Grout vs Gemini
Free is a real argument. So is never sending the work anywhere.
Google gives many students Gemini at no cost, and that is a serious offer we are not going to pretend away. What it does not give you is a suite that keeps working on a filtered school network, with the lab syllabus already inside it, and the student's work never leaving the machine.
Updated
These are two different purchases
What Gemini is built for
A general assistant woven through Google's products, often free for students, always in the cloud.
- Frequently free for eligible students
- Deeply tied into Google Workspace
- Needs a Google account and a connection
- Prompts travel to Google to be answered
- No awareness of your board or lab scheme
What Grout is built for
A desktop workspace for coursework, where the models, the material and the output all sit on one machine.
- 200+ models run locally, offline
- No account needed to run the local models
- Student work is processed on the device
- One licence covers GroutApp, GroutCode and GroutFilm
- Ships 378 lab practicals mapped to real course codes
Line by line
The rows a head of department actually asks about.
| Grout | Gemini | |
|---|---|---|
| Works with no internet | Yes. Models run on the machine after a one-time download | No. Requires a live connection for every request |
| Account required | No. Not for the local models | Yes. A Google account, tied to the wider Google profile |
| Where student work goes | Yes. Stays on the device; no vendor-held student record | No. Sent to Google to be processed |
| Works on a filtered school network | Yes. Nothing to unblock — it does not call out | No. Blocked wherever the domain is blocked |
| Knows your syllabus | Yes. 378 practicals across KTU, VTU, Calicut, CHRIST, CBSE, CISCE | No. General knowledge only |
| Reads your own textbook | Yes. AI-Memory indexes your books and notes locally | Partly. You can upload files per conversation |
| Marks handwritten paper scripts | Yes. Scan a batch and mark against your own key | No. Not a marking tool |
| Raw reasoning power | Partly. Local models are smaller; Nexus adds larger ones | Yes. Frontier cloud models |
| Cost shape | Partly. A paid yearly licence covering three apps | Yes. Often free for eligible students — genuinely hard to beat on price |
Grout also offers an optional Nexus cloud module for 300+ larger models, which does use the network and spends Merits. Everything above describes the local models.
What a school actually gets
The four things that change on the day you switch.
Lab machines that work
No sign-in queue, no blocked domain, no thirty students hitting a rate limit at once.
Nothing to explain to parents
Student work is processed on the device, so there is no vendor-held record to disclose.
Coursework, not chat
The syllabus, the practicals and the marking are already in the product.
One line on the budget
A yearly licence covering three apps, instead of a per-seat subscription that grows with headcount.
Use Gemini instead when…
The free tier is the strongest counter-argument on this page. Here is when it should win.
- Budget is the binding constraint and your students qualify for free access. We are not going to argue you into paying for something you can get free.
- Your school already runs on Google Workspace and you want everything in one login.
- You need frontier reasoning on hard problems more than you need offline capability.
- Connectivity in your labs is reliable and unfiltered, and student data leaving the building is not a concern for you.
The questions that follow "but Gemini is free"
Including the one where the answer is: then use Gemini.
- Why pay for Grout when Gemini is free for students?
- Often you should not. If budget is the binding constraint and your students qualify for free access, take it. Grout is worth paying for when the requirement is that work stays on the device, that lessons survive a filtered or saturated network, and that a canvas, a code studio and a video editor sit in the same licence.
- Is Grout a Gemini alternative for schools?
- For classroom work, yes. Grout runs 200+ models locally on Windows and macOS with no account required for those models, so a lab of thirty machines does not queue behind a shared rate limit or a school proxy. Gemini remains stronger on frontier reasoning and anything needing live web results.
- Does Grout send student work to Google or anyone else?
- The local models process everything on the machine in front of the student — nothing leaves the device. Only the separate, opt-in Nexus cloud module uses the network, and it is a deliberate choice rather than the default path.
- Can students use Grout without signing in?
- The 200+ local models need no account at all. A licence and the optional Nexus cloud module do require one, but a student can install Grout and start working offline without creating anything.
- Does Grout have a Chromebook or Android version?
- No. Grout is Windows and macOS only. If your fleet is Chromebooks, Gemini is the practical answer and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
See it on your own machine
Run Grout with the network switched off and see what still works. If free cloud access covers your needs, keep using it — we would rather you tested both.