Comparison

MessagEase Keyboard vs Personal Keyboard Lite

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

Head to head
About

MessagEase Keyboard

An innovative, non-QWERTY keyboard designed for touchscreens based on scientific research. It features large keys with optimized letter placement for faster, more accurate typing. Learning games and customization options are included.

Highlights
  • Non-QWERTY keyboard layout
  • Optimized letter assignment
  • Tap and drag input
  • Learning games included
  • Customizable keyboard size, shape, and color
  • Supports multiple languages
Features
Read full description

MessagEase is an alternative, non-QWERTY keyboard for your iPhone and iPad. Created based on years of scientific research in user interface, MessagEase is designed and optimized for use on a touchscreen device. MessagEase is a patented, innovative design different from the antiquated QWERTY keyboard. If you believe that every keyboard must be QWERTY-like, then MessagEase is not what you are looking for. But if you are open to new ideas and up for experiencing a completely new way of writing you will be pleasantly surprised at how well, how precisely, and how fast you can enter text with MessagEase. Our current champion’s speed is 87 WPM— that's 87 Words Per Minute! Most people don't type nearly that fast with ten fingers! MessagEase essentially has 9 large keys with an optimized letter assignment to maximize your speed, increase your accuracy, and ease your writing. Since MessagEase is very different, you must spend a few minutes to get used to it. We have included several learning games to help you learn the new, innovative pattern of MessagEase—and you’ll save hours by texting and writing faster. With MessagEase you enter letters and characters with either a tap, or a drag (slide): taps for the most common characters and directional drag for the rest. Please watch the video, or see the section Essential MessagEase, to learn more. MessagEase's design is based on sound user-interface principles such as the Fitts' Law; it uses letter frequency and di-gram data to optimally place the characters on a keyboard with fewer, larger keys. That’s why the letter positions are non-QWERTY! If you are interested to learn more about the scientific details behind the design of MessagEase, please see this paper: http://www.exideas.com/ME/ICMI2003Paper.pdf We have lots of videos to help you become familiar with MessagEase quickly. Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3D3f3GWTSg There are many more on our YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/messagease Please also note that you can change the keyboard size by dragging up or down on the Globe Button. You can also reshape and recolor the keyboard in various ways. See Settings for details. MessagEase for iPhone & iPad has specific keyboards designed for the following languages: (These keyboards can also be used to enter text for many other languages) - English - Arabic - Azerbaiani - Danish - Dutch - Esperanto - Finnish - French - German - Greek - Hebrew - Hungarian - Japanese Hiragana - Japanese Katakana - Italian - Norwegian - Polish - Portuguese - Russian - Spanish - Swedish - Turkish - Urdu If you like MessagEase, please tell others about it, and please make sure to rate and comment about it on App Store. Please email us if you encounter any issue. Thank you!

About

Personal Keyboard Lite

Design and build your own custom keyboard layouts with a visual editor. Mix languages, symbols, and emojis, and arrange keys to your preference. Share your unique keyboard designs with others.

Highlights
  • Visual keyboard editor
  • Customizable key layout
  • Mix languages and symbols
  • Adjustable keyboard height
  • Customizable key size and appearance
  • Shareable keyboard templates
Features
Read full description

With Personal Keyboard you can create your own keyboard layout and personalize it. Imagine the best keyboard for you and do it yourself. Features: - vibrate on tap - custom keyboard height - Visual Editor - mix any language letters, sy​mbols, smiles in one keyboard - arrange the keys as you want - custom size for any key - keyboard can have any count of keys - keyboard can have any count of pages with keys - setup for every key (font size, background and font color etc.) - custom shift function, for every button you can setup shift analog - create keys with custom label - templates have a text format and you can easily share it - share your templates with others

Screenshots

MessagEase Keyboard4 screens
Personal Keyboard Lite3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: MessagEase Keyboard at 4.0 against Personal Keyboard Lite's 3.4. MessagEase Keyboard also leads on review sentiment (70% vs 50%) and ratings volume (97 vs 5). Personal Keyboard Lite's advantage is monetization model (free vs paid) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

MessagEase Keyboard holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MessagEase Keyboard has 97 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 70% of MessagEase Keyboard's written reviews are positive against 50% of Personal Keyboard Lite's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MessagEase Keyboard ships an update monthly, Personal Keyboard Lite every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
MessagEase Keyboard versus Personal Keyboard Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMessagEase KeyboardPersonal Keyboard Lite
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.0 (97 ratings) — better3.4 (5 ratings)
Positive reviews70.1% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings97 — better5
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB17 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperExideasKirill Filippov

Customer experience

MessagEase Keyboard

All ratings97 ratings
Positive71.1%
Neutral12.4%
Negative16.5%
Written reviews127 reviews
Positive70.1%
Neutral11.0%
Negative18.9%

Personal Keyboard Lite

All ratings5 ratings
Positive60.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative20.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

Bugs and requests

MessagEase Keyboard

Reported bugs

12 issues
  • Keyboard expands to full screen and cannot be resized
  • Keyboard fails to appear in Apple apps (Notes, Safari, Skype)
  • Swipe gestures registered as clicks
  • Keyboard crashes on iOS 26.x and iOS 16.x versions
  • Settings reset or don't persist between sessions
Show 7 more
  • Double keyboard instances displaying simultaneously
  • Letters not visible after iOS updates
  • Keyboard stuck in maximized state after reinstall
  • Capitalization mode gets stuck (all caps)
  • Keyboard display corrupted or garbled on iPad
  • Unresponsive input after certain iOS updates
  • Keyboard overlays text field, obstructing view

Requested features

11 requests
  • Word prediction and autocorrect
  • Resizable keyboard with size locking option
  • Copy/paste/select-all gesture shortcuts (like Android version)
  • Voice dictation support
  • Better cursor navigation controls
Show 6 more
  • Customizable keyboard layout (JSON-based)
  • Emoji integration into keyboard
  • Text replacement library support
  • Macro functionality
  • Trackpad mode for cursor control
  • Open-source the application for community maintenance

Personal Keyboard Lite

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

MessagEase Keyboard

No in-app purchases

None

Personal Keyboard Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is MessagEase Keyboard free?
MessagEase Keyboard is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Personal Keyboard Lite free?
Personal Keyboard Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, MessagEase Keyboard or Personal Keyboard Lite?
MessagEase Keyboard is rated higher. MessagEase Keyboard averages 4.0 out of 5 from 97 ratings, while Personal Keyboard Lite averages 3.4 from 5 ratings.
Do MessagEase Keyboard or Personal Keyboard Lite have ads?
Neither MessagEase Keyboard nor Personal Keyboard Lite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MessagEase Keyboard or Personal Keyboard Lite?
MessagEase Keyboard ships an update monthly, and Personal Keyboard Lite every 2 months. Most recently, MessagEase Keyboard was updated on October 24, 2026 and Personal Keyboard Lite on October 2, 2026.

Other comparisons