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Use Teams when an organization needs to collaborate. Use Pencil Spaces when someone needs to learn.
10M+ sessions taught
200M+ minutes of learning
One-click join, no installs
Last updated June 2026
For teaching
A virtual classroom built for lessons, student work that stays between sessions, and teaching workflows.
For the enterprise
A powerful collaboration suite for meetings, chat, and files across an organization on Microsoft 365.
The short answer
Pencil Spaces is a virtual classroom built for teaching and learning. Microsoft Teams is an enterprise collaboration suite whose education edition runs inside a school's Microsoft 365 tenant. For lessons, Pencil Spaces gives educators account-free joins, an infinite whiteboard, built-in learning apps and tools, student work that carries over between sessions, and live support.
Built for teaching. A virtual classroom, built around the lesson.
No account to join. Learners enter from one link, no tenant, no download.
Everything in one room. The whiteboard, learning apps, and each learner's work are saved between lessons.
Tools and AI built for the classroom. A Learning Companion, Smart Assistant, and Autograder, plus 10,000+ built-in resources and apps.
A teaching room where the work and tools all live in one place.
Pick up exactly where you left off. The whiteboard, documents, and a student's past work stay in the room, so no lesson time is lost setting up again.
Keep a lesson in flow. Move between boards, documents, apps, and exercises in one place.
Keep learners engaged. Get private notifications when a student may be distracted.
Students work, not just watch. Learners can work together on the board, with individual cursors that make participation visible.
Everything in one place. Quizlet, IXL, a code editor, PDF annotation, and a web viewer, with nothing to download or screen-share.
Both run in the browser. The difference is what each one was built to do.
Your question
For teaching
For the enterprise
The basics
Can I run a live video session?
Yes.
Yes.
Is it built specifically for teaching?
A purpose-built virtual classroom.
An enterprise collaboration suite with an education edition.
Is it reliable enough to teach on every day?
Yes. 99.99% uptime, engineered for the heavier load of live teaching.
Yes, Teams is enterprise-grade and reliable at scale.
Joining the room
Can students join without a Microsoft account?
Yes. One click, no account, no tenant.
Students sign in with a school Microsoft 365 account.
Can students join without a download?
Yes. One click, any device, in the browser.
Browser or app; the desktop app is often prompted.
The teaching experience
Is there a teaching whiteboard in the room?
Yes, a classroom-native whiteboard saved to the room.
Microsoft Whiteboard can launch directly inside a Teams meeting.
Is student work saved between lessons?
Yes. Boards, documents, and student work are all saved in the room.
Files and chat are stored in a channel.
Are there built-in teaching tools?
Yes. Teaching apps built into the room, including Quizlet and IXL.
You add Office files and third-party apps as tabs.
Can I see whether students are distracted?
Yes, with private focus and tab-switch alerts.
No. Teams does not have tab-switch or focus-monitoring features.
Does it support group classes and accessibility?
Yes. Group classes, breakouts, and accessibility tools for every age and ability.
Capable for large meetings and webinars, with Microsoft 365 accessibility.
AI and assessment
Is the AI built for learning?
Yes. A Learning Companion, Smart Assistant, and Autograder.
The Study & Learn agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot is purpose-built for learning.
Can I record a lesson?
Yes, device and cloud, including recording without the student on camera.
Yes, cloud recording with transcripts in Microsoft 365.
Operations, privacy and support
Can I manage many tutors without per-seat creep?
Yes. Unlimited hosts and Space links.
Per-user Microsoft 365 licensing, plus a per-user add-on for Premium features.
Can I schedule and track attendance?
Yes. Built-in calendar, invites, attendance, and rostering.
Calendar built in; attendance via meeting reports and Insights.
Can support help during a live class?
Yes. 24/7 live support, and we can join your Space.
Microsoft support tiers, usually routed through your IT admin.
Who is it best for?
Tutors, schools, districts, and tutoring programs.
Organizations standardized on Microsoft 365 for collaboration.
Comparison reflects the education edition of Microsoft Teams and publicly available Microsoft documentation as of 2026, and is intended as a fair, factual comparison. Microsoft Teams is a general-purpose collaboration platform; Pencil Spaces is a teaching platform.
The same room works for every team.
Tutoring companies
Consistency across tutors, account-free joins for every learner and parent, recordings, scheduling, and support.
Higher education
Seminars, office hours, labs, and supplemental instruction in a space built for working through material together.
Enrichment & after-school
Coding, music, languages, and test prep in a room with all the tools you need built in.
Corporate L&D
Learning and development teams who want their onboarding, upskilling, and cohort programs to feel like a classroom.
sessions taught on Pencil Spaces
minutes of live learning
uptime, so class is not interrupted
live support inside the Space
See how teaching feels in a dedicated virtual classroom. Try it for free in your browser today.
Built for teaching, not meetings. Trusted by tutoring teams, schools, and districts.
We’ll help you set up your Spaces, bring your classes across, and get your educators teaching, with a full library of guides and walkthroughs.
A dedicated onboarding team to plan and run your setup
A full library of setup guides and video walkthroughs
No tenant to configure, your learners join in one click
Start free in your browser. No download, no Microsoft account, no credit card. Your first lesson is one click away.
