Hanly vs Inkstone
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- Character etymology and mnemonics
- Interactive component exploration
- Structured learning progression
- Spaced repetition system
- Extensive character dictionary
- Stroke order animations
Read full descriptionHide 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
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.
- 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
Read full descriptionHide full description
Inkstone is a read, listen, & learn Chinese app built on the wisdom that China has passed down for generations. Most language learning 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 412 texts across twenty-four genres: fables, myths, poems, philosophy, histories, strange tales, and street talk. We ship 50+ handpicked stories 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. Sources are always named. This curated collection consists of stories that lasted two thousand years. They're worth reading and analyzing, over and over again. WHY WE CALL THEM CLASSICS 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
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Hanly at 99% against Inkstone's 50%. Hanly also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.0) and ads (none vs shown). Inkstone's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs every 2 weeks). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Hanly sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $5.99 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.
Hanly holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hanly has 413 ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 99% of Hanly's written reviews are positive against 50% of Inkstone's.
Hanly ships an update every 2 weeks, Inkstone every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hanly | Inkstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (413 ratings) — better | 4.0 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 99.1% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 413 — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 241 MB | 177 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Artur Gorokh | Conder Shou |
Customer experience
Hanly
Inkstone
Bugs and 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
Inkstone
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Hanly
- Hanly Premium$5.991 Month
Inkstone
- Inkstone Monthly$9.991 Month
- Inkstone Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year









