Comparison

Khan Academy vs Nerdish

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

Head to head
About

Khan Academy

Access a vast library of free educational content, including interactive exercises, videos, and articles. Master subjects from math and science to humanities and finance at your own pace, with offline access and personalized learning paths.

Highlights
  • Thousands of interactive exercises, videos, and articles
  • Study math, science, economics, finance, grammar, history, and more
  • Practice exercises with instant feedback and hints
  • Offline content access
  • Personalized learning mastery system
  • Syncs progress with website account
Currently charting
Read full description

You can learn anything. For free. Spend an afternoon brushing up on statistics. Discover how the Krebs cycle works. Get a head start on next semester's geometry. Prepare for upcoming exams. Or, if you're feeling particularly adventurous, learn how fire-stick farming changes the landscape of Australia. Whether you're a student, teacher, homeschooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien trying to get a leg up in earthly biology — Khan Academy's personalized learning library is available to you, for free. - Learn anything, for free: Thousands of interactive exercises, videos, and articles at your fingertips. Study math, science, economics, finance, grammar, history, government, politics, and much, much more. - Sharpen your skills: Practice exercises, quizzes, and tests with instant feedback and step-by-step hints. Follow along with what you're learning in school, or practice at your own pace. - Keep learning when you're offline: Bookmark and download your favorite content to watch videos without an internet connection. - Pick up where you left off: Tailored to your current learning level, our mastery system gives instant feedback and recommendations on exactly which skills and videos to try next. And, if you choose to create a free account, your learning syncs with http://khanacademy.org, so your progress is always up-to-date across all your devices. Learn using expert-created videos, interactive exercises, and in-depth articles in math (arithmetic, pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, calculus, differential equations, linear algebra), science (biology, chemistry, physics), economics (microeconomics, macroeconomics, finance and capital markets), humanities (art history, civics, finance, US history, US government and politics, world history), and more (including computer science principles)! Already familiar with the Khan Academy website? Not all functionality is available in this app. Community discussions, computer programming content, test prep, parent tools, teacher tools, and district tools should all be accessed directly at http://khanacademy.org. Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

About

Nerdish

Expand your general knowledge with concise, engaging articles on diverse topics like science, history, and art. Designed for busy adults, this app delivers quick, fact-checked reads in 5-10 minutes daily to foster lifelong learning and personal growth.

Highlights
  • Concise articles on science, history, art, and more
  • Daily 5-10 minute learning sessions
  • Fact-checked and well-structured content
  • Connects key ideas for deeper understanding
  • Topics include psychology, technology, and daily life
Features
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Nerdish is a learning app that helps you grow your general knowledge. The articles inside are our own — written to show you things you'd never thought to look up, feed your curiosity, and help you learn more about the world. You can read them or listen to them, and most take about ten minutes: why people like spicy food, what Nefertiti actually looked like, how the internet crosses oceans. What's inside: - Articles we write ourselves. Each one starts with a question our editors find interesting, and gets researched properly before it's written. - Topics from the life around you. Sleep, coffee, déjà vu, the internet, Nefertiti — things you pass by every day without wondering about them. - Our own writing framework. It keeps every article interesting and concise, but still genuinely educational — a lot of thought went into getting all three at once. - Built as microlearning for adults. Short chapters of a couple of minutes each, designed to fit a phone screen and a busy day. - Audio for everything. Read it, listen to it, or follow the text while it plays. - Historical photographs, archive material and artwork alongside the text, with facts and details in the margins. - A wide range of subjects, from the human body to ancient history — and the connections between them. We built Nerdish for people who: - would rather spend phone time on something better than socials. Same ten minutes, different outcome. - enjoy learning random things for no particular reason. Curiosity doesn't need a goal attached to it. - want to stay mentally sharp. Reading something unfamiliar is a small habit that keeps the mind working. - want to find their way back to reading. Short pieces are easier to start with than a book you've been meaning to open for months. - want to have more to say — about art, history, or why the sky is blue. Why it works: There's no way to measure general knowledge and no point where you have enough. But it's what you're using when you read the news, or decide whether something sounds true, or find a solution that came from somewhere unrelated. Hardly any of us sets out to work on our knowledge. Nobody ever taught us how — there's no course in general knowledge, nowhere obvious to begin. So it stays on the list of things you'd like to do. Nerdish works because the mechanism is already there. Curiosity is what built your general knowledge in the first place, and it doesn't need much — an interesting question and ten minutes. And knowledge doesn't stay in separate piles. We write science with its history in it, history with its culture, and culture with the people behind it — nothing is only about one thing. Pick a topic, read or listen, learn something you'd never thought to look up. That's how general knowledge grows. Learn with us about: - Health and the human body: sleep, memory, ageing, and how the body actually works. - History: ancient empires, revolutions, great discoveries, and the people who changed things. - Science and technology: space, evolution, physics, AI, inventions, and everyday phenomena explained properly. - Daily things: why déjà vu happens, how coffee was discovered, where common ideas come from. - Art and culture: painting, music, architecture, design, literature, and the movements behind them. - Food: where dishes come from and why we like what we like. - Famous people: the lives behind the names. Welcome to being Nerdish with us! Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Khan Academy4 screens
Nerdish4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Khan Academy at none against Nerdish's 5. Khan Academy also leads on ratings volume (110K vs 2.6K) and review sentiment (74% vs 60%). Nerdish's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 6 weeks) and rating (4.8 vs 4.6). On price, ads, chart position and device support 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. Nerdish sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Khan Academy asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Nerdish holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Khan Academy has 110K ratings behind it against 2.6K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 74% of Khan Academy's written reviews are positive against 60% of Nerdish's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Khan Academy ships an update every 6 weeks, Nerdish weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Khan Academy versus Nerdish: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterKhan AcademyNerdish
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (110K ratings)4.8 (2.6K ratings) — better
Positive reviews74.3% of reviews — better60.0% of reviews
Number of ratings110K — better2.6K
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#68 — better#86
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size52 MB62 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperKhan AcademyNerdish OU

Customer experience

Khan Academy

All ratings109,728 ratings
Positive89.4%
Neutral2.6%
Negative8.0%
Written reviews1,578 reviews
Positive74.3%
Neutral6.6%
Negative19.1%

Nerdish

All ratings2,640 ratings
Positive96.2%
Neutral2.2%
Negative1.6%
Written reviews105 reviews
Positive60.0%
Neutral12.4%
Negative27.6%

User reviews

Khan Academy

From 110K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Impeccable app
  • 👍 Very easy to learn with
  • 👍 Great for learning math
  • 👍 Excellent math program
  • 👍 Fantastic learning tool

Room to improve

  • 🐛 New writing system issues
  • 🐛 Incorrect grammar
  • 🐛 Bugs and glitches
  • 🐛 Deleted all my progress
  • 🐛 Annoying keyboard issues

Nerdish

From 2.6K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🌟 Interesting and informative content
  • 📚 Wide range of topics
  • 🤓 Helpful for learning and expanding knowledge
  • 🕰️ Bite-sized, easy to read articles
  • 🎨 Beautiful artwork and visuals

Room to improve

  • 💰 Subscription cost is too high
  • 📢 Too many ads disrupting the reading experience
  • 🔍 Lack of search functionality
  • 📝 Poor proofreading and editing of articles
  • 🔒 Issues with account access and login

Bugs and requests

Khan Academy

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Incorrect answers marked wrong
  • Keyboard issues
  • Glitches in interactive diagrams
  • Crashes and freezes
  • Content not loading
Show 2 more
  • Formatting issues in math
  • Bugged answer input

Requested features

10 requests
  • Add dark mode
  • Improve search and navigation
  • Add more content for higher grades
  • Allow redoing exercises
  • Improve writing/drawing tools
Show 5 more
  • Add split screen support
  • Improve progress tracking
  • Add more language options
  • Add more science and coding content
  • Improve SAT/test prep features

Nerdish

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Incomplete articles with missing content
  • Frequent app crashes and freezes
  • Subscription issues and billing problems

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add audio narration option
  • Implement bookmarking and note-taking features
  • Improve search and filtering capabilities
  • Provide more free content without ads

In-app purchases

None

Khan Academy

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Nerdish

Subscriptions5
  • Monthly Subscription14 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Nerdish Premium Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Easy Quarterly Plan$11.993 Months
Show 2 more
  • Nerdish Annual Special$29.991 Year
  • Nerdish Premium Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year

Questions

Is Khan Academy free?
Khan Academy is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Nerdish free?
Nerdish is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Khan Academy or Nerdish?
Nerdish is rated higher. Khan Academy averages 4.6 out of 5 from 110K ratings, while Nerdish averages 4.8 from 2.6K ratings.
Do Khan Academy or Nerdish have ads?
Neither Khan Academy nor Nerdish shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Khan Academy or Nerdish?
Khan Academy ships an update every 6 weeks, and Nerdish weekly. Most recently, Khan Academy was updated on September 27, 2026 and Nerdish on September 26, 2026.
Which is more popular, Khan Academy or Nerdish?
Khan Academy currently peaks at #68 in the App Store charts, and Nerdish at #86. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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