Comparison

Cognito vs NerLan

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

Head to head
About

Cognito

Features
Read full description

Cognito turns any topic into a personalized, bite-sized learning plan. Learn through quick facts, multiple-choice questions, quizzes, and written-answer exercises designed to strengthen active recall and long-term understanding. With Cognito, you can: • Create learning plans for almost any topic • Learn key facts before testing your knowledge • Complete short, focused lessons • Receive scheduled learning reminders • Track accuracy, completed lessons, and daily streaks • Identify your strongest topics and areas needing reinforcement • Discover a new topic-related fact through the home-screen widget • Review lesson sources for deeper learning Whether you are studying for school, developing a professional skill, or exploring something new, Cognito helps you learn consistently in manageable daily sessions.

About

NerLan

Features
Read full description

NerLan is a podcast player built for people learning a language by listening. Subscribe to any show by pasting an Apple Podcasts link or an RSS address, then play it with the controls a learner actually needs: variable speed from 0.5x to 2x, repeat one or repeat all, precise skip, and a lock screen and Control Center that move between episodes rather than nudging fifteen seconds at a time. Then study what you heard. TRANSCRIPTS THAT FOLLOW ALONG Generate a transcript of any episode and the sentence being spoken stays highlighted and centred as the audio plays. Tap a line to jump straight to it, or loop a single sentence until it sticks. TRANSLATION Render the transcript into your language, sentence by sentence, and read it alongside the original. Generated once and kept, so re-reading costs nothing. STUDY HANDOUTS Turn an episode into a review sheet - overview, grammar points, example sentences, and vocabulary - drawn from its own transcript. Examples stay in the language you are studying, glossed in the language you choose. SHADOWING PRACTICE Loop a sentence, record yourself reading it aloud, and play your version back against the original. LISTEN OFFLINE Download episodes for the commute, or let anything you stream to the end be kept automatically. Downloads are grouped by show and language, filterable, and available with no signal. WIDGETS Up Next, Latest Episode, My Shows, and a listening-streak widget for the Home and Lock Screen - all playable without opening the app. SIRI "Play [show] in NerLan", resume where you left off, change the speed, or ask how long you have listened this week. Give a show a nickname Siri can actually hear when its real title is in a script Siri does not speak. YOUR AI, YOUR CHOICE AI features are optional and run on credentials you provide - either an OpenAI API key billed to your own account, or your own OpenAI-compatible server, including one on your own machine. Your key is kept in the device keychain. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION No account, no sign-up, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party SDKs. There is no NerLan server, so there is nowhere for your listening to be sent. Optional iCloud sync writes to your own account so your library survives a reinstall; audio is never synced. NerLan plays podcasts from their own public feeds. All audio content belongs to its publishers.

Screenshots

Cognito4 screens
NerLan4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: NerLan at none against Cognito's shown. On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

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

Scorecard1 real difference Ā· 4 level
Cognito versus NerLan: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCognitoNerLan
PriceFreeFree
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.217.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size51 MB3 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperAdrian PonceMAO YUAN KAO

In-app purchases

None

Cognito

No in-app purchases

None

NerLan

No in-app purchases

Questions

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

Other comparisons