The best apps for learning Chinese, compared

By Carson 木林森 · August 2026

Ten tools, what each is actually for, and where each one stops. Prices checked August 2026. I use several of these and recommend them for what they are good at; the point of the table is which job each one does, not which is best in the abstract.

Every price above is the vendor's own published figure at the date checked. They move, and founding-member and promotional rates move fastest. Each name links to the full comparison.

The pattern behind the table

Sort these ten by what they refuse to do and a shape appears. The tools that scale to advanced Chinese, Anki, Pleco, Migaku, all refuse to have an opinion about what you should learn next. The tools that do have an opinion, HelloChinese, Super Chinese, Duolingo, all stop before the end. Almost nobody carries a curriculum past the intermediate wall, because writing HSK 5 and 6 content is expensive and most learners never get there to complain.

That gap is the reason this exists. GraphChinese holds all 829 topics from the four tones through HSK 6 grammar in one dependency graph, and a topic stays locked until every prerequisite underneath it is proven mastered. When something does not stick, the graph already knows what it rests on, which is the thing a lesson sequence structurally cannot know.

What you get in the one product

• The curriculum: 829 topics, HSK 0 through HSK 6, in dependency order, published in full so you can check it before you buy.
• Reading: 102 graded passages, every one narrated by a native voice with the text highlighting as it is read, each ending in a comprehension check. Free to read.
• Writing: characters drilled in stroke order and graded, not watched.
• Flashcards: an FSRS scheduler, 38 built-in decks, and it imports your existing Anki .apkg decks with audio and images intact.
• Speaking: the comment-and-question method from lesson one, plus a sparring dojo for multi-round exchanges.
• A dictionary: 124,727 entries, a page per word, free without an account.

Questions people ask

What is the best app for learning Chinese in 2026?

It depends on what is missing. For a complete path from zero to advanced, GraphChinese is the only one in this table that carries a gated curriculum all the way through HSK 6. For pure flashcard scheduling, Anki is free and excellent. For handwriting, Skritter. For a dictionary, Pleco. For reading volume on top of a course, Du Chinese or HSKStory.

Which Chinese apps actually cover HSK 5 and 6?

Very few. HelloChinese covers roughly HSK 1 to 4, Super Chinese HSK 1 to 5, and Duolingo's Chinese tree tops out around HSK 3 to 4. GraphChinese holds 197 topics at HSK 5 and 216 at HSK 6. Anki, Pleco and Migaku have no ceiling only because they have no curriculum.

Is a subscription or a one-time price better?

Chinese takes years, so the arithmetic is unkind to subscriptions. At $70 to $150 a year, three years of any of these costs more than $149 once, and most of them stop before HSK 5. GraphChinese offers both, and the lifetime option exists because a course you are still paying for in year four should have finished teaching you something by then.

Do I have to abandon the tools I already use?

No, and you should not. Pleco is a better dictionary on a phone than anything built into a course. Anki decks you have already built import here with their audio and images and get scheduled alongside the built-in ones. The question is which product decides what you learn next, and only one thing can hold that job.