Comparison

Wakana vs Grapheme

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

Head to head
About

Wakana

Features
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Main Features Font customization Display of kanji pronunciation in the specified language (ruby) Mutual conversion between Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Shinjitai Dictionary function by clicking words Recommended especially for language learners, translators, researchers of Japanese/Chinese, and language enthusiasts. ■ Freely selectable display fonts: Handwritten-style font Pixel-style font ■ Display of kanji pronunciation (ruby function) It is possible to add ruby above kanji: Mandarin (Standard Chinese / Putonghua) Cantonese Taiwanese (Taipei / Tainan style) Japanese Korean Sino-Vietnamese (Vietnamese readings) ■ Ruby notation formats: Pinyin alphabet Zhuyin symbols (Bopomofo) Hiragana Katakana Hangul ■ Tone mark display Tone marks can be set to "on / off". ■ Character form conversion function Conversion is possible to the following character types: Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese Shinjitai ■ Word highlighting Background color is added to converted words for visual clarity. ■ Dictionary function Click dictionary: Clicking a word displays its translation in the specified language as a pop-up. ■ Example of customization You can freely combine options such as: "Japanese kun-yomi + Zhuyin (Taiwan) + Simplified Chinese + Handwritten-style font"

About

Grapheme

Features
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Grapheme is a pocket museum of the characters the world writes with, as Unicode records them. The entire code space is laid out in one grid, grouped by block and ready to wander. A COLLECTION FULL OF SURPRISES • The complete Unicode 16 code space, organized by block • Wander from Egyptian hieroglyphs to alchemical symbols, Byzantine musical notation, mahjong tiles, and emoji • Jump to any block instantly with the block picker, and pin the ones you visit most • Even characters your device has no font for get a meaningful placeholder glyph, so nothing shows up as an empty box CHARACTER DETAILS AT A TAP Tap any cell to see everything about that character: • Official Unicode name and block • Code point in U+ notation • Byte encodings: UTF-8, UTF-16 (BE and LE), UTF-32 (BE and LE) • HTML entity FAST SEARCH • Find characters by name: try “snowman”, “dragon”, or “pile of poo” • Look up a code point directly by its hex value • Paste in any text to see the code points it breaks down into, including the ZWJ sequences inside an emoji FAVORITES • Mark characters you use often and come back to them in one tap WORKS COMPLETELY OFFLINE The full Unicode 16 character database ships inside the app. Browse, search, and inspect encodings anywhere, with no network connection required. MADE FOR DEVELOPERS, DESIGNERS, AND THE CURIOUS Debugging a text-encoding issue? Hunting for the perfect arrow, box-drawing character, or mathematical symbol? Exploring ancient scripts and the far reaches of the astral planes? Grapheme puts the entire Unicode standard at your fingertips.

Screenshots

Wakana4 screens
Grapheme4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Wakana at none against Grapheme's shown. On price, in-app purchases, device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference · 5 level
Wakana versus Grapheme: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterWakanaGrapheme
PriceFreeFree
Update frequency—Every 3 days
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, MaciPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.2
Further details — not scored
Size79 MB64 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDaichi KatoHsingchien Cheng

In-app purchases

None

Wakana

No in-app purchases

None

Grapheme

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Wakana free?
Wakana is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Grapheme free?
Grapheme is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Wakana or Grapheme have ads?
Grapheme shows ads; Wakana does not.

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