Comparison

Modu vs Soya

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

Head to head
About

Modu

Features
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Read Chinese stories, understand unfamiliar words, and build vocabulary from what you read. Modu combines graded reading, a tap-to-lookup dictionary, and spaced-repetition review in one app. Choose a graded story or import your own EPUB and TXT books. Tap unfamiliar words for pinyin and meanings, save vocabulary in context, and review it later. READ WHAT INTERESTS YOU โ€ข Explore a library of graded retellings of public-domain stories. โ€ข Import EPUB and TXT books to read with built-in learning tools. โ€ข Generate AI stories based on your selected topic and level, with vocabulary you are due to review. โ€ข Follow RSS feeds. Available article text depends on the source; some feeds provide summaries only. UNDERSTAND AS YOU READ โ€ข Tap words for pinyin, meanings, and measure words. โ€ข Use AI explanations to explore a word in the context of a sentence. โ€ข Translate sentences and paragraphs into English on your device, or read with a bilingual chapter view. โ€ข Listen to text with read-aloud tools. REMEMBER WORDS IN CONTEXT โ€ข Save vocabulary from your reading and review it with spaced-repetition flashcards. โ€ข Mark words as known to focus highlighting on unfamiliar vocabulary. โ€ข Track your reading and vocabulary progress, and export your vocabulary. OFFLINE READING AND YOUR ACCOUNT Read and save books on your device as a guest, without creating an account. Books already on your device and core reading tools work offline. On-device translation requires an initial language-model download. AI features and natural online voices require an internet connection. Sign in to back up your vocabulary. Modu Plus also syncs reading progress and other learning data across devices. Imported book files remain on your device; import the same books on another device to continue reading there. FREE + MODU PLUS Free features include reading, dictionary lookup, on-device translation, bilingual reading, vocabulary review, book imports, RSS, the story library, and basic read-aloud. Limited AI explanations and story generation are included. Modu Plus adds higher AI usage allowances, natural multi-voice read-aloud, and additional learning-data sync. AI and natural-voice usage limits apply. See the in-app purchase screen for available plans and current allowances. Start with a story, and build your Chinese one reading session at a time. Terms of Use (EULA): https://modu-ai-proxy.zhouxuehan101.workers.dev/terms Privacy Policy: https://modu-ai-proxy.zhouxuehan101.workers.dev/privacy

About

Soya

Features
Read full description

Soya turns the things you already want to read into reading practice at exactly your level. Paste a link, share an article from Safari, or name a book โ€” Soya rewrites it in Chinese, Japanese or Korean pitched at the level you choose, and hands it back as something you can actually read. AT YOUR LEVEL, NOT SOMEONE ELSE'S Pick HSK 1โ€“6, JLPT N5โ€“N1 or TOPIK 1โ€“6. The same article at HSK 2 and HSK 5 is genuinely two different texts, not the same text with a glossary bolted on. Change your mind halfway and re-translate it at another level. FOUR LANGUAGES, INCLUDING BOTH CHINESE SCRIPTS Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Traditional is a first-class choice, not a conversion pass over Simplified. TAP ANY WORD Every word carries its reading โ€” pinyin, hiragana or the pronounced hangul โ€” and a tap gives you the definition, the word in that exact sentence, and examples. Tap "Break it down" and the sentence is walked through part by part. PRACTICE THAT COSTS NOTHING Five games built from the words you have actually looked up: fill the gap, pair match, sentence order, listening and a mixed session. They never call a model, so they work on a plane, on the underground, and on no signal at all. A bundled vocabulary catalogue means there is something to practise from the first minute. READ ALOUD Any sentence, any article, at your pace. NEWS, ALREADY TRANSLATED A daily corpus of short news stories, translated ahead of time, so browsing them costs nothing and opening one is instant. YOUR READING STAYS YOURS Your library, your words, your practice history and your reading positions live on your phone. There is no account to make. Sign in only if you want your library on a second device โ€” it is off by default and always optional. FREE, OR YOUR OWN KEY Soya works out of the box with a monthly free allowance and no account. If you would rather use your own model provider โ€” Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint โ€” add your key in Settings and it goes straight from your phone to them. Your key stays in the keychain and is never uploaded.

Screenshots

Modu4 screens
Soya4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: Modu at 3 against Soya's 1. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

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

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Modu ships an update weekly, Soya every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
Modu versus Soya: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterModuSoya
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.5 โ€” better16.4
Further details โ€” not scored
Size148 MB84 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer้›ชๅฏ’ ๅ‘จJames Gwee

In-app purchases

None

Modu

No in-app purchases

None

Soya

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Modu free?
Modu is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Soya free?
Soya is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Modu or Soya have ads?
Neither Modu nor Soya shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Modu or Soya?
Modu ships an update weekly, and Soya every 6 days. Most recently, Modu was updated on October 15, 2026 and Soya on October 1, 2026.

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