Kango vs Inkstone
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Kango
Practice speaking English through AI-powered roleplay conversations. Get instant feedback to improve fluency and confidence in various real-world scenarios, from interviews to daily chats. Achieve your language goals faster and more effectively.
- AI-powered speaking tutor
- Roleplay conversation practice
- Instant feedback on speaking
- Real-world scenario practice
- Boost communication skills
- Improve fluency and confidence
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Kango: Learn by reading native content in Chinese or Japanese Learn a language in real context. Kango is a reader app turns your favorite audiobooks, new articles, and videos into an engaging and effective study routine through our personalized recommendation engine. Why learners choose Kango: PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATION FOR YOUR LEVEL - Get daily content tailored to your current learning journey and skill level - Kango tracks the words you know, and your saved words, and recommends the most relevant content to grow your reading skill in incremental progress - Kango's recommendation engine finds and recommends content containing words you saved so you can review and see them again in a different context, at comfortable level - If you're browsing our library, every content is rated with a difficulty level for YOUR skill level so you can determine how comfortably you can read and how much you may have to look up STORIES YOU LOVE TO READ - Import your favorite books, PDF, ePUB, article link, copy and paste text - Take a photo of a book page, study notes, research papers or any text in your target language, and start reading on Kango - Share and import content directly from X, Chrome, or Safari - Browse our massive library of web novels, classics, videos, children's stories and graded readers - Listen to news, blogs, podcasts - Read aloud in the voices you choose with adjustable speed - Quiz yourself based on words you saved, or simulate a HSK or JLPT test based on graded words in the content you just read STUDY TOOLS YOU'LL LOVE - Tap to translate word dictionary with multiple example sentences and detailed breakdown - Save words you don't know, want to learn more about, or find useful - Side by side sentence translations in your native language that can be toggled off or on - Manually select individual characters for phrase lookups - Multiple font options and customizable reader interface - Pinyin, furigana support - Offline listening - download and listen anywhere - Karaoke mode and color-coded sentence breakdown - Text highlight - perfect for dyslexia and ADHD - Easily repeat the audio playback for each sentence and pause for shadowing practice - Track your known words, total read words, and saved words with flashcards and quizzes LEARN ABOUT HISTORY AND CULTURE WHILE LEARNING LANGUAGE - Our library of content makes it fun and rewarding by providing interesting content about Chinese and Japanese history and culture - Gain insights into how locals think by immersing in native content - All content is graded so there is always content suitable for your skill level PERFECT FOR - Serious and advanced language learners who want to level up in business Chinese and Japanese, and to be able to read and converse natively in professional topics spanning technology, finance and entertainment - Beginner learners with some foundational knowledge who want to improve quickly with immersive content - Language learners who want to level up and read a novel in its native language without its translated version - Book lovers who love to read - Audio and visual learners who want to learn with immersive input - Commuters who want to build a daily habit by listening to hands-free audio If you have any ideas or questions please email us at support@kangospeak.com. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage your subscription in Apple Account Settings. DOWNLOAD KANGO TODAY Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://kangospeak.com/privacy
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
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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: Kango at 100% against Inkstone's 50%. Kango also leads on rating (4.2 vs 4.0) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 4 days). Inkstone's advantage is monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and iOS requirement (16.4 vs 18.0). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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. Kango sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days 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.
Kango holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 13 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of Kango's written reviews are positive against 50% of Inkstone's.
Kango ships an update every 2 days, Inkstone every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Kango | Inkstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (5 ratings) — better | 4.0 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 13 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 4 days |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 241 MB | 177 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Kublet Inc. | Conder Shou |
Customer experience
Kango
Inkstone
In-app purchases
Kango
- Weekly Pro Subscription$4.997 Days
- Monthly Pro Subscription$7.991 Month
- Max Plan$7.997 Days
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Max Weekly$9.997 Days
- Monthly Max Subscription$14.991 Month
- Max Monthly$19.991 Month
- Max Quarterly$39.993 Months
- Max Quarterly$44.993 Months
- Yearly Pro$69.991 Year
- Yearly Pro Subscription$69.991 Year
Inkstone
- Inkstone Monthly$9.991 Month
- Inkstone Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year









