Looking for an alternative to Duolingo or Anki? Every language app makes a trade-off. Below is the main weakness of each popular or often-recommended option for an adult who wants to understand a new language, how Flua handles it, and when the other app is the better choice.
Flua is a beginner course taught in sentence cards, built to be your main daily study for the first stage of a language (the words and patterns people say most), whatever you need the language for. The French deck is 1,058 cards teaching 730 words in the order people say them most, and the forms it teaches make up 71% of all words spoken in French film and TV, counted from subtitles. The forms in its first 100 cards already make up 49% of the words spoken in French film and TV, and those in its first 300, 60%. Grammar is explained on cards of its own, each placed before the first sentence that uses its pattern. Every card is free while the beta runs; after it, the first 150 cards of every language stay free, and one language is $89.99 once. Plans for a move, an exam, a job or a trip →
Flua's own trade-off: it's built for the first stage, and for understanding first. Flua’s working estimate, from its founder’s own tracked study rather than a test, is about 14 hours to A1, which Flua sets at 700 words; at the same pace per card, the French deck is about 16 hours of study, roughly five weeks at 30 minutes a day. Your own pace shows after your first session. Speaking cards in the iPhone and Android apps have you say sentences you already understand; conversation with people is the part to add, and Flua's plans for a move or a job add a tutor or conversation partner two or three times a week from about week three. There are no games, there are seven languages (French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean), and the material is beginner level only for now: 1,008 to 1,058 cards per language, teaching 551 to 959 distinct words, 5 of 7 at Flua's A1 target of 700 or more (French 730, Spanish 878, German 591, Italian 551, Japanese 904, Chinese 959, Korean 903). Studied before? The placement test in Settings starts you at your level, and if you already follow everyday speech, around B1, the current decks are below your level.
Written by Sora Kalden, who builds Flua. We've tried to describe each app the way its own fans would recognize. Independent reviews of Flua are still few, so check the cards yourself: the first 30 of every deck are public, in order, and every deck's measurements are on its transparency page.
Main weakness: hours. Its own 2024 research report puts the end of its A2 content at about 200 hours of study, and much of its design (streaks, XP and weekly leagues) is aimed at bringing you back every day.
What Flua does instead: no games; every card teaches exactly one new word or pattern, in order of how often people say it.
Pick Duolingo when: you need fun to keep going, want a language Flua doesn't teach, or want speaking exercises from the start. Full Flua vs Duolingo comparison →
Main weakness: it's an engine, not a course. It comes with no course content: you "create a new deck" or download one of the shared decks other users make, so the quality of what you study depends on the deck you find.
What Flua does instead: one checked deck per language, the same standard in every language, nothing to set up, on the same kind of memory scheduling.
Pick Anki when: you study other subjects, already have a deck you trust, or need it free (it's free on computers and Android). Full Flua vs Anki comparison →
Main weakness: its lessons are built around "practical and useful skills that you can apply right away", real-life situations and dialogues, so the words you learn follow each lesson's situation rather than how often they're used overall.
What Flua does instead: one new word or pattern per card, ordered by everyday frequency, with each word brought back by your memory's schedule.
Pick Babbel when: you'd rather learn from lessons built around everyday situations and dialogues, with grammar explained along the way.
Main weakness: it's a complete course, "structured to build complete language skills" in its words, so each lesson's time is shared between speaking, writing, grammar and vocabulary.
What Flua does instead: spends the time on understanding: one new word or pattern per card, in order of how often people say it.
Pick Busuu when: you want "feedback from fluent speakers in the Busuu Community" on your speaking and writing, or a course that goes past the beginner level (for some languages, its site lists levels up to C1).
Main weakness: its 30-minute lessons are mostly audio, built around listening and saying phrases aloud, so most of each lesson is speaking practice.
What Flua does instead: builds vocabulary and understanding quickly, with every sentence heard at natural speed and shown in writing.
Pick Pimsleur when: you'd rather spend most of your study time listening and saying phrases aloud, hands-free, say on a commute (it has a hands-free driving mode).
Main weakness: it teaches through real content you choose, "podcasts, reading books, watching TV shows", where you highlight the words you don't understand. For a beginner, much of real content is new words, so the start is slow.
What Flua does instead: gets you to the point where real content becomes readable, one known-words-plus-one-new sentence at a time.
Pick LingQ when: you already know a couple of thousand words and want to read and listen to real material.
Main weakness: its "Dynamic Immersion" method teaches largely through pictures and real-life scenes, and an abstract word is hard to show in a picture.
What Flua does instead: you guess the one new word from context, then see its meaning right away.
Pick Rosetta Stone when: you enjoy full immersion and picture-based learning.
Main weakness: its lessons follow a "grammar-based curriculum" written by teachers, so they're organized around grammar points rather than around how often each word is used.
What Flua does instead: words in order of how often people say them, each in a sentence where every other word is one you already know, with grammar explained on cards of its own, each placed before the first sentence that uses its pattern.
Pick LingoDeer when: you want grammar taught as lessons of their own, with explanations, in a structured course that covers all seven of Flua's languages and more.
Main weakness: you "choose your own path", from curated lesson packs or its thousands of staff and user-made lessons, so the order you meet words in depends on the packs you pick.
What Flua does instead: one deck, ordered by how often people say each word, and a reading shown under every Japanese sentence so you can start before you can read.
Pick Renshuu when: you want to learn to read Japanese (its packs start with hiragana and katakana, and it has kanji study), which Flua doesn't teach as lessons. It's free to start.
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