Direct answer: FourteenFish if you need the GP appraisal workflow itself, BMJ Portfolio if you need a free, well-built CPD log with AI reflection support, and CPDme mainly if you value its multi-profession portfolio style or already live in it. The three overlap on "somewhere to put your CPD" and diverge completely on everything around that, so the comparison is best run dimension by dimension.
Free and paid functionality
BMJ Portfolio moved the goalposts here in July 2026: fully free for all healthcare professionals, no subscription, with logging, storage, dashboards, exports and AI reflection support included. CPDme runs on a paid subscription for its portfolio features, with mobile capture and evidence exports; it predates the free era and now has to justify its fee against a capable free rival. FourteenFish's appraisal toolkit is paid annually, around £40 to £50 for GPs with RCGP discounts (last checked August 2026), but what the fee buys is not logging, it is the appraisal machinery. Paying for a bare CPD log is the one clearly weakening proposition of the three.
Document storage and reporting
All three store evidence and produce reports; the texture differs. FourteenFish structures everything toward the NHS England appraisal output, with supporting information organised the way the process expects and thoughtful safeguards like warnings when an entry looks as if it contains patient-identifiable information. BMJ Portfolio stores reflections and documents against entries and exports clean portfolio summaries, with a dashboard tracking hours and appraisal deadlines through the year. CPDme's storage-and-certificate model suits professions whose CPD audit is essentially evidence-on-request, which is its heritage.
Appraisal-specific workflows
Only FourteenFish runs the medical appraisal itself: appraisee and appraiser workflows, the current template, MSF and patient feedback surveys, sign-off. BMJ Portfolio explicitly stops at appraisal-ready organisation and export, and its direct FourteenFish integration exists precisely to hand evidence over to the machinery. CPDme similarly feeds processes rather than running medical appraisal. For a UK GP this settles the core question: one of the three is an appraisal platform, and it is not the free ones.
Mobile usability
FourteenFish leads on capture friction: mature Portfolio and learning apps plus the email-to-diary feature that turns any forwarded certificate into an entry. CPDme's mobile capture is a core part of its offer and does the on-the-go job competently. BMJ Portfolio currently plays through the web with its capture advantage concentrated in automatic BMJ Learning tracking rather than a logging app; for doctors whose learning lives inside the BMJ ecosystem, that automation outweighs an app, and for everyone else it is the gap to know about.
AI-supported reflection
BMJ Portfolio is the differentiated one: built-in AI support for drafting, improving and refining reflective entries, arriving just as college guidance has clarified the rules of the road, scaffolding acceptable, substitution not, declaration expected. FourteenFish and CPDme are, at last check, conventional on this front, with structure and prompts rather than generative drafting. If AI-assisted reflection matters to you, the free option is currently the one shipping it.
Integrations
FourteenFish connects across its EMIS-family ecosystem, education partners and now inbound from BMJ Portfolio. BMJ Portfolio auto-tracks BMJ Learning and exports toward FourteenFish. CPDme integrates lightly and generically, in keeping with its multi-profession neutrality. None of the three is a learning platform in itself, which is the standing gap the next section addresses.
Getting iatroX records into each
Whatever you choose, the strongest thing to store in it is assessed learning, and iatroX's My CPD records are built to travel: each captures topic, date, time, performance and your reflection as an appraisal-ready entry. Into FourteenFish, the record goes in as a CPD entry with the session summary attached as supporting documentation, or simply forwarded via email-to-diary. Into BMJ Portfolio, it files as an external CPD entry with the reflection completed there, sitting alongside your BMJ Learning history. Into CPDme, it uploads as evidence with the reflection in the entry body. In all three, the point is identical: the portfolio holds the record, and the record shows verified knowledge rather than attendance.
Verdict
GP running your own appraisal: FourteenFish, with BMJ Portfolio optionally underneath as the free year-round layer. Doctor needing a CPD home without appraisal machinery, including most hospital doctors alongside their college diary: BMJ Portfolio, and keep the saved subscription. Existing CPDme users, or clinicians in multi-profession teams standardising on one tool: CPDme still does its job; just be aware the free alternative now covers most of the log-and-store territory. Then feed whichever you pick with evidence worth storing.
Frequently asked questions
I already pay for CPDme; should I cancel?
Not reflexively. If your workflow, or your wider team's, is settled there and the fee is trivial against the disruption, continuity has value. Review at renewal: if all you use is log-and-store, the free alternative now does that job, and the saved fee funds an evidence generator instead, which is a better trade than a sideways move between logs.
Which handles multi-profession teams best?
CPDme was built for exactly that and remains the natural pick where paramedics, nurses and doctors standardise on one tool; BMJ Portfolio's profession-agnostic free tier is the emerging alternative. FourteenFish serves doctors and nurses but is at its best in GP-shaped workflows.
Where does reflection quality actually come from?
From having something specific to reflect on. Whichever log you choose, entries built on assessed sessions, real scores, diagnosed misconceptions, verified corrections, produce sharper reflections than entries built on attendance, because specificity is upstream of the writing.