Brand vs brand · prices dated · no fluency promises
Two apps enter. Your money picks one.
Streakbreak referees the brand-name language apps — Duolingo, Babbel, Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur — one matchup at a time. Dated prices from both storefronts, coverage checked against the vendors' own lists, and the free option named out loud whenever it's the honest winner.
100 points, published so you can argue with them. What an app teaches counts for more than what it charges — but the bill is a quarter of the fight.
Tonight’s undercard
Every matchup →Which Language Apps Actually Teach Japanese? A Catalogue Check
Babbel doesn't. Several big names do. Every claim below was read off the vendors' own listings, dated — plus which kind of learner each catalogue suits.
Ring the bell →09Aug 13, 2026Duolingo Alternatives, Sorted by Your Actual Complaint
Leaving the owl? The right replacement depends on why. Five common breakup reasons, each matched to the named app that fixes it — with dated prices.
Ring the bell →08Aug 8, 2026Rosetta Stone Lifetime: The Plan That Only Sometimes Exists
Rosetta Stone's forever plan is real — and absent from its own checkout most days. How the promotional waves work and how to price one when it surfaces.
Ring the bell →07Aug 3, 2026Babbel Lifetime Subscription: The $299.99 Math
One payment, all 14 languages, forever. When the lifetime plan beats Babbel's own annual — and the two honest reasons it might not.
Ring the bell →06Jul 29, 2026Is Babbel Free? The Trial Terms, Decoded
Sort of, briefly: what Babbel gives away, what its trials convert into, and the refund clause that only applies if you bought in the right place.
Ring the bell →Why a whole site of head-to-heads
Because 'best language app' is the wrong question, and we'd rather answer the right one. Nobody torn between Babbel and Duolingo needs a twelve-app listicle; they need someone to put exactly those two in a ring, weigh the same five things for each, and say which corner wins for which learner. That's the whole format here: named brands, one decision per page, and a verdict you can disagree with because the working is shown.
The scorecard, published
Every matchup is scored out of 100 points, split five ways: Teaching depth carries 30 — whether an app explains and builds, or just drills. Year-one price carries 25, always the real billed amount with its read date and storefront, never the 'per month' marketing arithmetic. Speaking practice carries 20, because producing the language is where apps most often shortchange you. Language coverage carries 15 — an app that doesn't teach your language scores zero for you, whatever else it does. Staying power carries the last 10: the best app is the one still installed in March.
The weights are published so you can re-referee with your own. A casual learner should probably double the price weight; someone bound for Tokyo should treat coverage as a knockout rule, not 15 points.
The honesty rules we referee by
- Every price carries a date and a storefront. These apps reprice constantly and the web checkout and App Store genuinely differ — an undated price is a rumour.
- Sales are treated as the weather. Most of these vendors discount most of the year, so we quote list and note the pattern instead of shouting '60% off'.
- The free option gets named whenever it's the right call — usually Duolingo, which runs no affiliate program and pays us nothing.
- No fluency promises. No app makes you fluent by itself and we won't pretend otherwise; apps build the habit and the base, humans build the conversation.
- No coupon pages, ever. Third-party codes are stale or unauthorized more often than not; the vendor's checkout carries the real price.
Start with the main event
Most readers arrive with the same three names, so start where they collide: Duolingo vs Babbel vs Rosetta Stone is the full three-way with the scorecard applied, and what Babbel actually costs pins down the bill the marketing arithmetic blurs. From there the undercard covers the pair-offs — Rosetta Stone vs Babbel, Pimsleur vs Babbel — and the questions people actually type, like is Babbel free and which apps even teach Japanese.