Khanmigo is the closest product in the world to what Heddy is trying to be, and it deserves to be described accurately rather than positioned against. Both refuse to hand a student the answer. That puts them in a category of about two.
So this comparison isn't about which one is a real tutor. It's about fit.
At a glance
| Khanmigo | Heddy | |
|---|---|---|
| Refuses to give the answer | Yes | Yes |
| Method | Socratic conversation | Fixed four-rung hint ladder |
| Curriculum | Khan Academy's own library | UK KS3 into GCSE |
| Subject specialists | One tutor, many subjects | Eight named tutors |
| Attached content | Khan's videos and exercises | The tutors and the Atlas |
| Spaced-repetition flashcards | No | Free and unlimited |
| Behind it | A non-profit with a vast free library | A small UK company |
| Signup | Khan Academy account | None — opens straight in |
| Age / region | Varies; check Khan's terms | 13+, UK only |
What Khanmigo does better
It sits on top of one of the great free educational libraries. Khan Academy's videos and exercise banks are extraordinary, they're free, and they're properly sequenced. When Khanmigo says "let's practise this", there's a real, well-built exercise behind it. Heddy has nothing of that scale, and it would be silly to claim otherwise.
Khan Academy is a non-profit and has behaved like one for fifteen years. On the question "will this still exist and still be affordable in five years", they have a track record and we have an intention.
It reaches far more people. More subjects, more ages, more countries, and a maths sequence that runs from arithmetic to calculus. Heddy is seven subjects, 13+, UK only.
If your child is anywhere outside the UK, or below 13, or needs a subject we don't teach, the choice is straightforward and it isn't us.
Where the two genuinely differ
Curriculum, and it's the biggest one. Khan Academy's library is world-class and organised around its own scope and sequence, which is US-shaped in its origins. Heddy's seven professors teach the UK curriculum — KS3 into GCSE, with the notation, methods and mark-scheme habits that go with an English exam board. Professor Quill builds a paragraph the way an English paper is marked. Professor Harari weighs sources the way a history paper asks. That's a narrow advantage that matters a lot if your child sits GCSEs and not at all otherwise.
Structure versus conversation. Khanmigo is a Socratic conversationalist and holds the line well. Heddy's refusal is a fixed ladder: four rungs, topping out at a fully worked similar problem, with the function that reveals a hint taking no level argument — there is literally no fifth rung to request. Whether a structural guarantee beats a well-behaved conversation is arguable; I built the structural one because instructions to a model are suggestions and code is not.
Eight specialists rather than one generalist. Heddy's professors run genuinely different methods — Newton makes you predict before you observe, Curie builds the particle picture before any equation, Quill will not write your paragraph. Chemistry isn't learned the way history is, and the eight-tutor split is how we act on that. It's also more to explain and easier to get wrong.
A revision loop Khanmigo doesn't have. This is the clearest functional gap. Heddy's sessions become spaced-repetition flashcards written by the professor who watched you make the error — and when a card keeps beating you, you carry that exact card back to him. Tutoring that produces its own revision, and revision that can call the tutor back, is the loop we're actually built around.
And how you get in. Khanmigo needs a Khan Academy account. Heddy opens with no account at all — no email, no password, no adult. For a teenager who wants to try something tonight without a conversation about it, that's the difference between using it and not.
Please check the facts yourself
One honest caveat. Khanmigo's availability, pricing and feature set have changed repeatedly and varied by country and school agreement. Any comparison article that states its price and terms confidently — including this one — is a snapshot, and Khan Academy's own site is the only source worth trusting on that.
Which to choose
Khanmigo if you want an enormous free curriculum behind the tutor, you're outside the UK, your child is younger, or the reassurance of a fifteen-year-old non-profit matters to you. All good reasons.
Heddy if your child sits UK exams, you want subject specialists rather than one generalist, you want tutoring and spaced revision in the same loop, or the student is the one deciding to try it.
And if you're weighing AI tutors at all: both of these refuse to give the answer, and most of the popular ones don't. That distinction matters more than the choice between these two.
Comparison written 10 Sep 2026 from each product's public description. Khanmigo's terms in particular change often — check Khan Academy's own site. Written by Duke Harewood, who builds the tutors at aitutors.me.