Comparison

Duolingo vs Migaku

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

Head to head
About

Duolingo

Learn languages, math, music, and chess through fun, bite-sized lessons. Build vocabulary, grammar, and real-world skills with a science-based methodology. Track progress and stay motivated with a global community.

Highlights
  • Bite-sized language lessons
  • Speaking, reading, listening, writing practice
  • Math skills development
  • Music reading and playing
  • Chess strategy and gameplay
  • Progress tracking and rewards
Features
Read full description

Learn a new language, chess & more with the world's most downloaded education app! Duolingo is the fun, free app for learning 40+ languages through quick, bite-sized lessons. Practice speaking, reading, listening & writing to build your vocabulary & grammar skills. Designed by learning experts & loved by hundreds of millions worldwide, our lessons make learning effective & fun and help you prepare for real conversations in Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, German, English and more. And now, you can learn CHESS on Duolingo! Whether you're a total beginner or looking to level up your game, you'll love learning chess the Duolingo way. Play matches and fun chess lessons for all levels, no matter the language - chess, ajedrez, xadrez, schach, Шахматы, الشطرنج. • Chess: Learn the moves, level up your game & play matches in our Chess course. Learn the basics, solve fun chess puzzles & improve your strategy with guided lessons. Whether you're new to chess or already play, our course is designed to help you have fun and build real skills. Checkmate! • Math: Forget lectures and math worksheets! Built by learning experts, our Math course makes math feel like a game. Boost learning and fight the summer slide with standards-aligned math lessons for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. • Music: Learn how to read music & play songs in our Music course, no instrument needed! Using an on-screen keyboard, you'll learn bit-by-bit. Whether you're learning a language for travel, school, career or your brain health, you'll love learning with Duolingo. Why Duolingo? • Duolingo is fun & effective. Game-like language lessons & fun characters help you build speaking, reading, listening, & writing skills, plus enjoy fun chess & competitive online chess in one app. • Duolingo works. Designed by learning experts, Duolingo has a science-based teaching methodology proven to foster long-term knowledge retention across language lessons & chess lessons alike. • Track your progress. Work toward your learning goals with playful rewards & achievements when you make practicing language lessons or chess online part of your daily habit. • Join millions of learners. Stay motivated with competitive Leaderboards as you learn languages & play chess online alongside our global community. • Every course is free. Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, Arabic, Latin, Hawaiian, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, English, & even High Valyrian! And now, learn Math, Music & improve your Chess skills with fun, bite-sized lessons. What the world is saying about Duolingo: "Far & away the best language-learning app." - The Wall Street Journal "This free app & website is among the most effective language-learning methods I've tried… lessons come in the form of brief challenges, speaking, translating, answering multiple-choice questions, that keep me coming back for more." - The New York Times "Duolingo may hold the secret to the future of education." - TIME Magazine "Duolingo is cheerful, lighthearted & fun." - Forbes "I Can't Stop Playing Duolingo Chess." - Wired If you like Duolingo, try Super Duolingo for 14 days free! Learn a language fast with no ads & get fun perks like Unlimited Energy & Monthly Streak Repair. If you choose to purchase Super Duolingo, payment will be charged to your Apple account, and your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the App Store after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://www.duolingo.com/privacy Terms of Service: https://www.duolingo.com/terms

About

Migaku

This app helps you learn languages by making content interactive. Click words in subtitles or text to get definitions, create flashcards, and personalize study sessions. It focuses on high-frequency words for efficient learning.

Highlights
  • Interactive subtitles for YouTube
  • One-click media-rich flashcard creation
  • Personalized study sessions
  • Data-driven courses for beginners
  • Word frequency-based vocabulary learning
  • AI sentence breakdown and explanations
Features
Read full description

Learning languages is actually pretty simple: if you consume content you enjoy, and you understand that content, you will make progress. Period. Migaku (and its Chrome browser extension) enables you to do that: 1. Our courses take you from zero to 80% comprehension in ~6 months (10 cards/day) 2. We make text interactive: click words in your phone's YouTube subtitles to see what they mean 3. We let you make media-rich flashcards out of those words with one click 4. We make personalized study sessions out of the flashcards you create 5. Repeat! Whether you're learning Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Italian, German, Cantonese, Portuguese, English, French or Vietnamese, Migaku equips you with the tools you need to make real progress. Migaku requires a paid subscription to access its courses, features, and AI tools. Migaku – AI Language Learning Tool ■ How languages are really learned: If you want to watch movies in other languages, then you need to learn languages with movies. If you want to read books in other languages, then you need to learn languages by reading. As you spend more time doing the things you enjoy doing in the language you're learning, you'll build the unique skills you need to more easily do those things. Unfortunately, it's difficult to read books and watch movies in another language as a beginner. And that's where Migaku comes in ■ Data-driven courses for beginners The problem with most apps and textbooks is that they teach you what someone else thinks language learners need to know, and those things may not reflect what you actually need to learn to do the things that are important to you. This matters because not all words are used equally often: while a college-educated native speaker knows ~30,000 words, you only need to know ~1,500 words to recognize 80% of the words in modern media. Our flashcard-based courses teach you these ~1,500 words—the ones that are useful to everyone, no matter their goals—plus a few hundred basic grammar points. What makes our courses special is that every "next" flashcard contains only one new word, making Migaku's learning curve super smooth. You're always learning something new, but never overwhelmed. It's a fluent language learning approach. Migaku courses are currently available for Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. ■ Turn subtitles and text into interactive language learning opportunities Migaku makes texts interactive: just click on words to see what they mean. You can also hear audio recordings from native speakers, reference images of the term, check example sentences, get an AI explanation of what the word means in context, have AI break sentences down for you word-by-word, or see a translation of the sentence that your word appears in. Basically, Migaku lets you consume content in another language as if you knew as many words as a native speaker. Our mobile app supports YouTube, manually pasted content, and physical content like books or street signs. Our Chrome extension supports web pages and several popular streaming websites. ■ Create custom study cards or import language flashcards Find a useful looking word while consuming content? Turn it into a high-quality flashcard with one button, and Migaku's spaced repetition language practice algorithm will create personalized study sessions for you. You'll be nudged to review these flashcards periodically, ensuring you remember them. Decks designed for the Anki flashcard app can be converted for use with Migaku, too. ■ Study anywhere, even offline Migaku's courses and any flashcards you make are available offline and automatically sync between all of your devices. ■ Learn multiple languages at once A single Migaku subscription gives you access to all of Migaku's languages and lets you use all of Migaku's features and AI language learning tools as much as you want. - - - Immerse → enjoy → improve

Screenshots

Duolingo4 screens
Migaku4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Migaku at none against Duolingo's shown. Migaku also leads on review sentiment (73% vs 65%). Duolingo's advantage is ratings volume (5.5M vs 360) and rating (4.7 vs 4.4). On price, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Duolingo sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Migaku sells 13 in-app purchases, starting at $14.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Duolingo holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Duolingo has 5.5M ratings behind it against 360, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 65% of Duolingo's written reviews are positive against 73% of Migaku's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Duolingo versus Migaku: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDuolingoMigaku
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (5.5M ratings) — better4.4 (360 ratings)
Positive reviews64.7% of reviews73.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings5.5M — better360
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#1 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size489 MB1.9 GB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperDuolingo, IncMigaku Inc.

Customer experience

Duolingo

All ratings5,464,639 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral2.4%
Negative3.4%
Written reviews29,503 reviews
Positive64.7%
Neutral9.6%
Negative25.7%

Migaku

All ratings360 ratings
Positive84.7%
Neutral1.4%
Negative13.9%
Written reviews232 reviews
Positive73.3%
Neutral3.0%
Negative23.7%

User reviews

Duolingo

From 5.5M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🤩 Fun and entertaining learning experience
  • 🎉 Motivating streak and league features
  • 🎨 Cute and engaging animations
  • 📚 Effective for learning vocabulary and basics
  • 🤖 Useful AI-powered features like voice lessons

Room to improve

  • 🤖 Issues with voice recognition and pronunciation feedback
  • 🤑 Aggressive monetization tactics and paywall for key features
  • 🤯 Frustrating heart/health system that penalizes mistakes
  • 🤔 Lack of grammar explanations and focus on just memorizing phrases
  • 🤷‍♀️ Inconsistent app experience across platforms

Migaku

From 360 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Effective and convenient language learning
  • 👍 Intuitive and visually appealing interface
  • 🎓 Comprehensive courses and lessons
  • 💡 Seamless integration with streaming platforms
  • 🗣️ Helpful pronunciation and pitch accent features

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and stability issues
  • 🔒 Lack of free trial or free plan options
  • 💰 Expensive subscription model
  • 🤖 Inconsistent performance of AI-powered features
  • 🔌 High storage and battery consumption on mobile

Bugs and requests

Duolingo

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing or crashing during lessons
  • Incorrect translations or answers marked wrong
  • Inconsistent behavior of certain features like leagues

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more languages, especially less common ones
  • Improve grammar lessons and explanations
  • Allow more flexibility in navigating the course content
  • Provide better feedback and corrections for mistakes
  • Sync progress and features consistently across app and web

Migaku

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Unable to create new accounts in the app
  • Broken kanji course with empty cards
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between apps

Requested features

4 requests
  • Offline mode for learning on the go
  • Expanded support for more languages
  • Better integration with Anki and other SRS apps
  • More customization options for flashcards and reviews

In-app purchases

16 purchases

Duolingo

Subscriptions10
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$12.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial$12.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Super Duolingo2 variants$59.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial2 variants$79.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial4 variants$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial4 variants$95.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo1 Month trial$119.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$119.991 Year
One-time6
  • Chest of Gems$0.99
  • Barrel of Gems (1200)$4.99
  • Chest of Gems (1200)$4.99
Show 3 more
  • Cart of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Barrel of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Cart of Gems (6500)$19.99
13 purchases

Migaku

Subscriptions8
  • Migaku Standard2 variants$14.001 Month
  • Migaku Standard7 Days trial$14.001 Month
  • Early Access2 variants$21.001 Month
Show 5 more
  • Early Access7 Days trial$21.001 Month
  • Migaku Standard$136.991 Year
  • Migaku Standard7 Days trial$136.991 Year
  • Early Access$179.991 Year
  • Early Access7 Days trial$179.991 Year
One-time5
  • Lifetime$214.99
  • Lifetime$289.00
  • Lifetime$344.99
Show 2 more
  • Lifetime$359.00
  • Lifetime$719.00

Questions

Is Duolingo free?
Duolingo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Migaku free?
Migaku is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Duolingo or Migaku?
Duolingo is rated higher. Duolingo averages 4.7 out of 5 from 5.5M ratings, while Migaku averages 4.4 from 360 ratings.
Do Duolingo or Migaku have ads?
Duolingo shows ads; Migaku does not.
Which is updated more often, Duolingo or Migaku?
Duolingo ships an update weekly, and Migaku weekly. Most recently, Duolingo was updated on September 27, 2026 and Migaku on September 25, 2026.

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