Comparison

Cantone vs Hanly

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

Head to head
About

Cantone

Master tonal languages like Cantonese and Mandarin with interactive exercises. Improve your ability to perceive and speak tones, learn vocabulary, and understand tone sandhi rules through engaging activities.

Highlights
  • Perception and production tone activities
  • Vocabulary reinforcement
  • Tone sandhi rule learning
  • Support for traditional/simplified characters
  • Multiple transcription systems
  • Customizable user interface
Features
Read full description

Cantone helps you to put the tones in tonal languages. Cantone helps learners learn to perceive or speak tones in Cantonese or Mandarin - and reinforces this knowledge with vocabulary, tone sandhi, and other activities. We offer support for * traditional and simplified characters. * multiple transcription systems (Jyutping and Yale for Cantonese; Pinyin and bopomofo for Mandarin) * English, German, Mandarin, and Cantonese user interfaces. * light mode and dark mode You can learn tones and words incrementally and move on to more advanced topics when ready - or you can simply practice what you already know with tasks and ther fun activities. Perception activities tone your abilities to distinguish tones: * Hear sounds and guess the tones. * Match sounds to corresponding tone or word labels. Production activities help you to speak: * Personalize the system to you and your voice. * Listen to exemplars adjusted for your vocal range. * Listen to and match points in a tonal contour. * Follow tone contours at a slower speed with pitch feedback. * Plot attempts against canonical tone contours. Vocabulary activities reinforce your knowledge through words. * Learn words that differ in tone only (e.g. 買 vs. 賣). * Match words by tone, definition, character, and pronunciation. Tone Sandhi activities teach you about tone changes. * Learn tone change rules. * Listen to characters and predict the tones when the characters are put together. Other activities help hone your abilities: * Follow along with hilarious single syllable poems. * Listen to and internalize the "tone melody" * Learn common phrases. Enjoy! P.S. If you encounter bugs, please let me know at cantone.app@gmail.com, and I'll try to get back to you (and the bug) as quickly as possible.

About

Hanly

Learn thousands of Chinese characters efficiently by understanding their structure and origin. This app uses visual breakdowns, engaging stories, and interactive elements to build an intuitive grasp of characters and aid memorization. It focuses on frequently used vocabulary and offers a structured learning progression.

Highlights
  • Character etymology and mnemonics
  • Interactive component exploration
  • Structured learning progression
  • Spaced repetition system
  • Extensive character dictionary
  • Stroke order animations
Features
Read full description

Chinese characters are not just random shapes - learn 1000 characters in months by understanding their structure and origin! Through visual breakdowns and engaging stories, Hanly helps you develop an intuitive grasp of Chinese characters and to efficiently remember them. Hanly starts with simple components and quickly builds up to complex characters, while focusing on the most frequently used vocabulary. CARDS THAT MAKE CHARACTERS COME ALIVE Etymology, memorable illustrations, mnemonics: we will provide the most helpful information to get a character to come alive in your imagination and stick in your memory for good. INTUITIVE INTERACTIVE UI Play with characters like they’re Lego blocks! Explore radicals, components, compound words, and character relationships - all just one click away! CAREFULLY OPTIMIZED LEARNING PROGRESSION Start with simple building blocks and naturally progress to complex characters. Our carefully designed levels introduce the most frequent characters early while maintaining coherent, meaningful themes. EXTENSIVE CHARACTER DICTIONARY & SEARCH Search by character, pinyin or meaning to find: - Character meanings and pronunciations - Usage in compound words and characters - Frequency and HSK level - Radical forms - Stroke order animations - Character evolution history SPACED REPETITION ENGINE INTEGRATED WITH THE UI Built-in spaced repetition helps you review characters at the perfect time, with review schedule optimized for how well you know a given character. Character progress is deeply integrated with the UI, so that you can spot the characters you are learning on any page. AND MANY MORE FEATURES! - Detailed learning statistics - Character etymology stories & fun facts - Explore characters & radicals sorted by their frequency - Personal note-taking system - Easily mark characters you already know Terms of use: https://www.hanlyapp.com/terms-of-use Privacy policy: https://www.hanlyapp.com/privacy-policy Contact us: We’d love to hear from your feedback about Hanly! Please send us an email with your thoughts and suggestions at tutu@hanlyapp.com

Screenshots

Cantone4 screens
Hanly4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Cantone at none against Hanly's 1. Cantone also leads on iOS requirement (12.4 vs 15.0). Hanly's advantage is ratings volume (357 vs 11). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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. Hanly sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $5.99 per month. Cantone asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Cantone against 4.9 for Hanly. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hanly has 357 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 99% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Cantone versus Hanly: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCantoneHanly
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (11 ratings) — better4.9 (357 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better99.1% of reviews
Number of ratings11357 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.4 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB241 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperBrent HoArtur Gorokh

Customer experience

Cantone

All ratings11 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Hanly

All ratings357 ratings
Positive99.2%
Neutral0.3%
Negative0.6%
Written reviews229 reviews
Positive99.1%
Neutral0.4%
Negative0.4%

Bugs and requests

Cantone

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Hanly

Reported bugs

1 issue
  • No known major bugs reported

Requested features

3 requests
  • Addition of writing practice for characters
  • Inclusion of example sentences for each character
  • Expansion of content to cover more advanced vocabulary

In-app purchases

None

Cantone

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Hanly

Subscriptions1
  • Hanly Premium$5.991 Month

Questions

Is Cantone free?
Cantone is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Hanly free?
Hanly is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Cantone or Hanly?
Cantone is rated higher. Cantone averages 5.0 out of 5 from 11 ratings, while Hanly averages 4.9 from 357 ratings.
Do Cantone or Hanly have ads?
Neither Cantone nor Hanly shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Cantone or Hanly?
Cantone ships an update every 2 weeks, and Hanly every 2 weeks. Most recently, Cantone was updated on October 6, 2026 and Hanly on October 17, 2026.

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