Kana Book vs Ringotan
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Kana Book
Master Japanese Hiragana and Katakana characters with this educational app. It offers a friendly notebook to track your learning progress, flashcards for practice, and tests to assess your knowledge. Learn character pronunciation, sounds, and stroke order.
- Learn Hiragana and Katakana
- Progress tracking notebook
- Flashcard practice
- Knowledge testing
- Character drawing instruction
- Pronunciation and sound learning
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Learn Hiragana and Katakana at your own pace. Track your progress in a friendly notebook. Use flashcards or test your knowledge! Kana book will teach you characters and their sounds as well as how to draw each character.
Ringotan
Master Japanese Kanji by practicing writing. This app uses advanced input detection and spaced repetition to help you learn quickly and effectively. Focuses on the physical act of writing characters, not just recognition.
- Learn Kanji by writing
- Advanced input detection
- Spaced repetition system (SRS)
- Focus on writing, not just reading
- Frequent updates with new features
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Learn Kanji by actually writing it! Ringotan is the first app built from the ground up to teach you how to WRITE Japanese Kanji, not just read them. By combining advanced input detection with industry-standard SRS (spaced repetition) algorithms, Ringotan ensures you learn as fully and quickly as possible. ----------------- Ringotan is free for a limited time. We update frequently, so be sure to check back for new features!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Ringotan at 4.9 against Kana Book's 4.4. Ringotan also leads on review sentiment (98% vs 75%) and ratings volume (567 vs 9). Kana Book's advantage is iOS requirement (10.0 vs 12.2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Ringotan holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ringotan has 567 ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 75% of Kana Book's written reviews are positive against 98% of Ringotan's.
| Parameter | Kana Book | Ringotan |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (9 ratings) | 4.9 (567 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 75.0% of reviews | 97.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 9 | 567 — better |
| Update frequency | — | Every 3 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 — better | 12.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 123 MB | 206 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bird Cartel LLC | Daniel Pflughoeft |
Customer experience
Kana Book
Ringotan
Bugs and requests
Kana Book
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Ringotan
Reported bugs
2 issues- Occasional issues with stroke order recognition
- Some kanji pronunciations not accurately represented
Requested features
5 requests- Add dark mode option
- Allow users to create and save custom kanji lists
- Provide more detailed keyword hints before writing
- Implement device sync to continue progress across platforms
- Add notification system to remind users of upcoming reviews
In-app purchases
Kana Book
No in-app purchases
Ringotan
No in-app purchases
