Four platforms, four genuinely different theories of how a busy GP should learn. MIMS Learning bets on convenient topical modules. Pulse 365 bets on publisher-style breadth at zero cost. RCGP Learning bets on College authority and curriculum alignment. iatroX bets on adaptive assessment: find what you have forgotten and fix that. None of these bets is wrong, which is why the honest comparison sorts them by learning objective rather than crowning one.
The four models, described fairly
MIMS Learning packages primary-care topics into modules with completion quizzes and CPD certificates, free to register, updated constantly, and engineered for the twenty-minute gap. RCGP Learning delivers the College's own courses and the Essential Knowledge Update cycle with its challenge quizzes, largely within membership, carrying curriculum alignment and a name every appraiser knows. Pulse 365 offers modules, webinars and updates in the free, ad-supported publisher model, practical in tone and generous in volume. iatroX replaces the module as the unit of learning with the question: an adaptive bank across a GP's scope, spaced repetition, a Socratic Tutor on every miss grounded in cited NICE, CKS, SIGN and SmPC guidance, and My CPD converting sessions into assessed, appraisal-ready records; free tier for askiatroX and selected banks, £29 monthly or £99 annually for everything (last checked August 2026).
Sponsored and independent content, handled like an adult
The free-module economy runs partly on industry support, and the professional response is neither boycott nor naivety but provenance awareness: notice who funded a module, expect the platforms' own labelling to tell you, and cross-check any recommendation that will change your prescribing against independent guidance. College content and guideline-grounded assessment sit outside that consideration by construction, which is one honest reason to keep at least one independent source load-bearing in your CPD diet, whichever convenient modules you enjoy around it.
Formats: quizzes, courses, webinars, Q-banks
On format range, the module platforms win: MIMS and Pulse offer modules and webinars, RCGP Learning adds structured courses and the EKU cycle. On assessment depth, the order reverses: module quizzes verify that you absorbed the module just taken, while an adaptive bank assesses you across your whole scope and keeps re-assessing as forgetting sets in. Depth versus convenience is the real trade: modules are frictionless and shallow as evidence; adaptive assessment demands slightly more of you and produces the only format on this page that documents verified knowledge rather than completed content.
Evidence generation, compared
MIMS and Pulse produce certificates plus whatever reflection you attach. RCGP Learning produces College-badged completion records, the strongest of the certificate class. iatroX produces the assessed class: topic, time, score, the specific gaps, the Tutor-diagnosed misconception, the re-test showing correction, and your reflection, in one exportable record. A well-built GP portfolio benefits from both classes; a portfolio of certificates alone is the one appraisal guidance keeps gently criticising.
Recommendations by learning objective
Objective: stay broadly current with minimal friction. MIMS or Pulse, ten minutes at a time, with provenance awareness switched on. Objective: College-aligned evidence on core clinical updates. RCGP Learning, and let the EKU cycle structure your year. Objective: find and fix your actual knowledge gaps, with the strongest evidence tier attached. iatroX, run as two or three short adaptive sessions a week. Objective: all of the above on a salaried budget: the free tiers of the first two, membership's RCGP access, and iatroX's £99 annual as the one paid layer, which buys the only capability the free layers cannot supply.
Using iatroX to close the loop on external modules
The four compose into one workflow worth stealing: after any module, on any platform, run a themed iatroX set on the same territory within a week. The score tells you what the module actually left behind; the Tutor corrects what it did not; spaced repetition holds the correction; and your CPD entry upgrades from "completed module, certificate attached" to "completed module, assessed retention, corrected the two gaps, verified at re-test". Same module, same hour of learning, twice the evidence.
Frequently asked questions
Are the free platforms really free?
Financially yes; the model is sponsorship and advertising, which is why provenance-reading is the habit to pair with them. Nothing about the funding model invalidates the learning; it just assigns you the ordinary professional job of noticing who is teaching and checking anything consequential against independent guidance.
Is RCGP Learning worth it for non-members?
The membership question is bigger than CPD, but on CPD alone: the EKU cycle and College badging are the distinctive assets, and if you already hold membership they are effectively pre-paid, which makes not using them the only wrong answer.
How would this stack change for a portfolio GP?
Barely, which is its virtue: all four platforms are self-directed and employer-independent, so the same mix travels across sessions and roles. The one addition worth making is stricter scope-mapping in your reflections, since a varied portfolio career makes "relevant to my scope of practice" a sentence worth evidencing explicitly.