Medly AI vs Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT): A full comparison for GCSE and A-Level students

Medly AI and Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT) sit at opposite ends of the revision spectrum. Medly AI is a paid, AI-powered exam-prep platform focused on adaptive practice and per-answer marking. Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT) is a free, ad-supported UK revision library built around past papers, topic questions and revision notes. Here's how the two compare, and how to pick between them.

Medly AI is an AI-powered exam preparation platform covering GCSE, IGCSE, A-Level, IB, AP and SAT across the main UK and international exam boards. The core of the product is an AI tutor that adapts to how you respond, thousands of exam questions across a wide range of question types, and AI marking that gives annotated feedback on written answers. It also includes a handwriting canvas, Upload & Mark for any past paper, and Medly Mocks: free nationwide mock exams with grade boundaries.

Strengths. The AI tutor guides you through content adaptively, adjusting explanations based on your answers, which suits students who learn well by asking follow-up questions. Per-answer AI marking on written responses is useful for exam practice, where wording matters as much as content. Medly Mocks give you the closest thing to a real exam outside of school, and they're free to sit.

Where it's less strong. There's no pre-recorded video teaching; lessons happen through AI dialogue and text, which won't suit every learner. The subject range focuses on core exam subjects rather than a broad humanities and languages spread. And the monthly price sits on the higher end for exam-prep platforms.

Physics & Maths Tutor (often called PMT) is a free UK revision website that's been running since 2013. It hosts past papers, topic-organised exam questions, revision notes, worksheets and solution banks across nine subjects: Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Geography, English, Psychology and Computer Science. The site is ad-supported and covers GCSE, IGCSE and A-Level across the main UK boards. PMT also sells paid revision courses and 1-to-1 tuition.

Strengths. The past-paper and topic-question archive is comprehensive and organised board by board, which makes it a default reference point for a lot of UK GCSE and A-Level students. Everything in the core library is free at the point of use, and it's a long-established brand that a lot of teachers actively point students towards.

Where it's less strong. There are no video lessons, no flashcards or quizzes with spaced repetition and no AI marking. There's no account or progress tracking either, so it's a static library rather than a study platform. The ads and cookie overlays can make browsing noisy, and the subject spread stops at nine, with no KS3, IB or AP.

A feature-by-feature summary of how the two platforms compare.

Honestly, the best move is to find what works for you, and it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Plenty of students use one for teaching and another for reference.

What's great is that both have free content you can try. PMT is free at every point, ad-supported. Medly AI has a free tier with Medly Mondays and limited daily premium AI.

Broadly, Medly AI suits students who like learning by dialogue and want an AI tutor that adapts to their responses. PMT suits students building their own revision routine around past papers, topic questions and revision notes. If you want video teaching plus notes plus AI-marked practice in one place, Cognito is worth adding to the shortlist.

Cognito is designed to be an all-in-one platform that supports you from learning the content, to remembering it, to knowing how to apply it in your exams. So when you sign up, you can add all of your subjects to your dashboard, ready to go, as you can see below.

Each subject is broken down into sections and subtopics, all mapped precisely to your specification. That means you only ever learn what you actually need to know for your paper, and you can see at a glance what's left to cover.

Each topic has a short video lesson and/or beautifully designed revision notes, and some have a little cheat sheet that summarises everything on one page. It's good for last-minute revision, or printing out and sticking on the wall.

Once you've learned a topic, you can build your own quiz mixing any set of topics you've covered. Cognito uses spaced repetition and interleaving to decide what to bring back and when, adapting to how you're doing. These are the two study techniques with the strongest evidence base in cognitive science.

And when you're ready for exam-style practice, you can work through real exam questions with typed answers. Then either self-mark against the mark scheme point by point, or use AI marking to check your answer against the examiner's points.