# Skritter: Write Chinese — user reviews > 370 indexed App Store user reviews of Skritter by Inkren, Inc., rated 4.70/5 from 806 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/skritter-write-chinese/id1370892114/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/skritter-write-chinese/id1370892114.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 705 · 4★ 37 · 3★ 16 · 2★ 6 · 1★ 42 ## What do users think of Skritter? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Excellent for learning and retaining characters - 👍 Great interface and user experience - 💡 Helpful videos and content - 👍 Effective for writing practice and stroke order - 👍 Customizable decks and learning options - 👍 Integrates well with other apps like Pleco **Cons** - 🐛 Sync and loading issues - 💰 Expensive subscription - 🔒 Requires payment info upfront - 🐛 Inconsistent character recognition - 🐛 Bugs and crashes reported **Commonly reported bugs** - Subscription issues and unauthorized charges - App freezing and crashing - Syncing problems across devices - Inconsistent character recognition **Most requested features** - Allow creating custom decks and word lists - Add Cantonese support - Improve landscape mode on iPad - Provide more detailed performance tracking - Add ability to focus on specific problem characters ## Newest reviews (19 of 370) ### 3/5 — Pretty good, minor drawbacks *2026-07-12, version 3.13.10* This app is pretty good for learning how to write or read Chinese. I like it cause it gives you the option to choose between traditional and simplified. One of the drawbacks is that it automatically defaults to HSK 2.0, even though it has HSK 3.0. Another thing is that’s it’s pretty pricey for what it’s worth. The worst thing for me is probably the font it’s in. In the real world in China they use a more blocky font and the one skritter uses is very calligraphy like, where there are nice angles and such, but in the real world instead of that specific angle they just do a 90 degree turn, or maybe just smush everything down so everything is even. Maybe add like a feature where you can add the font that’s used in mainland China so you can get used to it, cause it;s kinda difficult adapting. Overall pretty good app though. ### 4/5 — Great app *2026-07-01, version 3.13.10* Great app, but I’m just waiting for the iPad writing capabilities before buying it (at a reasonable size, not huge like at the moment) ### 4/5 — make the chinese character larger please *2026-06-20* It's problematic that the chinese characters are rather small when reviewing words in spite of them being what students are trying to learn to recognize. A lot of apace is being wasted on iPad that could be utilized to make these characters much larger, indicating that the app is not adequately being redesigned for larger screens. Other than that the app is good, with a wide range of decks being offered. The new HSK seems to be available for Levels 1-3, while the old HSK can be studied up to level 6. I suspect this will be expanded soon. **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the 4-star review and for taking the time to share your feedback! I will pass this feedback on to the development team. If you ever have any questions, you can reach us at team@skritter.com ### 4/5 — Interesting experience *2026-06-11, version 3.13.10* I love the handwriting aspect as well as the ability to learn in traditional script. However the use of AI generated videos is a little off putting. ### 5/5 — Good study aide *2026-05-29, version 3.13.10* Helps me keep the characters learned fresh in my memory. Update: I initially used this to keep track of characters learned and for the flash cards. But the courses are also very helpful. ### 5/5 — Good study aide *2026-05-15, version 3.13.10* Helps me keep the characters learned fresh in my memory. ### 5/5 — Great 中文 Writing App *2026-05-12, version 3.13.10* I have been using this app for about a month now and I can definitely say that my written Chinese, as well as character recognition has improved a lot. ### 2/5 — Buggy and poorly designed although pretty *2026-05-02, version 3.13.10* The button to start the continuous mode just spins and spins and doesn’t let me start my lesson. The lessons with videos are cumbersome because on an iPhone I can’t open to full screen. Lastly, when I am starting a new set of cards there is no way to control the number of new cards it shows me so it’s overwhelming and I don’t get the benefit of the spaced repetition. ### 4/5 — Upgrade? *2026-04-12, version 3.13.10* I really enjoy this application and find it is extremely helpful, however if there was an update / upgrade to include speech recognition and also to enter pinyin that would make this a better application. ### 5/5 — Useful and fun *2026-03-22, version 3.13.10* Enjoying this way more than I thought ### 4/5 — Very good app, some extra features would make it great *2026-03-17* As a beginner in Chinese, I am really enjoying the app and the user friendly interface. I am currently on the monthly fee and about 20% of the way through their HSK 1 course which has taught me already many of the most useful and common words. One of my favourite features is the information page for each word, where the history and radicals of the characters are explained and a little about how the word is used, as well as an example in a real sentence. Two features I would suggest are added to make this app much more useful for learning - - Have a way to track which words you keep getting forgetting the most, so that these can be specifically targeted for practice. When I complete a test of 100 words and then go to re-test the incorrect ones, I’d like to be able to save these to a new deck to look at later, as I don’t think it’s always ideal to just do them again over and over again straight away but to space out the repetition. - Implement a new reversed test format in which the English word is presented to you and you have to write/remember the Chinese word. This would make the app so much more useful, as it’s one thing to recognise a word/character and another to recall it straight from English. Having been primarily using this app for my learning so far, I can already notice how much better my listening and reading is than my ability to string together sentences, as I havent practiced translating much from English to Chinese, only the other way round. I think this feature would solidify the app as not just a way to learn to write characters but to learn the language. Thanks! **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the 4-star review, and for taking the time to share your feedback! I will pass these requests on to our development team. If you ever have any questions, you can reach us at team@skritter.com! ### 5/5 — Nice app, but would like to address one thing that distracts a lot *2026-03-17* Got this app recommended by a person's review on Anki Flashcards. Decided to try. Now thinking of buying the whole version. But one feature in the 'Learn' mode is so distracting, it seriously disrupts the flow. When you're asked to write a tone it shows the instructions in small font and the hanzi is displayed in grey just as it's asking to write strokes. I constantly try to start writing the hanji itself and miss the small font that says to just write a tone. If I can suggest, the font can be made bigger or in other color to draw attention. Or just the grayed out hanji can be in another transparent color or on the other background so it doesn't seem like a start of writing the strokes. I tried to find something in settings, but I couldn't. If that feature is added, the experience would be so much better. **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the 5-star review, and for taking the time to share your feedback! I will pass these requests on to our development team. If you ever have any questions, you can reach us at team@skritter.com! ### 5/5 — Must have for learning Chinese *2026-03-13, version 3.13.10* Yearly cost to teach you the pinyin, how to write, how to pronounce, variety and endless topics, cultural idioms, foods, there is so much to learn!!! So worth it! ### 5/5 — Einfach großartig! 👍🏽 *2026-03-07* Diese App ist die beste Art, chinesisch schreiben zu lernen. Und die überarbeitete Version ist sogar fast noch besser. Trotz des hohen Preises ist Skritter jeden Cent wert, der Lernerfolg ist unvermeidlich. **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the 5-star review, and for taking the time to share your feedback! If you ever have any questions, you can reach us at team@skritter.com! ### 5/5 — 5 stars but… *2026-02-26, version 3.13.10* Overall I think this app deserves 5 stars and is a good way of learning. But it is missing some things it really should have. For example, every character should have at least one, ideally multiple sentence examples. There should be a setting to automatically apply examples for every character. This would greatly enhance the study process. Otherwise I recommend this app! ### 5/5 — Favorite Chinese Learning App *2026-02-23, version 3.13.9* This app has helped me maintain my Chinese more than anything. This app has also basically taught me everything I know about writing Chinese. 5 stars isn’t a good enough rating, wish I could go higher ### 5/5 — So helpful *2026-02-22* Love the app and the videos. I think the pinyin exercises should test you by asking you to type the pinyin (or zhuyin if thats whats enabled), maybe with a setting to either ignore or count the tone. Just an idea! **Developer response:** Thank you so much for the 5-star review, and for taking the time to share your feedback! If you ever have any questions, you can reach us at team@skritter.com! ### 3/5 — Bugs in video playback *2026-02-22, version 3.13.9* I like it as an app but given how established it is, the highly visible bugs make me upset and angry. The buttons on the video overlay are unresponsive and I am having to force close the app to be able to stop any video. I find this unacceptable. ### 5/5 — Beginning *2026-02-21, version 3.13.9* Trying to get used to the interface ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Has unresolved technical issues. *2026-04-19* A a wonderful platform for learning Chinese Characters. Unfortunately, it has unresolved technical issues. I bought a years subscription and two months into my subscription the site developed faults. I attempted to delete the app and reinstall. It wouldn’t allow me access to my previous subscription. I’ve claimed my money back by Apple subscriptions. If I rejoin in the future, I will pay monthly that way you don’t lose too much money if the site develops a fault. £120 is a lot of money to lose. **Developer response:** We have not received any other reports about this technical issue, so this is most likely an account-related issue. We recieved your email and would like to get this issue resolved for you as quickly as possible. ### 1/5 — WORST payment process EVER. Took my money and I cannot review content :,) *2025-12-01, version 3.13.8* I wanted to like this app, but it is hard to when the payment process is so frustrating!! I made a personal account to study, and tried the subscription service. (Content itself, character writing, and vocab is a 3/5). However, my school needs me to use a school email/account to be added to my Chinese teacher’s classroom. I made a new account, canceling my old subscription, but Skritter is NOT allowing me to pay for a subscription on my new account. Went back, deleted Account #1, tried to subscribe to services on Account #2, it renews the payment for my account that doesn’t exist anymore. It will NOT let me pay for a new account, and took my money for no reason. It says that I’m paying for a subscription yet I cannot access ANY content at all. So frustrating, and not worth the stress when trying to study. Contacted help services but no one has reached out yet. Save your money, don’t subscribe. ### 1/5 — Not optimized for my retention, missing many word strokes order *2025-11-23, version 3.13.8* Even though I learn lots of word, daily review not increases much. When I learnt 800 or 1500, app just makes me review 3-400 card a day. I set goal 500 card but auto review rarely matches. As a result the retention rate stays low just 75% and I find myself forgetting many words. Need an option where I can choose how many rate I want to sustain or please adjust the review quantity to help me remember more So many word cannot study on Ipad with notice “Missing strokes data” ### 1/5 — Pay to learn app *2025-05-11, version 3.11.8* The unpaid version is not very useful. I used to use the old version…but you’re better off buying a textbook tbh ### 1/5 — sadly *2025-03-19, version 3.11.8* I don’t do subscriptions including free trials. I really would like to learn some basics. ### 1/5 — Money money *2025-03-17, version 3.11.8* Nothing without a subscription. Recommends resources from the developers that are hundreds of dollars. All about the profit. ### 1/5 — writing strokes not registered *2025-02-16, version 3.11.8* writing strokes with trackpad on macos is not supported ### 1/5 — Worst thing ever *2025-01-27, version 3.11.8* Pay for a subscription and I can not log into it, then reach out for help and no one is responding ### 1/5 — Unauthorized Charge *2024-12-24, version 3.11.7* I was charged for my 7 day free trial the price of a premium 1 year subscription on the first day of my trial!! ### 1/5 — horrible waste of time *2024-12-15, version 3.11.6* an absolutely awful app unless your paying an insane amount of money, it’s extremely difficult to use and figure out and if you aren’t doing a 100 dollar a year subscription you get nothing infuriating and a wast of time ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Underrated app *2026-08-14, version 3.13.10* For learning to read and write Hanzi, this is the best app Ive found. Paired with readers from Du Chinese or other apps, Skritter has been amazing for actually retaining new characters. Some of the decks that other users have created are just amazing for learning characters in an optimal order instead of just following HSK. Spaced repetitions, writing practice, and most importantly for me, even decks that were uploaded with simplified characters automatically become available in traditional! This is an amazing feature. Most apps support both character sets, but most of them do not auto-translate from one to the other when it’s user-uploaded content. This is a huge benefit. ### 5/5 — Kim waree *2026-08-06, version 3.13.10* This app is amazing it helped me learn and write Chinese very well ### 5/5 — Great App *2026-07-27, version 3.13.10* Skritter is the best app I’ve used to study Chinese. ### 5/5 — Best for Characters *2026-07-21, version 3.13.10* I prefer the flexibility of Anki for most things but if you’re looking to learn to write characters Skritter is awesome. ### 5/5 — lag greatly improved *2026-07-21, version 3.13.10* In the past there were issues with this otherwise excellent app lagging and failing to load. These seem to have been mostly fixed and I’ve renewed my subscription. If you want to learn a large number of hanzi, there’s no better app. And I appreciate the integration with dictionary entries in Pleco, the overall most essential app for Chinese learners. Thanks! ### 5/5 — Pretty good, minor drawbacks *2026-07-19, version 3.13.10* This app is pretty good for learning how to write or read Chinese. I like it cause it gives you the option to choose between traditional and simplified. One of the drawbacks is that it automatically defaults to HSK 2.0, even though it has HSK 3.0. Another thing is that’s it’s pretty pricey for what it’s worth. The worst thing for me is probably the font it’s in. In the real world in China they use a more blocky font (Heiti, Songti, Mingti) and the one skritter uses is very calligraphy like, where there are nice angles and such (Kaiti), but in the real world instead of that specific angle they just do a 90 degree turn, or maybe just smush everything down so everything is even. An example of this is the word 哪 , in the app the Kou portion is sitting comfortably up in the top left corner. In heiti font it’s thin and reaches from top to bottom. The second part, 冄 , in skritter is pretty evenly spaced. And probably the one that was most difficult for me was 阝, in Skritter (Kaiti) it hangs below the rest of the character, in real life (heiti) it doesn’t. Heiti likes everything evenly spaced. Maybe add like a feature where you can add the font that’s used in mainland China so you can get used to it, cause it’s kinda difficult adapting. Like maybe show it right below the Kaiti font when on the reading and definition, and you can maybe like choose which one (Songti, Mingti, or Heiti). Cause I do understand you need to use Kaiti to learn how to write. But even when trying to learn to read. I’ve been living in China for the past month, and have only been able to recognize maybe a dozen characters due to the real world using Heiti. For comparison it’s like a foreigner in China learning how to read English by learning to read founding father style cursive, but when they actually go to an English speaking country, they realize the world is dominated by Arial and Helvetica. This is not just a problem for the real world, this is also a problem because all formalized online testing systems use Heiti, some of these exams include AP Chinese Language and Culture, HSK, and even AAPPL. Overall pretty good app though. (Edit, changed to 4 stars since the developers actually responded, and it seems like they actually care about feedback compared to some other apps ahem Duolingo, it seems that most of the reviews are responded to, so it’s nice to see that they actually care about their work!🙂) ### 5/5 — obsessed *2026-07-16, version 3.13.10* Can’t stop won’t stop ### 5/5 — Best ever way to study and review 中文！ *2026-07-03* Started studying Chinese in 1966. After many different classes and programs Skritter hits the sweet spot. **Developer response:** Thank you for the 5-star review, we appreciate it! We are collecting user-testimonials and would love to learn more about how Skritter is helping you. If you want to share more about your experience, you can let us know at team@skritter.com. ### 5/5 — Yay Skritter!!! *2026-06-27, version 3.13.10* The only app I think I’ve ever written a review for because this is truly so legit!!! It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for for SO long as a child of Taiwanese immigrants to the US, who grew up speaking and listening to Chinese but stopped going to Chinese school at a young age and so am basically illiterate 😂 I have been recommending it to my sister, cousins, and friends who are all in the same boat. Also, as someone who went through medical school, I am super familiar with the spaced repetition algo from Anki and I think it is perfectly applied here, bravo!!!! Also shout out to Fiona and Iona, I have been really enjoying the content by them! Especially the Pikmin Bloom, poetic colors and Taiwanese comics videos! I do wish there was a social function to see how my friends and family are progressing in the app. A little motivation via friendly competition! But also totally fine without it! ### 5/5 — really good *2026-06-11, version 3.13.10* This is honestly the best Chinese learning app I've ever used. The subscription is so worth it and it is very helpful for writing, reading, and pronunciation. Genuinely best app for learning chinese. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-27.*