Comparison

Lingocard vs Inkstone

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Lingocard

Learn English or any of 67 languages with an AI-powered system. Find speaking partners, build vocabulary with flashcards, and practice with customizable exercises. Listen to lessons anytime, anywhere, even with your own uploaded materials.

Highlights
  • AI-powered spaced repetition
  • Global speaking partners
  • Cloud-based vocabulary builder
  • Customizable exercises
  • Audio player for on-the-go learning
  • Upload your own study materials
  • 67 languages supported
Features
Read full description

Speak a new language - don't just study it. Lingocard turns vocabulary into real conversation: learn words with smart flashcards, then use them live with native speakers who are ready to talk right now. Trusted by 100,000+ learners and 1,000+ teachers in 180+ countries. 67 languages. 2,000,000+ ready-made flashcards. WHY LINGOCARD WORKS - Learn 30 new words a day: AI spaced repetition shows each word at the exact moment you're about to forget it, so vocabulary moves into long-term memory with the fewest reviews. - Speak from day one: smart AI search finds your perfect practice partner in seconds - matched by native language, level, and interests. No awkward searching, no dead-end chats. - Real friendships, real fluency: message, send voice notes, and jump on audio or video calls without leaving the app. Practice partners here often become friends for life. - Learn hands-free: turn any word set into audio and listen while you drive, cook, or work out. EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN ONE APP - Speaking practice with real people: built-in chat with audio and video calls - Smart AI search that finds the best practice partners for you - A worldwide community where practice turns into friendship - 2,000,000+ flashcards with images and native-speaker audio - Frequency dictionaries: the 10,000 most-used words in each of 67 languages - Thematic sets: travel, business, idioms, and real-life slang - Create your own cards with photos, or import texts and listen to them - Daily goals, streaks, and progress charts that keep you motivated - Cloud sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web FOR TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS Create study sets on the web, assign them to students, and track everyone's progress from one dashboard. Your students get premium learning tools at no extra cost. LEARN ANY OF 67 LANGUAGES English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Turkish, Vietnamese, and many more - in any combination with your native language. Every day you wait, someone else is having the conversation you want to have. Start now: your first dictionary takes two minutes, and your first real conversation is closer than you think. Optional Premium subscription unlocks the full library and all dictionaries. Payment is charged to your Apple ID account; subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel anytime in Settings. Privacy Policy: https://lingocard.com/privacy-policy Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Inkstone

Learn Chinese through classic stories and poems. Offers detailed explanations, translations, and audio pronunciations for every word and sentence. Supports offline reading and vocabulary saving.

Highlights
  • Classic Chinese stories and poems
  • Modern Chinese retellings
  • Audio narration with pinyin
  • Tap-to-translate words
  • Sentence-by-sentence translation
  • Offline reading support
  • Vocabulary saving
Features
Read full description

Inkstone is a Chinese reading app built on the wisdom that China has passed down for generations. Most reading apps write their own material for learners. Inkstone gives you classic Chinese wisdom: from fables & their idioms, philosophy, history, to Tang poems, and strange tales. Every piece comes from a real ancient text, and then retold in clear modern Chinese to match the level you can read. Inkstone is built to guide you through every word, every phrase, and every sentence and its historical and philosophical context. A voice reads every line aloud and pinyin sits above every character. Tap any word to see what it means, hear it on its own, and read how the rest of the library uses it. Every sentence has an English translation a glance away. An "unpack the story" analysis is also paired with every story to provide further context and analysis. You never have to leave the page to look anything up, we take care of it all for you. WHAT YOU ACTUALLY READ 272 texts across twenty-four genres: fables, myths, poems, philosophy, histories, strange tales, and street talk. We ship 50+ handpicked stories on the 1st of every month. Li Bai looking at moonlight and mistaking it for frost. Zhuangzi's frog at the bottom of the well, certain the sky is small. A scholar in a Tang ghost story who should not have opened that door. The poems are the original text, character for character, from 唐诗三百首 and 全唐诗. The prose is retold in clear modern Chinese at a level you can read, and the source is always named. You'll know when you are in 聊斋志异 and when you are in 搜神记. This curated collection consists of stories that lasted two thousand years. They're worth reading and analyzing, over and over again. WHY THEY LASTED Every story comes with an interpretation, what it means, how to use it in everyday life and other contexts, along with commentary on how scholars have argued about it over the centuries. HOW WE GUIDE YOUR READING EXPERIENCE • A female and male voice for every story. Each word and sentence translated and lighting up as you progress through the story. • Slow the reading down, loop a line, or step through a story sentence by sentence • Every word has its own recording in both voices, so you can hear individual words and phrases alone • Beautiful background music to accompany your reading • Four levels of pinyin, including a smart level that marks only the words above your grade • Tap a word for its definitions, its other readings, and how often this book uses it • An English translation for every sentence without having you leave the story • Simplified and traditional characters supported • Save a word and it comes back before you forget it • Works offline. The whole library is stored locally on your phone. Audio is fetched when you open a story. • No ads and no account required. You can optionally backup your progress. LEARNING & PRACTICE Our learning system is based on SRS. Save a word while you read and it'll come back on a schedule optimized for you to master its meaning quickly. A STUDY OF YOUR OWN Inkstone is built as a scholar's studio. You carve your own name seal, and it stamps the spine of every book you finish. Curios collect on the shelf as you read. The window beside your desk follows the hour of your real day. Everything grows as you collect and finish more stories. Download Inkstone and start reading today. The annual plan is $49.99 USD per year and opens with a 7-day free trial you can cancel any time before it ends. Monthly is $9.99 and starts billing straight away. Prices in your own currency are shown in the app before you confirm anything. Terms: https://getinkstone.app/terms Privacy: https://getinkstone.app/privacy

Screenshots

Lingocard4 screens
Inkstone4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Lingocard at 96% against Inkstone's 0%. Lingocard also leads on rating (4.9 vs 3.9) and ads (none vs shown). Inkstone's advantage is monetization model (free vs subscription) and update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 months). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Lingocard sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Inkstone sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Lingocard holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Lingocard has 109 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 96% of Lingocard's written reviews are positive against 0% of Inkstone's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lingocard ships an update every 2 months, Inkstone every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Lingocard versus Inkstone: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLingocardInkstone
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (109 ratings) — better3.9 (8 ratings)
Positive reviews95.8% of reviews — better0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings109 — better8
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationSubscriptionFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size101 MB168 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperLingoCard CorporationConder Shou

Customer experience

Lingocard

All ratings109 ratings
Positive96.3%
Neutral2.8%
Negative0.9%
Written reviews72 reviews
Positive95.8%
Neutral2.8%
Negative1.4%

Inkstone

All ratings8 ratings
Positive62.5%
Neutral25.0%
Negative12.5%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral100.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Lingocard

Subscriptions2
  • Subscribe for full access now!$4.991 Month
  • 30% Off - Annual Subscription!$34.991 Year
2 purchases

Inkstone

Subscriptions2
  • Inkstone Monthly$9.991 Month
  • Inkstone Annual7 Days trial$59.991 Year

Questions

Is Lingocard free?
Lingocard is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Inkstone free?
Inkstone is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Lingocard or Inkstone?
Lingocard is rated higher. Lingocard averages 4.9 out of 5 from 109 ratings, while Inkstone averages 3.9 from 8 ratings.
Do Lingocard or Inkstone have ads?
Inkstone shows ads; Lingocard does not.
Which is updated more often, Lingocard or Inkstone?
Lingocard ships an update every 2 months, and Inkstone every 3 days. Most recently, Lingocard was updated on October 15, 2026 and Inkstone on October 19, 2026.

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