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Comparison · EdTech
Blockly vs Brilliant
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Blockly and Brilliant — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Blockly vs Brilliant: at a glance
What is Blockly?
Post-v13 cleanup: three beta tags in one evening, two of them carrying nothing at all.
Blockly is servicing the v13 line it opened in June with keyboard navigation and screenreader support on by default. The 13.2.2 beta train tagged three times in under three hours, but only beta.0 carries changes — an undo-stack corruption fix, a nested-tree traversal speedup, and focus restoration on toast dismissal. beta.1 and beta.2 record an empty commit range.
What is Brilliant?
Brilliant launches Koji, a graphical AI tutor — its first product move in 15 months.
Brilliant ships infrequent, essay-style blog posts that read as much like product manifestos as changelog. The most recent post announces Koji, framed as a graphical AI tutor — the first new headline product in this ten-entry window. The rest of the timeline is course-design philosophy around algebra, programming, and learning-game evals.
Blockly vs Brilliant: editorial side-by-side
Blockly
5.0EDTECH
Post-v13 cleanup: three beta tags in one evening, two of them carrying nothing at all.
◆ Current state
Blockly is servicing the v13 line it opened in June with keyboard navigation and screenreader support on by default. The 13.2.2 beta train tagged three times in under three hours, but only beta.0 carries changes — an undo-stack corruption fix, a nested-tree traversal speedup, and focus restoration on toast dismissal. beta.1 and beta.2 record an empty commit range.
◆ Where it's heading
The work since v13.0.0 is consolidation around focus, rendering, and performance rather than new surface area — insertion markers rewritten for memory, connection-database updates sped up, field labels made translatable. Accessibility remains the organizing concern, now expressed as correctness fixes in the machinery that shipped rather than new capability. The rapid empty beta tags suggest release automation firing on non-code commits.
◆ Prediction
Expect a 13.2.2 final shortly, continuing the pattern of small fix batches on the v13 line. Nothing in these entries points to a v14 or a new feature theme.
Brilliant
3.8EDTECH
Brilliant launches Koji, a graphical AI tutor — its first product move in 15 months.
◆ Current state
Brilliant ships infrequent, essay-style blog posts that read as much like product manifestos as changelog. The most recent post announces Koji, framed as a graphical AI tutor — the first new headline product in this ten-entry window. The rest of the timeline is course-design philosophy around algebra, programming, and learning-game evals.
◆ Where it's heading
The throughline across these posts is the same: lean on visual, game-like interaction and use AI to scale the tutor-style feedback loop the team keeps writing about. Koji is the first concrete productization of that thesis after a long stretch of essays describing the approach. Cadence remains slow, which suggests Brilliant publishes only when something is meaningfully different.
◆ Prediction
Expect Koji to roll out across more subjects following the same algebra-then-CS pattern earlier posts described, and for future entries to attach Koji-specific course launches rather than announce new products from scratch.
Alternatives to Blockly and Brilliant
Other EdTech products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Blockly or Brilliant.
Tutor LMS
Six weeks past the 4.0 rewrite, Tutor LMS is still paying down what the rewrite broke.
Code.org
Image moderation is spreading lab by lab while the rebrand clears its last code references.
learnr
learnr is in caretaker mode, adding guardrails rather than teaching features
Tutor LMS
Tutor LMS 4.0 is out of the redesign and into the long tail of fixing it.
Chamilo
Chamilo tags a 3.0 beta while 2.0 is still in release candidate, with no notes explaining the jump.
See all Blockly alternatives → · See all Brilliant alternatives →
Recent activity from Blockly and Brilliant
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoBlockly13.2.2-beta.2 tagged with no recorded changes
- 3d agoBlockly13.2.2-beta.1 tagged with no recorded changes
- 3d agoBlockly13.2.2-beta.0 fixes undo-stack clobbering and nested-tree performance
- 10d agoBlockly13.2.1 patches memory leaks and RTL rendering
- 18d agoBlockly13.2.0 rewrites insertion markers and adds translated field labels
- 1mo agoBlockly13.1.1 fixes delete-area hit testing at non-default zoom
- 2mo agoBrilliantBrilliant introduces Koji, a graphical AI tutor ⚡
- 1y agoBrilliantWhen “almost right” is catastrophically wrong: Evals for AI learning games
- 1y agoBrilliantHand-crafted, machine-made: How we make learning games with AI
- 1y agoBrilliantProgramming in 2025: A preview of our upcoming CS courses
- 1y agoBrilliantOne subject, three lenses: A multifaceted look at Algebra
- 1y agoBrilliantGame on: Solving for x-citement with interactive Algebra
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Blockly and Brilliant?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Blockly is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 3.8), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Blockly better than Brilliant?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Blockly is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 3.8), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other EdTech products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Blockly?
Top Blockly alternatives in EdTech are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Blockly alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/blockly for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Brilliant?
Top Brilliant alternatives in EdTech are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Brilliant alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/brilliant for the full list with editorial commentary on each.