap only allows webcam videos, unless you use one of their “Journeys,” which don’t allow you to gather video responses from your students anyhow.
• If you want students to upload a video (i.e., recorded in Screencastify).  I think this opens up a lot of options!  Here are 2 posts about one option (1 and 2).
• If need to give co-teacher access.  This is a new feature.  Nice for those co-taught classrooms!
• If you want to embed your grid.  Want to embed a grid on your website or in your LMS?  Can’t do that with Recap, but you can with FlipGrid.

There are a few others things that one has that the other doesn’t, but these are the big ones in my book.  Did I miss anything?  Leave it in the comments below your reach out to me on Twitter (@JakeMillerTech) or by email (JakeMillerTech@gmail.com).